SDA Kinship members interact with each other online via Facebook and WhatsApp. If you aren't already connected with one or more of the groups (main, men, women, youth, seniors, etc, etc), please send a note to info@sdakinship.org or send Floyd Poenitz a private Messenger note and ask to be added to these groups. If you use WhatsApp, let us know so you can participate there too.
If you speak Spanish or Portuguese, be sure to ask us to add you to the Kinship en Espanol or Kinship Brasil groups!
Here in Maryland, January is leaving us with the coldest temperatures in a very long time. I feel for our members in the Midwest! I hope everyone in the Northern Hemisphere stays warm and safe. For those in the Southern Hemisphere, enjoy the beautiful weather. We will feel warmer thinking of you.
What I really love about SDA Kinship is that it’s always been a safe space for members to be who we are, regardless of where each of us is on our journey. Some members are in long-term relationships and some are married. Others feel that celibacy is right for them, and still others are dating. All of us want to be on a path that works best for our lives.
Between 3,000 and 4,000 members of the LGBTIQ community participated in the annual Creating Change Conference in Detroit, January 23-27. I was glad to be a part of the Spiritual Care Team and meet hundreds of participants in the Many Paths spiritual space including a number of Seventh-day Adventists who were attending the conference. Along with a number of plenary sessions, there were hundreds of workshops available, making it a challenge to figure out which ones to attend.
I had the privilege of being the guest lecturer for a class on Religion and Gender at La Sierra University. I shared the story of my journey and had a conversation with the students regarding their questions about our community.
Caring words from John & Carolyn Wilt - Family & Friends Coordinators
Feelings are the world’s universal language. Do you have feelings? Do you know where they come from? Or what caused them? Do they impact your life? Are they important to you and your life?
Happiest of Holidays!
As 2018 comes to a close and we get ready for a brand new start in 2019, I want to express my gratitude to all who have made Kinship’s progress possible this year. Many of us contribute to our progress by generously giving the best of ourselves through our time, talents and funds. I like to quote this snippet from Generous Life, Increasing Your Joy Through Giving by the Fetzer Institute.
Jamaica: Adventist pastor apologizes after favorably citing song lyrics that call for the shooting death of LGBT people:
https://goo.gl/14Fpyr
By the 2018/19 Transgender Seminarian Cohort: Davíd E. Patiño and Ezra Fairley-Collins, Jude Johnson, Greyson Kentopp, Erica Saunders, Cole Williams
As trans people, we know the love of God. We feel it in our bones, in the very skin that lines our bodies, in the very nature of who we are. God is that voice within us that shows us the way to authenticity, to self-love, and to community. The Holy Spirit is at work within and through us. The Holy Spirit is that which can transform our deepest anger, sadness, and loneliness into something new. We can recognize this when the impossible happens, when inside us, despite our despair, there is the tiniest of lights, the smallest sign of hope, the little bit of energy that seems to be coming from within us. The Holy Spirit is that which resurrects us from the death we experience deep inside us from trauma. It is the darkness that shelters us and keeps us safe. The Holy Spirit resurrects us and allows us to see our own sacred divinity.
How We Fit In is a podcast project dedicated to sharing the stories of current and former Seventh-day Adventist church members all around the world. We want to explore how over 25 million unique individuals fit under one belief system. We all have stories to tell, and they deserve to be heard.
Reinder Bruinsma has been a Seventh-day Adventist conference president for the Netherlands and for Belgium, General Conference administrator, pastor, and author - among several other things. In what he loosely calls his "retirement" he continues to write, speak to Adventist leadership and laity conferences and, attend other meetings around the world.
Seventh-day Adventist Kinship International (SDA Kinship) is joining a chorus of LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer/questioning) advocacy groups in calling on the Maritime Conference of Seventh-day Adventists to rescind its invitation to Coming Out Ministries, one of the featured presenters at a youth event in Pugwash, N.S., this July.
Here’s WhyWhile Coming Out Ministries (COM) has been promoted as being representative of LGBTIQ people, oddly, the leaders of this ” ministry” do not identify as LGBTIQ. Instead, they use terms such as “redeemed” to describe their sexual orientation. Their philosophy is predicated entirely on a model that views LGBTIQ people as fundamentally flawed and broken.
Your privacy and preferences are important to us at SDA Kinship, and we are providing this notice explaining our online information practices and the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and used.
We have recently updated our Privacy Policy so that you have a better understanding of what we do with your data.
On the weekend of April 20, the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s North American Division (NAD) hosted a workshop that included a select group of church leaders and lay members. The purpose of the workshop was to “participate and preview a new resource (booklet) titled Guiding Families of LGBT+ Loved Ones: Adventist Edition.”
The new 71-page booklet from the NAD provides the most compassionate response to LGBT+ Adventists ever published by the denomination, while still maintaining the church’s position.
We know that there are many people with a Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) connection who are part of the LGBT+ community, are LGBT+ affirming, and support equality on all facets of life.
