Alliance friends gathered last weekend at St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, La. for the MALT retreat. MALT is the regional group of Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas.
Creating Change
Why Attend the February OWL Facilitators Training?
By Jennifer Wilder


The Our Whole Lives (OWL) Comprehensive Sexuality Education Facilitators’ training is an accessible tool for small group leaders, youth leaders, pastors and other individuals wanting to lead spaces for body-positive, diversity-positive, accurate sexuality education. This facilitator training is for community leaders, youth leaders, and church leaders who recognize our responsibility and opportunity to open up honest, clear conversation around body, gender, sexuality, relationships, health, and consent. Over the three-day training, attendees will receive the support they need to be confident and responsible facilitators of a concrete, well-respected, well-researched curriculum. Attendees will be trained in up-to-date and culturally relevant comprehensive sexuality education, such as the challenges and opportunities in our age of internet and social media.

OWL Comprehensive Sexuality Education is facilitated by trained pairs, so we encourage anyone interested to consider attending with another adult member of your community who has different experiences and identities. Together, the two of you can go home ready to launch OWL in your church, community or group. 

Our Whole Lives training will take place at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, Raleigh, N.C. on February 20-22, 2020.
Around the Alliance

Sounding a Call for Statements

By Staff

Since our inception, the Alliance has adopted statements at the annual meeting addressing social justice and moral issues about which Alliance supporters have calling and energy. The adopted statements express the Alliance’s commitments, as well as empower the staff to join with ecumenical partners in prophetically speaking out for justice. 

Climate justice, federal spending, human sexuality, #BlackLivesMatter and the Global Refugee Crisis are among the topics addressed by the statements that have clearly articulated to those beyond the Alliance our belief in the intrinsic value of all God’s children, creation and our call to pursue God’s justice and love for all. 

There are also areas of concern on which we may be missing statements. Do you feel called to bring a statement to the annual meeting? Is there anyone among our membership who senses a call to bring a statement addressing women’s reproductive health? Or any other issue?

If so, please submit your statement to staff@allianceofbaptists.org by March 9 in order for it to be presented to the membership at the annual meeting. These statements equip the Alliance to add our voice and witness to public discourse as people of faith who seek to make a difference. 

Want to learn more about how the Alliance adopts statements? Sit on this video where Carole Collins and Paula Clayton Demspey explain the statement process!
ANNUAL GATHERING 2020
Taking On the Cross: 
[Re] Learning
the Love of God

April 23- April 26

ANNOUNCING KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Dr. Eboni Marshall Turman is an Assistant Professor of Theology and African American Religion at Yale Divinity School. Her book, Toward a Womanist Ethic of Incarnation: Black Bodies, the Black Church, and the Council of Chalcedon , connects the incarnational experience of Jesus to the oppressed experience of African Americans, which will enrich our conversation about atonement and the cross.
Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock is the Director of the Shay Moral Injury Center at Volunteers of America. She has written Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us, and Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire (both co-authored with Rebecca Parker), both of which will inform our conversation of atonement.

To learn more about the 2020 theme and for full keynote biographies , click here! And make plans to join us in Fort Worth, Texas!


Join the Racial Justice and Multicultural Community of the Alliance of Baptists for a discussion of  White Fragility  by Robin DiAngelo. Virtual meetings are taking place monthly.

The next meeting will take place on Feb 18, at 6:30p EST to discuss chapter 6.

To learn more, contact  Tammerie Day .
Baptist Joint Committee Opportunities!

The Fellows Program provides young professionals the opportunity to deepen their historical, theological and legal understanding of religious liberty. BJC is accepting applications through Feb 21.

The Essay Scholarship Contest engages high school students in church-state issues open to all high school juniors and seniors. The grand prize is a $2000 scholarship and trip to Washington, D.C. Entries will be accepted through Mar 6.
Calendar

January 26
Paula Clayton Dempsey
will be preaching at
College Park Baptist Church,
Greensboro, N.C.

February 18, 6:30 EST
Virtual Meeting

February 20-22
Raleigh, N.C.

April 23-26
Ft. Worth, Tex.
The Alliance of Baptists is a vibrant movement of people, faith communities and ministry partners who are deeply passionate about ecumenism, partnership in mission, relentless hospitality and racial and social justice.
Leadership Team
Paula Clayton Dempsey , director of partnership relations
Carole Collins , director of operations & finance
 
Staff
Stephanie True Cooper , acting communications specialist
Brooklyn Lovelace , social media specialist
Cathy McGaughey , operations specialist
Kristy Pullen , website specialist
Jason Smith , congregational engagement specialist