UN COMMISSION ON STATUS OF WOMEN

United Methodist Women works with the UN on the Status of Women! Wonderful work that we do, with amazing resources and an amazing outreach!  Two-column, back-to-back handout.

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59th Annual United Nations Commission

on the Status of Women—CSW-59

March 9-20, 2015

The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. United Methodist Women is an active participant in this annual global gathering, and this year will offer four free workshops.

Maternal Health. Maternal mortality still remains nothing short of an epidemic worldwide. Each year, nearly a quarter of a million women die from preventable causes relating to pregnancy and childbirth. United Methodist Women and the World YWCA, as faith-based and women’s organizations, recognize this issue as a critical area of concern and priority, and offer a peer-learning workshop focusing on YWCA delegates and United Methodist Women delegates. The goal of the workshop is to provide a collaborative space for health advocates worldwide to share best practices and develop concrete task plans for implementation upon return to their communities.

Participatory Development: Learning From Grassroots Women Leaders.
In this session we look ahead to how grassroots women can work with partners to be key stakeholders, decision-makers and implementers in global development processes in the coming years.

Panelists will present challenges in their communities and relevant innovative local solutions related to 12 critical areas of concern, including poverty and power and decision making. These grassroots women will reveal how they and their partners could be meaningfully involved in the next stages of women’s empowerment agenda.

Women’s Migration, Flawed Development Strategies and the Way Forward

Over the past 20 years, the number of women in migration around the world has increased dramatically. Women have been forced to migrate to meet job demands in developed countries and send remittance to poor countries. Restrictive and repressive migration and border-management policies have particularly impacted the health, safety and welfare of women migrants. In the workshop we will explore how movements are coming together to affirm social protections and economic and social human rights, climate justice and new concepts of “development” for people and the planet, women’s human rights, migrant rights and the struggles of frontline communities globally for a new development framework that would make migration a choice, not a necessity.

**Walking the UNSC1325 Talk: Women Cross Most Militarized Border in the World

UNSCR1325 is the UN Security Council Resolution that addresses not only the inordinate impact of war on women, but also the pivotal role women should and do play in conflict management, conflict resolution and sustainable peace.

We are convinced that peace is attainable and inextricably linked with the advancement of women, who are a fundamental force for leadership, conflict resolution and the promotion of lasting peace at all levels.

On the 15th anniversary of UNSCR1325, leading global women peacemakers will attempt to cross the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea—the most militarized border in the world—to unite women from North and South Korea in calling for peace and the reunification of Korea. Known as the Forgotten War, the Korean War (1950-1953) claimed 4 million lives and ended only with a temporary armistice agreement. The absence of a peace treaty has left Korea in a state of war, which has led to the massive militarization and repression of democracy and human rights on both sides of the DMZ. Both North and South Korea have failed to honor its commitment to UNSC 1325, which requires all parties to involve the voices of women calling for peace.

Pray for these workshops and leaders. Learn More:

United Methodist Women Invites Global Delegates to CSW-59 Events

Suggested Pages:

Christian Social Action
Service and Advocacy
Gender Justice

WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH/Weaving Stories

This post, like the others, is for a two-column, back-to-back handout, commemorating Women's History Month.

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Weaving the Stories

of Women’s Lives

March is National Women’s History Month, and 2015 is the 35^th anniversary of the National Women’s History Project. In celebration of this landmark anniversary, we have chosen nine women as 2015 Honorees who have contributed in very special ways to our work of “writing women back into history.” Together, these 2015 Honorees have written, co-authored, or edited more than 60 books. Collectively, their creations reveal the depth and breadth of the multicultural female experience. They have woven women’s stories into the fabric of our history.

One of these women is Delilah L. Beasley. Ms. Beasley was a historian and newspaper columnist, and was the first African-American woman to be regularly published in a major metropolitan newspaper and the first author to present the history of African Americans in early California.

Delilah L. Beasley (1867-1934)
Historian and Newspaper Columnist

Growing up in Ohio, Beasley started writing social columns for black and white newspapers while still a teenager. After her parents’ deaths, she sought a career path that would better support her younger siblings, working as a hairdresser, massage therapist, nurse, and maid for many years. In 1910 she moved to Oakland California where she immersed herself in the local black community and again started writing articles in local newspapers.

In 1915 Beasley started writing a weekly column in the Oakland Tribune. Her articles protested the stereotypes contained in the movie The Birth of a Nation. Through a column called “Activities among


Negroes,” she campaigned for African-American dignity and rights. Highlighting activities of local churches, women’s clubs, literary societies, along with national politics, and achievements of black men and women, her column aimed to give all readers a positive picture of the black community and demonstrate the capabilities of African Americans.
Deeply interested in the history of black Californians, Beasley trained herself in archival research and oral histories. In 1919 she self-published The Negro Trail-Blazers of California, a groundbreaking book chronicling the lives of hundreds of black Californians from the pioneer period through the early 20^th century. Her book included an unprecedented amount of Black women’s history, focusing on the strong roles women played in their communities and featuring countless biographies of women leaders.
In the thirties, Beasley was the driving force behind the passage California’s first anti-lynching bill.  She continued her column and was active in the community until her death in 1934.

