CARLA WV

Charleston Area Religious Leaders ‘Association’

We are a trust-building / 'social capital' building group
for clergy, ministers and spiritual leaders
from all faith traditions in our area.

To read more about social capital, click here.

Here is the schedule of meeting dates for the rest of 2005
All meetings are from 9:00 am - 10:30 am
Locations TBA

Tues June 7 at Grace Covenant Presby Church 346-7489
July - no meeting
Aug - no meeting
Thurs Sept 8 at St. Mark’s UMC
Thurs Oct 6
Tues Nov 1
Tues Dec 6

Those in regular attendance have included

Rev Monty Brown
Fr Karl Ruttan
Fr Olof Scott
Fr Ed Sadie
Rabbi Victor Urecki
Rev Braxton Broady
Rev Sky Kershner
Rev Rose Edington
Rev Mel Hover
Fr Bill Thomas
Rev L Allen Hill
Imam Jamal Daoudi
Rev Randy Flanagan
Rev Mark Lampley
Rev Perry Jennings
Rabbi Helen BarYaacov
Rev Dennis Sparks
Rev John Davis
Rev Frank Mansell
Rev Doug Minerly
Rev Ron Schlacht
Bishop Bill Grove
Sr Rose Ann Hefner
Rev Bob Newman
Rev Dean Thompson
Rev Reggie Rowell

Please consider joining us!

CARLA WV is intended to be a group that is inclusive of clergy and religious leaders* from all faiths, religions, and denominations in the Charleston, WV, area.

Interested clergy and religious leaders* are encouraged to read through our items of consensus and to join us in our meetings if they are interested.

* Note: By “religious leader” we mean those who function in a role similar to what the protestant Christian tradition calls a “pastor” or “ordained clergy.” We are trying to find an inclusive term that can be used to refer to specifically trained congregational leaders across many different faith traditions. See consensus notes below.

The ad-hoc steering committee has been meeting since Nov. 2003 to develop a framework for meetings that would be inclusive and respectful of the diversity of traditions in our area.

“One community, many faiths.”

If you are interested in joining us at a future meeting, please join or mailing list.

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Brief History

In the Fall of 2003, Rev. Sky Kershner (sky@kpcc.com), the Executive Director of the Kanawha Pastoral Counseling Center (www.kpcc.com), started to ask Charleston clergy if they would be interested in trying to start some sort of interfaith clergy association. A group of interested clergy met on November 11, 2003 at the office of the Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation (www.tgkvf.org). (The GKVF had provided some seed money through a grant written by Rev. Kershner, designed to explore the possibility of developing regular Charleston clergy gatherings.)

Those in attendance were:

Rev Sky Kershner

Rev Dean Thompson

Rev Monty Brown

Fr Karl Ruttan

Fr Olof Scott

Fr Ed Sadie

Rabbi Victor Urecki

Rev Rose Edington

Fr Bill Thomas

Rev Reggie Rowell

Rabbi Helen BarYaacov

Rev John Davis

Becky Cain and Kim Barber from GKVF were also present.

The group decided to committee itself to monthly meetings for the purpose of getting to know one another, developing trust, and explore ways the group could develop a framework for meetings that would be open to clergy and religious leader in the Charleston area.

The group developed items of consensus (below) and began to develop a plan to include the larger body of religious leaders in the Charleston area.

The group’s first public event is the “September Interfaith Witness,” to be held at the Clay Center on Thursday Sept 9, 2004. This event is intended to be positive interfaith response to the events of 9-11-2001. The theme for the event is “For you I receive, to you I give, together we share, from this we live.”

CARLA: Charleston Area Religious Leaders Association

Items of Consensus as of Feb 22, 2004

Consensus around our membership:

Persons who are spiritual leaders, who are called or appointed,

to serve congregation or organizations

within the Charleston area.

[For reference-- WV Secretary of State defines those authorized to perform a weddings as: “certified” as shown by a “certificate or ordination papers from a church or religious organization of which you are in regular communion” or with “a letter signed by two members of a church or religious organization of which you are in regular communion”]

Consensus around our goals for meeting

1. To know each other better: our names, our faces, our stories
2. To develop friendships
3. To be an example to the community of collegiality and trust and mutual respect, and mutual support
4. To get to know each other’s traditions
5. To be a forum for conversation for theological, moral, and intellectual topics (“iron sharpens iron”)
6. To seek the welfare of the city

Consensus around our logistics

We will have morning meetings from 9-10:15 rotating the days between Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays

2. We will start with a small gathering, and expand the group latter, once goals and parameters are clearer
3. We will have some structure to the gatherings, to include an ice breaker, a sharing of a person’s personal journey, a sharing from a tradition, a time for sharing concerns or struggles

Consensus around our norms, how we are together

1. We expect that we will not agree on all matters. We do agree to work together for the common good.
2. We agree to share "air time," to help everyone get a fair hearing, to seek first to understand, and then to be understood.
3. We encourage each person will speak for him or her self, and not for others, or for the group.
4. If someone is offended, he or she will say so, and say why, and say it directly to the person
5. We will not walk out or stop coming out of anger. If anyone is offended or hurt or angered in a meeting, he or she will talk about it and will return to the next meeting before deciding to stop altogether.
6. We respect the privacy of the members of our gathering. Members may ask the group for extra measures of confidentiality around specific items.

CHARLESTON AREA RELIGIOUS LEADERS

AD-HOC STEERING COMMITTEE

Nov 2003 – Aug 2004

Name	Congregation	Day Phone
Bar-Yaccov, Rabbi Helen	Temple Israel	342-5852
Broady, Rev Braxton	Ebenizer Baptist	346-8374
Brown, Rev Monty	St. Mark’s UM	343-2115
Daoudi, Imam Jamal	Islamic Center	541-4999
Davis, Rev John	Kan United Presby	342-6558
Dunn, Rev Paul	1^st Baptist Church	344-4754
Edington, Rev Rose	Unitarian Universalist	345-5042
Hill, Rev L. Allen	Liberty Missionary Baptist	344-8661
Hoover, Rev Mel	Unitarian Universalist	345-5042
Jennings, Rev Perry	Berea 7^th Day Adventist	746-7779
Kershner, Rev Sky	KPCC	346-9689
Rowell, Rev Reggie	Christ Church UM	342-0192
Ruttan, Fr Karl	St. John’s Episcopal	346-0359
Sadie, Fr Ed	Sacred Heart	342-8175
Scott, Fr Olof	St. George	346-0106
Sparks, Rev Dennis	WV Coun of Churches	344-3141
Thomas, Fr Bill	St. Matthews Episcopal	343-3837
Thompson, Rev Dean	1^st Presbyterian Church	343-8961
Urecki, Rabbi Victor	B’nai Jacob	346-4722
Watts, Rev Matthew	Grace Bible Church	342-3249
Yeager, Sr Ginny.	St. Francis Hospital	347-6708