The Institute for Welcoming Resources

Kol B’mishpachat Elohim

All in God's Family: A Jewish Guide for Creating Allies for Our LGBT Families

Leading organizations partner to make Jewish communities more welcoming of LGBT people and their families

"Kol B'mishpachat Elohim / All in God's Family: A Jewish Guide for Creating Allies for Our LGBT Families" is a joint project of the National LGBTQ Task Force's Institute for Welcoming Resources, Keshet, COLAGE, and Family Equality Council.

"Kol B'mishpachat Elohim" includes concrete tools to educate leaders, including a step-by-step guide to supporting LGBT families of faith and tools for facilitating group learning, community dialogue, scripture study, and community action planning to highlight LGBT families in our communities. Additionally, the curriculum utilizes "Families Like Mine," a book about adults with LGBT parents written by Abigail Garner, whose father is gay; the youth-produced documentary "In My Shoes: Stories of Youth with LGBT Parents"; and a CD containing the phototext exhibit "That's So Gay: Portraits of Youth with LGBT Parents."

Download: Kol B'mishpachat Elohim (pdf)

Companion Resources:

Documentary: “In My Shoes”
Phototext Exhibit: “That’s So Gay”
Book: Families Like Mine by Abigail Garner

All in God's Family: Creating Allies for Our LGBT Families

Giving you opportunities to gather with other members of your congregation to pray, to learn, to share, and to work together to transform your lives, your congregation, and your world into a loving place in which God's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender families can thrive.

Download: All in God's Family

Companion Resources:

Documentary: “In My Shoes”
Phototext Exhibit: “That’s So Gay”
Book: Families Like Mine by Abigail Garner

Building an Inclusive Church: A Welcoming Toolkit version 2.0

Building an Inclusive Church: A Welcoming Toolkit 2.0

Updated and greatly expanded!

Drawing upon thirty years of experience within a variety of Christian denominations, this Toolkit is a step-by-step guide to help facilitate a Welcoming Process in your local congregation. Biblically and theologically based, it uses tools of relational organizing, congregational assessment, conflict management and change theory.

AVAILABLE FOR FREE DOWNLOAD!

Hearts Unbound: Engaging Biblical texts of God’s Radical Love through Reader’s Theater

by David R. Weiss

The overwhelming message of the Bible, in story after story, is that of God’s radical love and welcome. Every time we think we know who’s in and who’s out, God does something to challenge those assumptions, to unbind our hearts and minds from old ways of understanding, and to draw the circle ever wider.

HEARTS UNBOUND invites you to explore ten of those inspiring stories of radical love and welcome. Entertaining, thought-provoking, and participatory, each session looks in-depth at the story, the historical context out of which it came, and some of the insights to be gained.

Designed to be used as a small-group Bible study, HEARTS UNBOUND uses the format of Reader’s Theater. But fear not… no costumes, sets, or refined acting chops needed! All you need are six to eight people around a table, reading the script, having fun, all the while learning a great deal in the process.

All ten sessions are available for free download below.

A La Familia: A Conversation About Our Families, the Bible, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

National LGBTQ Task Force, HRC y UNID@S presentan nueva guía bilingüe dirigida a familias e iglesias latinas para educar sobre la orientación sexual, la identidad de género y la Biblia

En un esfuerzo por promover el diálogo dentro de las familias e iglesias latinas sobre la orientación sexual, la identidad de género y la Biblia, el National LGBTQ Task Force, la Campaña de Derechos Humanos y UNID@S, presentaron hoy una nueva guía bilingüe, A La Familia, Una Conversación Sobre Nuestras Familias, la Biblia, la Orientación Sexual y la Identidad de Género en una conferencia de prensa durante la 82va convención nacional de la Liga de Ciudadanos Latinoamericanos Unidos (LULAC por sus siglas en inglés) en Cincinnati, Ohio.

"LULAC está en contra de todo tipo de discriminación. Me siento muy orgullosa de mi estado natal al aprobar los matrimonios entre personas del mismo sexo", dijo Ralina Cardona, directora estatal de Nueva York para LULAC. "Como americanos, tenemos que aceptar nuestras diferencias. Es lo que separa a este gran país. No todos somos de la misma cultura, color, orientación sexual o religión, pero todos somos americanos y en nuestra unidad está nuestra fuerza, pero en nuestras diferencias está nuestro poder".

Leer más en español...

Más artículos sobre A La Familia en español

HRC, National LGBTQ Task Force and UNID@S release new bilingual guide on sexual orientation, gender identity and the Bible for Latino/a families and churches

In an effort to foster a dialogue with Latino/a families and churches on sexual orientation, gender identity and the Bible, the National LGBTQ Task Force, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and UNID@S, unveiled today a new bilingual guide, A La Familia: A Conversation About Our Families, the Bible, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity at a press conference during the League of United Latin American Citizens' 82nd National Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people often face unique challenges in Latino/a families and churches. To help in the process of acceptance and inclusion, A La Familia is born out of a profound desire to faithfully integrate an excluded group of people back into the life of their churches and families. This guide is written for two primary audiences: heterosexual people honestly struggling with LGBT issues and the Bible, and those whose sexual orientation and gender identity have marginalized them within their family or church or even both.

transACTION

A Transgender Curriculum For Churches and Religious Institutions

AVAILABLE FOR FREE DOWNLOAD!

Preview transACTION (pdf)
Download: transACTION (pdf)

A Time to Build Up

To Do Justice: A Study of Welcoming Congregations

In order to both highlight the vibrancy, faithfulness and power of the Welcoming Movement and to counter the 'false witness' of those who seek to quash this movement of hospitality and justice, the Institute for Welcoming Resources surveyed pastors and leaders of 1,200 Welcoming congregations to ask them about their work and witness. Two areas emerged that warrant particular focus and celebration:

Successfully completing a Welcoming Process makes a congregation more likely to work and witness on other justice issues.
Congregations that directly engage the question of welcoming LGBT persons have low levels of conflict.