At her memorial service, which was a testament to her life-long crusade for justice, all attending stood and made the following pledge—

Every life casts its shadow;

my life plus others make power to move the world. 

I, therefore, pledge my life to the living work

of brotherhood and material understanding

between the races.

(Taken from website of United Methodist Women)

A REMINDER TO PRAY FOR TEXAS LEGISLATORS

This post includes an eloquent prayer written by the Rev. Whit Bodman, as well as a bit of rationale about Methodists' involvement in the legislative process. Copy the text; format your new document for narrow margins and two columns. Then copy back-to-back and half vertically.

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A Reminder to Pray

For our Texas State Legislators

Remember John Wesley’s admonition:

“There is no religion but social religion;

no holiness, but social holiness.”

It follows, then, that it is one of our Methodist responsibilities to participate in the social life of our community—and this includes our state—in any one of a number of ways, among them praying, voting, lobbying, educating.

To add Texas legislators to your daily prayers, I encourage you to use The Texas Impact Legislative Prayer Calendar for 2015, that may be found at texasimpact.org/pray2015.

In addition to praying for your personal legislators, I urge you to refer to the Calendar for each remaining day of the 84^th Legislature, and pray for the legislator/s listed.

Additionally, you will find in the Calendar eloquent prayers to assist when you flounder.

And I would urge you to consider becoming a member of Texas Impact, if you are not already. Your UMW unit can also be a member, as can your church. The agency was founded in 1973 on the central religious conviction that religious communities are called to minister to the whole person—to respond with compassion to the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of all people. The Texas religious leaders who established Texas Impact believed that such a ministry couldn’t be performed adequately without a concern for basic social problems at the state government level.

Member organizations include Christian denominational bodies, regional Jewish and Muslim social justice committees, and local interfaith councils.

As We Are

O Beloved of the Beloved, what can we say to thee?

We are as we are:

Sometimes plump and self-satisfied, having no need of thee;

Sometimes crippled and self-satisfied, having no love for thee;

Sometimes empty and afraid, having no trust in thee.

We are as we are:

Seldom having sought thee seriously,

Seldom having listened to thee earnestly,

Seldom having followed thee faithfully.

We are as we are.

Enter us, O spirit of power and gentleness.

Astonish us. Overcome us. Uproot us.

Fill us with this earthy fruit and heavenly hospitality.

But starve us for thee, lest we sate ourselves with ourselves, and fail to quest for thee.

We are as we are, but not as we can be.

Bend us toward one another—Jew, Baha’i, Muslim, whatever the shape of our faith.

Lift us beyond the terror of difference to the delight of difference.

Nourish us now on this sweet fare of our neighbor’s words and smiles,

For in them is a taste of the feast that is to come,

Once we no longer are as we are.

Amen.

                                    --Rev. Dr. Whit Bodman

                            Texas Impact Board President

UMCOR AND ONE GREAT HOUR OF SHARING

Today's post is for UMCOR and One Great Hour, which is March 15. As usual, copy the text, format it for narrow margins and two columns. Using two copies, copy back-to-back, then half vertically.

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One Great Hour of Sharing

Sunday, March 15, 2015

When disaster strikes around the globe, the United Methodist Committee on Relief, UMCOR, is prepared to act. So don’t be fooled by the word “committee.”

Since 1940, when UMCOR’s forerunner was established to meet the needs of those suffering overseas at the onset of World War II, we’ve continued to respond to those in desperate need—today throughout more than eighty countries around the world.

The response of UMCOR isn’t something “they” do, it’s something “we” do.

When You Give, You Equip Christ’s Body to Serve in His Name. That’s because your generous giving to One Great Hour of Sharing is what allows UMCOR to act as the arms and legs of Christ’s church, moving toward the most vulnerable in their darkest days. Convinced that all people have God-given worth and dignity—without regard to race, religion or gender—together we are assisting those impacted by crisis or chronic need.

Because you give, the United Methodist Church’s compassionate response to human suffering continues today:

• When tornadoes ripped through Oklahoma, we responded;
• When children in Zimbabwe lost parents to AIDS, we responded;
• When a massive tsunami devastated lives in Japan, we responded;
• And when the next mass crisis occurs, we will be prepared to respond…

UMCOR will be able to offer aid in Jesus’ name to those who suffer because United Methodists give through One Great Hour of Sharing.  In fact, it’s your generous giving that allows us to respond when disaster strikes.

