St. Stephen’s can look forward to three very interesting speakers coming in the next few weeks at various times. The first I want to mention is Rev. Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock, the Founding Co-Director of Faith Voices for the Common Good, an organization dedicated to educating the public about the values and concerns of religious leaders and organizations. She has been a Fellow at the Harvard Divinity School Center for Values in Public Life, and directed the Fellowship Program at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She has written several books about Christology, liberation theology, and women and their lives in the midst of theology. If you’ve participated in the Saving Jesus video study or the Living the Questions studies, you will remember her face. I ran into someone at a Christmas party a few weeks ago who has invited her to the Oklahoma City area in February and really needed a place for her to preach on Sunday morning, February 5. I told him we would be thrilled to host her that morning!

A second very interesting speaker will be Yousef Khanfar, a Palestinian-born photographer who has taken up his camera, instead of a gun, to promote peace in the Middle East and around the world. His first book, Voices of Light, provided a showcase of the everyday mysteries of nature. He was named one of the World’s Top Photographers in Landscapes by RotoVision Publications in London, and in 2009, the Fulbright Center for Peace in Washington, D.C. selected his book In Search of Peace, as the book of choice to be gifted in the Global Symposium of Peaceful Nations to their choices of the “most peaceful nations of the world.” He will be our featured speaker at our Roundtable Discussion on the evening of Feburary 26th.

Our third speaker for the month of February will be Rev. Jeremy Smith, a colleague of mine whom many of you have become acquainted with through the Progressive Retreat or by reading his blog, hackingchristianity.net. Jeremy has attended General Conference, the quadrennial meeting of our entire denomination, as a volunteer and has compiled a presentation on the history of the inclusion of LGBTs in United Methodist Polity that covers General Conference activity since 1972. Jeremy is a graduate of Oklahoma City University, as well as Bentley University and Boston University, where he received his Masters of Divinity in 2006. This past year, Jeremy was named Outstanding Alumnus from Boston University School of Theology, making all of us in Oklahoma very proud. Jeremy’s brilliant and thorough research, coupled with his delightful presentation style, make this presentation an educational opportunity that is not to be missed. We have set only a tentative date at this point, but stay tuned for details about this event, which will happen on a weeknight in early February.

We have a lot to look forward to in our community life together in the next several weeks.