Rio Texas Methodist Federation for Social Action

We Need Your Books!

Our MFSA Chapter will again sponsor a book fair at Annual Conference in early June.  As a fund-raising event, we offer new and gently used religious or spiritual books for donations at our booth in the exhibit hall.  If you need to clean out your bookcase of lightly-used religious books, please bring them to the next meeting, or call Janice or Rowland Curry at 836-7004 so we can arrange to pick them up.

Shower of Stoles

MFSA will team with Reconciling Ministries Network to sponsor an exhibit of the Shower of Stoles at Annual Conference.  The Shower of Stoles is a collection of over a thousand liturgical stoles and other sacred items representing the lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people of faith.  (We will only have a portion of these stoles, not the entire thousand!)  These religious leaders have served in thirty-two denominations and faith traditions, in six countries, and on three continents. Each stole contains the story of a GLBT person who is active in the life and leadership of their faith community in some way: minister, elder, deacon, teacher, missionary, musician, administrator, or active layperson.

This extraordinary collection celebrates the gifts of GLBT persons who serve God in countless ways, while also lifting up those who have been excluded from service because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The collection bears witness to the huge loss of leadership that the church has brought upon itself because of its own unjust policies.

We Need Your Help

In order to sponsor a “booth” in the Annual Conference exhibit area, we must pay for the space ($320) and have enough volunteers to staff the MFSA exhibit and book fair.  In addition, we are in need of two large garment hanging stands on which to place the stoles display.  Let us know if you are able to help financially, can travel to Corpus to help with the exhibit, or if you have a garment stand.