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The Love Your Neighbor Coalition has a new website
LYNC Press Release
WASHINGTON, DC – The Love Your Neighbor Coalition (LYNC), consisting of eleven “official” and “unofficial” caucus organizations of The United Methodist Church (UMC), announced today the launch of a new website (www.lyncoalition.org) which contains a joint statement, “A Vision for The United Methodist Church” as the denomination prepares for its quadrennial General Conference in 2016.
Among the many concerns the statement addresses are the interdependence of personal faith and social justice; the call for the full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer persons in the life and ministry of the denomination; the need to work for racial justice within the church and society; working to become a more global denomination that confesses and overcomes its own roles in colonialism; pursuing peace and ecological stewardship as a focus, rather than justifying war and the degradation of our planet; to giving more than lip service when it comes to being fully accessible in ministry and buildings with those who live daily and faithfully with disabilities; to supporting policies leading to comprehensive, age-appropriate, medically-accurate and culturally-competent sexuality and parenting education, universal access to contraception and compassionate abortion care; to respecting other peoples’ faith and their right to self-determination; to calling on our church to do more to address the disparities in access to wealth, adequate education, healthcare and meaningful employment, both nationally and internationally; and, the need for more compassionate reforms in national and international policies of migration and immigration.
“LYNC knows that this is a tall order for the UMC and society to get their heads around and their hands and feet moving for,” says Rev. Steve Clunn, Coalition Coordinator for LYNC. “However, just as we are all interconnected and interdependent in the complexity of our relationships with God, humanity and all of creation, LYNC recognizes, acknowledges and is committed to working on the ways that all of the these concerns and hopes for our church are connected, interdependent and intersectional… or as Audre Lorde, so eloquently stated, ‘There’s no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.’” “More importantly,” Clunn states, “we at LYNC believe this is what the preponderance of scripture and our calling ‘as disciples of Jesus Christ, for the transformation of the world’ asks of us!”
The Love Your Neighbor Coalition hopes that United Methodists from around the globe will sign-on to this statement (http://www.lyncoalition.org/vision-for-umc/) and commit themselves to work faithfully for a UMC that both embraces our call to personal faithfulness and the call to work in community for the betterment of all humanity!
The Love Your Neighbor Coalition was formed in the summer of 2011 and has grown to include representatives from 11 United Methodist-related partner organizations.
The Love Your Neighbor Coalition is made up of Affirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Concerns; Black Methodists for Church Renewal; Love Prevails; MARCHA: Metodistas Asociados Representando la Causa Hispano-Americanos; Methodist Federation for Social Action; National Federation of Asian American United Methodists; Native American International Caucus of United Methodists; Pacific Islanders Caucus of United Methodists; Reconciling Ministries Network; United Methodist Association of Ministers with Disabilities; and, Western Methodist Justice Movement.