Welcoming & Inclusive Churches in SC Alaska

This is a list of inclusive and welcoming churches in Alaska - faith communities that embrace all of God's children. Keep checking back as we expand the list.

• Anchor Park United Methodist Church, 2300 Oak Drive, on Lake Otis between Northern Lights and DeBarr
•  United Methodist Church of Chugiak, 16430 Old Glenn Highway, Chugiak. All are welcome. And when we say all, we mean ALL.
• First United Methodist Church, 725 Ninth Avenue (corner of 9th and G Street across from the Park Strip) 
•  SOLDOTNA United Methodist Church welcomes all. Soldotna UMC is located at 158 Binkley St. (turn right at the third light, at McDonalds.) Rev. Kay Shock is pastor.
• The Anchorage Friends Meeting (Quakers) meets at Anchorage Waldorf School, 3250 Baxter Road. Our unprogrammed silent worship is from 10:30-11:30 on Sundays. We welcome everyone!
• Immanuel Presbyterian Church Anchorage Alaska...... 2311 Pembroke Street (24th and Boniface)...... www.facebook.com/ipcanchorage :-)
•  ‎Joy Lutheran Church, Eagle River. 1111 E. Eagle River Lp Rd. 694-9601. ALL are welcome. Sundays: 9:30 worship with SS after.
• Saint John United Methodist Church, proudly proclaiming a welcome to ALL people.
• Church of the Covenant, 415 S. Bailey St. Palmer AK. Small Progressive and Awesome! We Delight in Diversity and welcome believers, non-believers, the unsure, and the questioning, the intellectual and the simple. There's room for everyone at God's Table.
• St. Mary's Episcopal Church It's great to see so many of our sister Churches getting the word out that there are welcoming, affirming, and healing places to be!!! We are St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Anchorage - at the corner of Lake Otis and Tudor Rds. We have a vibrant and inter generational faith community with members drawn from all faith backgrounds. Come as you are... and yes, ALL are welcome here...www.Godsview.org or find us on Facebook.

Post Election Thoughts

By Rev. Michael Burke

As I got ready to run out the door this morning for our usual St. Mary's 7AM Wed. morning worship service, I jotted down and posted a few of my thoughts, promising I would have more to say later in the day.

Well, I'm back at a computer. The day has been filled with meeting with so many of you, who have worked so hard on OneAnchorage. I am filled with gratitude and hope for the courage and faith you continue to show, and the unshakable solidarity you have all expressed with the LGBT family in Anchorage.

I don't have anything more to share this evening, because I have just read Martin's piece he posted, entitled "Some Election Thoughts."

He and I seem to be on some sort of shared wavelength (or iPod playlist) today." All I can say to his reflection, which I have re-posted below, is an enthusiastic "Amen!". More tomorrow, as things develop… Michael Burke


Early morning thoughts from Rev. Michael Burke of Christians For Equality:

More to say later in the day. Right now, I'm off to pray, then to visit someone in the hospital.

But I wanted you to know that, as strange as it might seem, I awoke this morning with a song on my heart. You might even call it a lament for us all, but I think of it as more than that - as a song of freedom... a redemption song. And as Marley said, "All I ever have, is redemption songs..."

It was written for and dedicated to Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, in the form of a supporting, uplifting anthem, praising her for her activism and fighting for freedom in Burma. Until last week, Aung San Suu Kyi was held under house arrest since 1989 for the crime of speaking to the nest in the human heart and spirit.

In a speech made at Atlanta on August 16, 1967 Martin Luther King said, 'Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.' His namesake, Martin Luther said: "Everything that is done in the world is done by hope."

This morning my heart is broken and heavy. This morning my heart sings its lament. Yet, this morning my heart is stronger than ever. This morning it choose to love, arguably the most subversive and dangerous act in the moral universe. This morning it chooses to hope. This morning it rises to sing, for everyone of us:

"And love, it's not the easy thing
The only baggage, that you can bring
Not the easy thing, the only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind

And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
Before the second you turn back
Oh no, be strong

Oh, oh, walk on, walk on
What you got, they can't steal it
No, they can't even feel it
Walk on, walk on
Stay safe tonight

You're packin' a suitcase for a place, none of us has been
A place that has to be believed, to be seen
You could have flown away, a singin' bird in an open cage
Who will only fly, only fly for freedom

Oh, oh, walk on, walk on
What you got, you can't deny it
Can't sell it or buy it
Walk on, walk on
You stay safe tonight

And I know it aches
How your heart, it breaks
You can only take so much

Walk on, walk on

Home, hard to know what it is
If you never had one
Home, I can't say where it is
But I know I'm going
Home, that's where the heart is

And I know it aches
And your heart, it breaks
You can only take so much

Walk on

Leave it behind
You've got to leave it behind

All that you fashion, all that you make
All that you build, all that you break
All that you measure, all that you feel
All this you can leave behind

All that you reason, all that you care
(It's only time and I'll never fill up all my mind)
All that you sense, all that you scheme
All you dress up, and all that you see
All you create, all that you wreck
All that you hate."