Not “they.”

WE.

Ensure the United Methodist Church

Can Keep Helping

Will you continue to give to One Great Hour of Sharing? Will you continue to meet the needs of the children, families and communities who’ve experienced devastation in the wake of disaster?

When we meet the needs of those who suffer we actually minister to Jesus, who said:

“I was hungry and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me.  I was naked and you gave me clothes to wear. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me.” (Mt. 25:35-36, CEB)

As we respond, we recognize Jesus in those who are reeling in the wake of disaster. 

In September 1940, just a few months after General Conference approved the formation of the Methodist Committee for Overseas Relief (MCOR), the forerunner of the present-day UMCOR, Bishop Herbert Welch, who is credited with its founding, made the public case for faith-based relief agencies. While holding up the good work of secular agencies for war relief, he said, “There is, in this critical time, [a] need for church agencies of relief, to bear their part and make their distinctively Christian contribution to a suffering world.” That contribution was one of “mercy and reconstruction” among the affected civilian population, Welch wrote. It could make no distinction “of race, creed, or color” among those it sought to assist, and would “bear witness to Christ by serving all in the name of Christ.”  

See more at: http://www.umcmission.org/Learn-About-Us/News-and-Stories/2015/January/0113amustardseed#sthash.IuZokB3T.dpuf

RACIAL JUSTICE AND RESTORING RELATIONSHIPS

This post is a two-column, back-to-back piece advertising the bi-conference (CTC and NTC) Racial Justice event, "Sing-a-Rainbow," and the NTC UMW Day of Social Action, "Restoring Relationships: Reconciliation and Forgiveness."

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SING-A-RAINBOW

Racial Justice Event

Sponsored by Central Texas Conference

And North Texas Conference UMW

First UMC, Burleson

February 21, 2015

9:45 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.

Keynote Speaker

Janis Rosheuvel

Afternoon sessions on Domestic Violence

Darlene Alfred

Susan Torpy

Potluck lunch

Janis Rosheuvel is the Executive Secretary for Racial Justice at United Methodist Women in New York, and was formerly Executive Director of Families for Freedom, the immigrant defense network by and for immigrants facing and fighting deportation. 

She was born in Georgetown, Guyana. She has worked on international development and gender rights at the Tahirih Justice Center and Women for Women International. She also served as Africa Program Associate with Episcopal Relief and Development, collaborating with African partners on grassroots community development programs in primary health care, food security and post conflict rehabilitation.

She has a BA in International Studies from American University in Washington, DC, and an MA in Conflict Resolution from the University of Bradford in West Yorkshire, England.

You may register online at CTC UMW.

North Texas Conference

United Methodist Women

Day of Social Action

April 18, 2015

8:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Restoring Relationships

Reconciliation and Forgiveness

Highland Park UMC ~ 3300 Mockingbird, Dallas

Forgiveness ultimately frees us from the pain and prison of revenge and allows us to experience renewal

GUEST SPEAKERS

Rev. Alice Coder

Ordained UM minister and member of the North Texas Anti-Racism Team

Rev. Owen Ross

Founder and Pastor of Christ’s Foundry United Methodist Mission

8:30 AM          Registration begins

9 to 9:30          Devotional & Announcements

9:30 to 10:45   Focus Groups

·         Restorative Justice

·         Domestic Violence

·         Immigration Issues

·         Anti-Racism

11:00               Worship Service

12:00               Lunch (cost $10)

 Lunch Reservations by April 13

To Beth Weems Pirtle

at bethsigns@att.net

or call 972-243-7353

CHARTER FOR RACIAL JUSTICE

This piece is the text of the UMW Charter for Racial Justice prepared for a two-column, back-to-back document. Of course, the official copy is far better, but if you don't have them this would suffice. The Charters are available free from UMW Mission Resources

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A CHARTER FOR RACIAL JUSTICE

Updated by the Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church in 1978. Adopted by the 1980 General Conference of The United Methodist Church.

Because we believe

1. God is the creator of all people and all are God’s children in one family;

2. racism is a rejection of the teachings of Jesus Christ;

3. racism denies the redemption and reconciliation of Jesus Christ;

4. racism robs all human beings of their wholeness and is used as a justification for social, economic and political exploitation;

5. we must declare before God and before one another that we have sinned against our sisters and brothers of other races in thought, in word and in deed;

6. in our common humanity in creation all women and men are made in God’s image and all persons are equally valuable in the sight of God;

7. our strength lies in our racial and cultural diversity and that we must work toward a world in which each person’s value is respected and nurtured; and

8. our struggle for justice must be based on new attitudes, new understandings and new relationships and must be reflected in the laws, policies, structures and practices of both church and state;

we commit ourselves as individuals and as a community to follow Jesus Christ in word and in deed and to struggle for the rights and the self-determination of every person and group of persons. Therefore, as United Methodist Women in every place across the land …

We will

UNITE OUR EFFORTS with all groups in The United Methodist Church to:

1. Eliminate all forms of institutional racism in the total ministry of the church with special attention given to those institutions that we support, beginning with their employment policies, purchasing practices and availability of services and facilities.