Our goal is to be very visible to our Adventist communities. We want to demonstrate to all that the Adventist community is diverse and that we support each other regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity.We are hopeful this will be the largest public demonstration of love, acceptance, and affirmation of all LGBT+ people with an Adventist connection. We encourage all attendees to wear or display Pride symbols/flags and clothing that proudly links you to an Adventist community like an Adventist university, church, or linked organization like disaster relief groups, veggie foods—whatever screams.
Dear friends,
When I think about what you might want to hear about each month, I think about the events Kinship leaders have organized, the updated website, the projects that are important for our mission and the amazing things happening in Africa and elsewhere around the world where Kinship members are making a difference for our community. I also want to share things that offer support and encouragement. Read more...
So, we’re calling on you to step up, dig deep, and pitch in whatever you can to help us share our journeys and reach out to those who need to be educated on what it truly means to be LGBTIQ and Adventist, and those who need to know they are not alone.
Can we count on you? Please consider supporting our continued efforts on April 19 by making a donation at sdakinship.org/give
BY JERRY MCKAY
Once I named my experience—acknowledged my homosexual orientation—a predictable side effect emerged. I found myself wanting to meet others with a similar experience. The only way I knew of doing that was through an ad on the back page of The Japan Times.
Kinship Kampmeeting 2018 is July 11-14 and our Women & Children First Retreat is July 6-11 in Baltimore, Maryland, United States!
Kampmeeting takes place at the Homewood Suites at BWI and our Women & Children First Retreat takes place July 6-11 at a place near downtown Baltimore, Maryland, United States.
In October of 2017, SDA Kinship initiated the process to create a new logo. This is part of a greater SDA Kinship brand enhancement effort as work towards increasing appeal to current constituents, and expanding the organization’s reach, membership, and visibility continues.
The world and the way people interact with brands has changed a lot since the existing logo was created more than a decade ago. “With the current proliferation of social media in mind, my goal is that we match or even exceed current trends on the world wide web,” Clinton Sorzano, Kinship’s Director of Communications, confirmed.
SDA Kinship’s annual European Kinship Meeting (EKM) takes place September 6-10 in Vienna, Austria, a city famous for its cultural events, imperial sights, coffee houses, cozy wine taverns, and the very special Viennese charm.
The location for EKM is Don Bosco Haus, a Center of Continuing Education that has comfortable places to sleep, food for vegetarians and meat eaters, a very nice meeting room for our gatherings, and very calm surroundings.
You can join Kinship’s Online Community today!
Membership is free and all your information is kept confidential.
Representatives from SDA Kinship Columbia joined thousands who marched in the XXI Pride Parade in Bogota, Colombia last summer.The theme for the day was "EstadoLaico,Seres Libres" (Secular State, Free Humanity,) with organizers calling for a greater separation of church and state.
Of course, many of our relationships end more quickly. But I would remind you that the heterosexual record is not especially to be envied. One in three marriages terminates in divorce. Many heterosexual couples break engagements and "steady" arrangements. My point is simply that we should not be more critical of gay relationships than a factual comparison with heterosexuals warrants.
Gay couples separate for the same reasons that heterosexual couples break up. Perhaps the choice of a partner was inappropriate in the first place. One or both people may have been too immature or insecure to maintain the level of mutual responsibility and commitment that a relationship requires.
The annual LGBT TaskForce Creating Change Conference was held in Washington, DC from January 24 to 28. It is the largest gathering of our community in the United States each year.
Approximately 4,000 were in attendance, including both members of the LGBT community and many allies from dozens of organizations. For the second year, a Spiritual Care time had a room available for those who wanted to have a chance to visit. The team, including Church Relations Director, Dave Ferguson, was available throughout the conference. The definition of spiritual care included both traditional religious groups, nativist groups, non-Abrahamic faiths, and those no longer professing a religious affiliation.
Personal behavior occurring day after day usually fills a need. Being finite, our life on earth requires planning the use of our energy wisely. An underlying theme is the development of our love for God and all that He represents.
This includes love for ourselves socially, physically, and spiritually. Achieving and maintaining a strong relationship to this highly personal goal is a lifelong investment. God's infinite wisdom and love has given each of us access to the open road of life. Each day we make decisions about our lives and develop a wise expression of our love towards Him. Substance abuse in any form does not allow for optimal expression of love toward God.
A few days ago, the SDA Kinship leadership team met in Baltimore, Maryland, for our annual Spring Board Meeting where we spent a lot of time working on new initiatives to build a better tomorrow for our members and allies. You’ll get more details about these initiatives in the coming weeks.
Our mission at SDA Kinship is to provide a safe spiritual and social community to LGBTIQ current and former Seventh-day Adventists, their families, and those who support them, and we would want you to be part of our community.
SDA KINSHIP INTERNATIONAL ♦ PO BOX 244 ♦ ORINDA, CA 94563-0244 USA
E-MAIL: info@sdakinship.org
