Greetings, Cal-Pac family:

I am so pleased with the great responses we have had to this newsletter and to Dori Fotsch and all the hard work she is doing as the Justice & Compassion Essential Ministry Team (JCEMT) Chair.

It has been a busy time for many of our JCEMT’s over the last few months. The two new strategy groups Eco-Justice and Legislative Advocacy are both hard at work, meeting on a monthly basis and resourcing folx across our conference in both areas.

As Pride month comes to a close I am excited to share that we passed a proposal at Annual Conference which will go to General Conference to create a “Commission on the Status and Role of LGBTQIA+ people.” We will be working on creating a commission for our conference over the summer months so if you are interested in being a part of this please contact me using the contact details found in this newsletter. There have been more than 500 pieces of anti-LGBT legislation across the country this year and over 70 of them have been signed into law. The levels of bullying and harassment are increasing and seen in our schools at an alarming rate.

We continue to work hard on developing partnerships with non-profits and other organizations not part of the UMC but doing similar work and have had great success with both LA Voice and CLUE in the work they are doing.

Our grant applications for this year have just all been completed and we will be issuing checks by the end of July. There is some great work going on by so many churches in our conference!

Have a great summer!

Blessings,

Rev. Dr. Denyse Barnes
Director of Justice & Compassion EMT