This is the seventh of our Q&A webinars with our new Patrons.
“Open Table is the clue to how the church should be. It should be a table that’s open for all, that all are welcome, and we find there the hospitality of Jesus who opens his arms wide for us and wants us all to be loved and included.”
WATCH Barbara Glasson’s message to the Open Table Network (2.5 mins)
The Open Table Network is now a charity, so we have asked several notable Christians who identify as LGBTQIA+, or as allies, to become our patrons. They will be advocates for our Network, speaking about us and supporting us in the public eye. We are proud that these people believe in what we're doing and want to have their names associated with us.
What would you ask Barbara Glasson, former President of the British Methodist conference? Barbara Glasson will be speaking with Kieran Bohan, Open Table Network Co-ordinator, in this free Zoom webinar.
Barbara is a pastoral theologian who has worked among people of many different faiths and experiences. In 2000, she founded Somewhere Else, an inclusive faith community in Liverpool where people gather to bake bread and worship God. There she met LGBT Christians and other groups she calls ‘prophetic communities’. Her book The Exuberant Church: Listening to the prophetic people of God reflects on ‘coming out’ as a spiritual experience, and how the church too must ‘come out’. Barbara Glasson sees the coming out process as both profoundly human and deeply of God.
In 2010 Barbara became Leader of Touchstone in Bradford, a listening community enabling safe spaces for dialogue with diverse communities including people of different faiths. In 2018 she received the Archbishop of Canterbury award for her work in Peace and Reconciliation.
As she became President of the Methodist Conference in 2019, the Methodist Church approved a report called God in Love Unites Us which proposed to allow churches to hold same-sex weddings. Covid restrictions delayed local churches debating and voting on this report so she was unable to see a final vote before she stepped down in July 2020.
Barbara now teaches Pastoral Theology at The Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education in Birmingham.
Barbara will be in conversation with Kieran Bohan, Open Table Network Co-ordinator. WATCH his intro video here. [3 mins]