January 13, 2018 Keynote Presentation: The Urgency of Now: Faith Communities as Sanctuaries

THE GILLESPIE-SENTER MEMORIAL COMMUNITY BREAKFAST

January 2018 Keynote Presentation:

The Urgency of Now:
Faith Communities as Sanctuaries

 with 

Reverend Darcy Roake

Elizabeth “Liz” Trotter

Greater New Orleans Interfaith Sanctuary Coalition members

SATURDAY JANUARY 13, 2018

11:00am to 12:00pm

First Unitarian Universalist Church

5212 South Claiborne Av., New Orleans

(Enter via CELSJR or the Soniat Street entrances; inside large classroom)

Coffee will be served beginning at 10:30am

 Attender brief introductions 10:50am to 10:58am
Keynote Presentation and Discussion: 11:00am to 12:00pm

Progressive Social Justice Community announcements follow

The Greater New Orleans Interfaith Sanctuary Coalition (GNOISC) is an interfaith network of faith communities and people of good will who, together with the immigrant community, are co-creating a more just and safer city for all people, especially those under threat, through community education and collection action. Two members of the GNOISC Steering Committee will discuss the need for faith communities to stand in solidarity with our immigrant sisters and brothers, the goals of the GNOISC, and the process their church, the Community Church Unitarian Universalist of New Orleans, undertook to become a sanctuary church.

Speakers:

The Reverend Darcy Roake is a Unitarian Universalist Minister who began serving as the Consulting Minister with the Community Church Unitarian Universalist of New Orleans in August, 2017. Rev. Darcy has a wide background in social justice and pastoral care in workplaces as varied as Oxfam America, Amnesty International, the United Nations, the Navajo Nation Public Defender’s Office, and Massachusetts General Hospital. Rev. Darcy is currently a member of Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Clergy Advocacy Board. Darcy received a B.A. in Religious Studies from Brown University and graduated with a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School.

Elizabeth (“Liz”) Trotter is President, Stewardship Chair, and Community Ministry Chair, of Community Church Unitarian Universalist (CCUU), New Orleans; GNOISC Steering Committee Member and Co-Chair of the Spiritual and Political Education Working Group. Liz is a life-long Unitarian Universalist and was taught UU principles from a very young age.  The social and institutional injustices exposed by Hurricane Katrina were a call to action for Liz, who created a Community Ministry team at CCUU, first to assist with disaster relief and, then, to expand and extend CCUU’s impact into the larger community.  She was a founding member of the Greater New Orleans UU Governing Board and helped establish the Center for Ethical Living and Social Justice Renewal.  Liz is the driving force in educating her congregation around immigration as a moral issue – the criminalization of immigrants, mass incarceration and deportation, and the terror of federal raids.  She was instrumental in getting her congregation to pass a resolution making CCUU a Sanctuary Church in June of 2017.

Usually held every second Saturday of each month, the Gillespie Memorial Community Breakfast has been a project of the First Unitarian Universalist Church Social Justice Committee since May 1983. Also view our Facebook Page for this presentation at:

https://www.facebook.com/events/508968176154681/