 2. Create opportunities in local churches to deal honestly with the existing racist attitudes and social

distance between members, deepening the Christian commitment to be the church where all racial groups and economic classes come together.

3. Increase our efforts to recruit women of all races into the membership of United Methodist Women and provide leadership development opportunities without discrimination.

4. Create workshops and seminars in local churches to study, understand and appreciate the historical and cultural contributions of each race to the church and community.

5. Increase local churches’ awareness of the continuing needs for equal education, housing, employment and medical care for all members of the community and create opportunities to work for these things across racial lines.

6. Work for the development and implementation of national and international policies to protect the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of all people such as through support for the ratification of United Nations covenants on human rights.

7.Support and participate in the worldwide struggle for liberation in the church and community.

8. Support nomination and election processes that include all racial groups employing a quota system until the time that our voluntary performance makes such practice unnecessary.

Living the Charter

Racial justice is a biblical issue. Read Exodus 1:8-14. How were the Egyptians and the Israelites each “raced”? Who are the “Egyptians” and who are the “Israelites” in the United States today?

Racial justice is a leadership issue. Who are the leads in United Methodist Women? When and how are leadersip and power shared across lines of race, ethnicity, language and class? Make institutional changes that build relationships of mutuality rather than charity.

Racial justice is a community issue. Assess changes in your community, state and nation. Where are racial/ethnic tensions arising? Make standing up for racial justice a regular part of your spiritual practice.

Racial justice is a public policy issue. Learn about laws that limit the rights of immigrants, racial/ethnic minorities and the poor to public education, social services and jobs. Join with others to exercise your political power to ensure equal and basic rights for all..

"BLACK LIVES MATTER." (BLACK HISTORY MONTH)

The text of this blog was taken from the website of the UMC General Board of Church and Society. As usual, it was originally prepared as a two-column piece in 12-point type for 8/12x11" sheet with narrow margins.
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“Black lives matter.”– Gabe Horton

Gabe Horton is a student at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tenn., and a pastoral intern at Belle Meade United Methodist Church. I don’t know Mr. Horton’s ethnicity, but his thoughts seem worthy of consideration in light of recent events in the U.S., events carried out in the streets and in court rooms.

“The three words ‘black lives matter’ are disputed by the systems in U.S. society that continue to function as if black and brown lives do not, in fact, matter.

“When police violence is exercised dispro-portionately against people with darker skin, for instance, black lives do not seem to matter. When news organizations gloss over some colossal number of deaths incurred during a civil conflict in Africa, black lives do not seem to matter.

“When we send black people to prison at an unbelievably higher rate than white people, for equal or lesser crimes, our justice system says that black lives do not matter.

“When a lack of access to quality education disproportionately sends black and brown children on a pipeline to prison, our education system says that black lives do not matter.”

Blame is a wasted endeavor here, according to Horton. “The system is the way the system is, and we are all a part of it, through no fault of our own,” he asserts. “But like the alcoholic who is responsible for recovery but cannot be blamed for her disease, we are responsible for helping to heal a system we did not create.”

Horton says the same question is before those of us who profess faith as individuals, as congregations, as The United Methodist Church or whatever group with which you affiliate, including the Church universal: What are we going to do about it?

Horton points out that John Wesley famously asked three questions at his early conferences:

1. What shall we teach?
2. How shall we teach?
3. What shall we do?

“Today, we have the chance to affirm as a Church that black lives matter,” Horton emphasizes. “I do not discount the efforts of individual churchgoers and pastors today and during our history, but as the Church universal, we have all too often been on the wrong side.”

Horton proposes that something be done, as The United Methodist Church, as congre-gations, as Sunday School classes. He says lots of opportunities exist to join the prophet in asking, “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58:6).

“We can attend educational events sponsored by local organizers. We can visit those in prison and let their stories speak louder than statistics. We can get involved in the political issues that speak directly to the realities of injustice. We can learn how the gentrification that is renewing our cities also has the unintended effect of forcing people out of their communities.”

Our church is committed to the idea that the rights and privileges a society bestows upon or withholds from its inhabitants indicate the relative respect in which that society holds particular persons and groups of persons. We affirm all persons as equally valuable in the sight of God and therefore work toward societies in which each person’s value is recognized, maintained, and strengthened.

Restorative Justice asks:

Who has been hurt?

What are their needs?

Whose obligations are they?