Open Door to start conference Friday

Open Door Community Church in Sherwood will host its 15th annual Fall Conference starting Friday and continuing through Oct. 2.

The free program will begin at 7 p.m. Friday with music by the church praise team and the Rev. Vince Anderson from Brooklyn, N.Y.

The night's speaker will be Carlton Pearson, founder of New Dimensions Chicago and author of The Gospel of Inclusion and God Is Not a Christian, Nor a Jew, Muslim, Hindu ... God Dwells With Us, In Us, Around Us, As Us.

Hors d'oeuvres will be served after the service.

The conference will continue with breakfast Oct. 1 and Carlton speaking at 10 a.m. A panel discussion featuring blogger John Pavlovitz, pastor Jay Bakker, grief specialist Harold Ivan Smith, and Peggy Campolo, an advocate for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, will begin at 11. The group will discuss progressive Christianity.

"Progressive Christianity has become a bad term, and we want to talk about the inclusiveness of the Gospel and how we don't see God out to get us but out to love us, and that we are radically inclusive and how that manifests itself," said the Rev. Randy Eddy-McCain, pastor of the church.

Lunch will be provided, and in the afternoon Bakker will speak and Smith will lead a workshop. A concert with Anderson will begin at 7 p.m. and a talk by Pavlovitz will follow.

The evening will end with the presentation of the Peggy Campolo Carrier Pigeon Award, which will be given to Pavlovitz and local pastors Sheryl Myers and Dick King. Eddy-McCain said the award is given in honor of Campolo "because she was a voice for misunderstood children of God early on in the LGBT community so we try to find every year someone who embodies that."

Hors d'oeuvres will again be served.

Worship services will be at 10:45 a.m. Oct. 2 with a potluck and fellowship to follow.

The conference is free and all are welcome. Open Door Community Church is at 709 W. Lee Ave. in Sherwood. Information is available online at sherwoodopendoor.org or by calling (501) 833-9500.

Religion on 09/24/2016

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