This morning the sun rose as usual on Burma, but it rose on a new day, many years in the making. Today Aung San Suu Kyi is free.
Today that same sun rose on Anchorage, on some tired bodies and wounded souls. Yet, the day is coming when it will yet rise on a better world for everyone who has to struggle for their dignity and integrity, and to be respected for who they are.

This is not the end, my friends. From here, we walk on. But know this --- from here, we walk on TOGETHER.


One Love,

Rev. Michael Burke
Christians For Equality

From U2, "Walk On," on "All That You Can't Leave Behind." c. 2000

Some Post Elections Thoughts

By Rev. Martin Eldred

Like Michael, I have had music running through my head all night and into the morning. I also thought of U2, although the song the came to mind for me as I drove home last night was, “I Still Haven’t Found What I am Looking For.” 
The last part of the song goes has these lyrics:

I believe in the Kingdom Come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
But yes I'm still running

You broke the bonds
And you loosed the chains
Carried the cross
Of my shame
Oh my shame
You know I believe it

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

In the middle of Holy Week, these words seem appropriate to me right now. As one of my colleagues posted today, I too am feeling the darkness of Good Friday today. I am also trying to remind myself that these struggles are hard. (Otherwise, they wouldn't be, "struggles", I guess) Working for justice is not easy. I know that, but it is hard to bear sometimes. I am so thankful to the clergy and lay people who have joined together to stand together. The Body of Christ is at work in our community.

This morning I was also reminded that 44 years ago, The Rev. Dr. King was taken from us. Before I knew that, in one of those serendipitous moments of the Spirit, I woke this morning after a fitful attempt at sleep, with an old civil rights song, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” That song was a sort of unofficial, “official song” of the Movement, and was, in many ways, as influential as “We Shall Overcome.” What came to mind was especially the beginning of the second verse, “Stony the road we trod….” I like the words of verses two and three:

Stony the road we trod, bitter the chast’ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet,
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way
that with tears has been watered.
We have come, treading our path
thro’ the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from a gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam
of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by thy might, led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places
Our God where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world
we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.

I am clinging to the hope in the journey. It will be a struggle. There will be stones, tears, and crosses. There will be love as well. The love we share for one another. The love we have for our GLBTQ neighbors, friends, colleagues, and family. The love Jesus share with and through us – for ALL people.

We are not done. As people of faith, we live between Good Friday and Easter, in the, ”already/not yet” of faith. We work. We struggle. We press on. I am proud to be associated with our group and once the heaviness in my heart ebbs a bit, I am ready to begin again in the work of the gospel.

I close with a quote from Pastor King:
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate:
only love can do that.

From: Testament of Hope

We shall overcome.
Martin

One Anchorage Report

By Michael Burke

In this Holy Week, there is much suffering in our community. 

All last week my phone rang off the hook with people calling from other congregations feeling a tremendous amount of pain because of the anti-prop 5 messages they heard from their church's pulpits these past two weekends. I heard from young parents that they never again wanted their children exposed to the kind of messages they heard from the pulpit this past week. I heard stories of elders who had been in their churches for 30 or more years, feeling that they just couldn't go back again. One elder told me, "I've listened to thirty years of sermons from my pastor. But Sunday was the last time I will ever sit and listen to him refer to my family members and children as 'disordered' or 'deviants.'

Christians For Equality has adopted a three-fold approach to these calls we are receiving:

1) We commit to listen deeply to the painful experiences people are expressing, and assure them of God's love for them and their family members. Whenever possible, we will encourage callers to hold fast to their faith, their hope, and the transforming and redeeming love of Christ in their lives.

2.) We will encourage people, as much as possible, to go back and talk with their pastors and church leaders, to first share with them the pain they are experiencing. In many cases, people have years of history and a web of church family relationships that have been strained, and in some cases broken irrevocably.

3.) If there is no way they can continue in their own faith communities in a spiritually healthy way, being honest about themselves and the lives of their loved ones, then we commit to walk with them as they search for a supportive faith community that welcomes all in Jesus' name, and will hold them tenderly in Love and prayer.


But people have also e-mailed to share encouraging thoughts and theological reflections. Here's one such e-mail that is representative of the many I have received:

"It's both ironic and humbling that the Prop 5 vote is coming during Easter Week. I'm sure this isn't lost on you, but it's been a small revelation for me, unschooled as I am, in churchy things. : )

Anyone reading the scriptures with an open heart must recognize Christ's message to the religious institutions of his day. Jesus worked so hard to tear down the social barriers of his time which were created and upheld by certain powerful religious factions. The Sanhedrin and the Chief Priests primary interest was protecting their institutionalized bureaucracies.

History is intent on repeating itself. So many "Christian" religious institutions are disregarding Jesus' core teachings and reacting to protect perceived, earthly rights, rather than embrace scripture's healing message. In their blindness, they try to protect their institutional dogmas created by men (and I do mean men, for the most part), that aren't of God.

I don't know what will happen to these religious institutions, but long-term I believe they'll end up having painted themselves into such a corner they'll be unsustainable. Whenever that happens, it could mean the collapse of all Christianity or a time of great growth and renewal for the church.

Whatever happens with Prop 5, I believe that Anchorage will be better place for having had the conversation" - Deb S.