Introducing the New Cornerstones Project: healing from ordination discrimination/rejection--please share

Greetings friends,

 

I would like to introduce you to a new initiative of the Center for Faith and Peacemaking, the New Cornerstones Project.  Our title refers to the Biblical passage, "the stone which the builders once rejected, has now become the cornerstone" (originally in Ps. 118, and repeated frequently in the New Testament).  New Cornerstones is an ecumenical effort to identify persons who have been denied ordination in their denominations due to age, gender, orientation, race, disability, experience of being abused/reporting abuse, or activism. 

 

While there are many people who are committed to their current denomination or have sufficient geographical restrictions that they are not able to consider leaving, other people are willing to try another faith community in order to continue discerning their call.  However, transferring affiliations can be a difficult and painful task, and resources to help are not always readily available. 

 

Our program includes the option of a residential 're-discernment' year, where participants may come to live in the GlobalServe Co-op here in Hyde Park, and be connected to spiritual directors, counselors, seminary admissions offices, and a network of other seminary students and alumni who have themselves had to make the difficult decision to change congregations, seminaries, or denominations in order to continue pursuing their call to ordained ministry.  Other resources are available to those who cannot physically re-locate for the residential year, including the safeseminaries.org website.  Additional resources are being developed and will be made available through the New Cornerstones website (currently under construction).  New Cornerstones also offers a testimony collection project, towards hope of future publication and research.

 

While discernment resources will be freely available via web, participants in the residential program will complete an application process including criminal background check to prevent seminarians or clergy who have been removed for abusive acts from returning to ministry.

 

Please help to spread the word wherever it would be helpful.  We will also be continually accepting inquiries from persons willing to serve as volunteers, interns, spiritual directors, pastoral caregivers, discernment partners, mentors, etc.

 

The following is our invitation to future program participants, and can be found on our blog, http://newcornerstones.blogspot.com.

 

Many thanks and peace,

 

Le Anne

 

Are You (still) Called to Ministry?

Are you called to ministry?

Even if others have already said no:

because of your race?
your gender?
your health or disability?
your status as an LGBTQ person?
your age?
your history as an abused child/partner?
your call to less than traditional ministries?

Did you ask too many questions?
Did you think outside the box?
Did you report abuse?

We've heard it all before.
We've heard it all too often.

If you have been rejected for ordained ministry with your church for any of the reasons above, yet still feel the call to ministry strongly, we want to hear from you.

Today's church needs strong, compassionate, visionary leaders to meet the needs of this hurting world. Even broken vessels can become whole, and even wounded leaders can become healers.

If you would like another chance to explore your call to ministry within a supportive discerning community, please contact us. We have resources to help you find a new seminary, candidacy committee, or denomination. We can help you start again, and connect you to spiritual direction and other services to prepare you for the way forward.

Join us. Become a cornerstone.