RAIN engages the community to transform lives and promote respect and dignity for all people touched by the AIDS crisis through compassionate care, education and leadership development.
CareTeams
CareTeams are groups of individuals from congregations or other caring groups who are trained by RAIN to support to persons living with HIV/AIDS. CareTeams provide practical, emotional, spiritual support to CarePartners (individual living with HIV/AIDS). CareTeams can provide assistance to one or more CarePartners or can provide specialized tasks such as: Transportation, Pastoral Care/Companionship or Events.
Wedgewood's very own Rev. Debbie Kidd is RAIN's Director of Careteam Program.
The Society of Biblical Literature's mission is to foster biblical scholarship. You are encouraged to become an Associate Member. Annual dues are $45 which entitles you, among other things, to receive bi-monthly emails with book reviews. If you want to stay up on cutting edge biblical scholarship here's the place to start. You also get access to several professional journals.
If you've only got time to read one religious journal you might want to consider Sojourners. It's not just about heaven, honey. Sojourners reminds us the idea is "on earth as it is in heaven."
Wedgewood belongs to The Center for Progressive Christianity.
The 8 points of The Center for Progressive Christianity are:
By calling ourselves progressive,
we mean that we are Christians who…
1 Have found an approach to God through the life and teachings of
Jesus,
2 Recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for
the way to God’s realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for
them, as our ways are true for us,
3 Understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus’s name to be a
representation of an ancient vision of God’s feast for all peoples,
4 Invite all people to participate in our community and worship life
without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable
(including but not limited to):
believers and agnostics,
conventional Christians and questioning skeptics,
women and men,
those of all sexual orientations and gender identities,
those of all races and cultures,
those of all classes and abilities,
those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope;
5 Know that the way we behave toward one another and toward other
people is the fullest expression of what we believe,
6 Find more grace in the search for understanding than we do in
dogmatic certainty - more value in questioning than in absolutes;
7 Form ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping one
another for the work we feel called to do: striving for peace and
justice among all people, protecting and restoring the integrity of all
God’s creation, and bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his
sisters and brothers; and
8 Recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails selfless
love, conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of privilege.
The pressures of being a teenager are immense in today's society. Imagine the additional societal baggage that comes with being a non-heterosexual youth and you will understand why Wedgewood supports TimeOut Youth
Many Wedgewoodians participate in a ministry called Room In The Inn which is a program of the Urban Ministry Center. Our Room In The Inn ministry not only houses and feeds our homeless guests and provides a washer and dryer, we also encourage our guests to participate in our Sunday worship service. Homeless guests have served communion, read scripture, offered prayers, sang solos, played the piano, and collected the offering.
Walter Wink is a scholar who has made valuable contributions to many issues, including the study of peace and justice and the Bible and homosexuality.
Weavings journal is a bi-monthly publication that seeks to promote informed, committed spiritual growth with attention to the corporate dimension of the spiritual life.
http://www.upperroom.org/weavings