Meet Our Patrons webinar offers signs of hope
OTN Patron Alex Clare-Young and Co-Chair Sarah Hobbs
FOUR YEARS after the Open Table Network became a charity, on Saturday 15th March we hosted an event for our Patrons and recorded a conversation between them with questions from our members.
Our Patrons include several Christians leaders who are LGBTQIA+, or allies, who advocate for OTN, speaking about us and supporting us in the public eye. We are proud that they believe in what we’re doing and want to have their names associated with us.
Our current Patrons are:
Revd Dr Alex Clare-Young, trans/nonbinary theologian, URC Pioneer Minister
Revd Dr Barbara Glasson, former President of the Methodist Church in Britain
Rt Revd Cherry Vann, Church in Wales Bishop of Monmouth
Revd John Bell, a member of the Iona Community, hymn-writer, Church of Scotland minister, broadcaster, and activist.
Revd Dr John Bradbury, General Secretary, United Reformed Church
Rt Revd Paul Bayes, former Church of England Bishop of Liverpool.
Alex Clare-Young, Cherry Vann, John Bell and John Bradbury are members of the LGBTQIA+ community, Barbara Glasson and Paul Bayes are allies.
This informal ‘council of elders’ reflected on where our national churches are on issues of affirmation and inclusion for LGBTQIA+ people, and support OTN to consider how to engage with the wider church. They answered a wide range of questions, including:
How did your connection with OTN come about?
Where does your denomination stands on LGBTQIA+ rights?
What excites you about what Open Table communities are up to at the moment?
How can Open Table communities relate more effectively to the wider church?
How have you been received outside of the church as a member of clergy who's able to speak openly and affirmingly about LGBTQIA+ people
What we can do where we think change is needed to be able to influence that change?
When will we not need Open Table?
What advice would you give to a church seeking to set up an Open Table community?
How hopeful do you feel about change in the wider church?
What do you want to say about the culture war around trans folks at the moment?
What would you say to someone who's in a church that's not inclusive?
What can be done to encourage churches to be more honest about their views on LGBTQIA+ people?
What brings you hope?
The playlist of videos our communities made for our Patrons’ event [<20mins]
To help us update our patrons on the difference our communities across the UK are making, we asked community members, volunteers and leaders to record videos in response to three questions:
What do you value most about Open Table?
What are you most proud of in the past year?
What challenges is your community facing this year?
15 communities responded. You can watch these videos on our YouTube channel. PLEASE NOTE: Due to variable sound quality in this crowd-sourced video compilation, we recommend viewing with captions in English (United Kingdom) or following the transcript.
Two of our Patrons could not be with us so they recorded video messagest for us - you can view them here:
Revd Dr Barbara Glasson [7.5 mins].
Right Revd Paul Bayes [5 mins].
