For U.S. citizens, a valid, U.S. Passport is required to travel to Mexico.

Click here to find more information about obtaining a passport.

If you do not currently have a valid U.S. Passport, it is recommended to begin the application process no later than six months prior to the conference if at all possible.

Click here for information about visas for attendees traveling to Mexico from outside the U.S.

MCC will be hosting a resource expo, a space providing sponsors and exhibitors to promote their business and services with the MCC community. Participants will be able to visit the resource expo throughout the entire conference.

Are you interested in having exhibit space at conference and reach over 1,000 LGBT Christians? Click Here for more information, or contact Irma Bauer-Levesque at (617) 872-0828.

Please support our sponsor EveryQ.com.

• Someone to greet you at the airport when you arrive
• Ground transport between the airport and the hotel in Acapulco
• Knowledgeable and experienced travel liaisons to handle your arrangements

The toolbox offers downloadable postcards, bulletins/flyers, web banners, email signature ads and more. For more information or to download any of the resources available, Click Here to see the Toolbox page.

EveryQ.com is a website for everyone in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community: singles, couples, youths, the mature, and families. EveryQ puts information into the hands of the user community. It is a place where everyone can come together to interact and share views.

As a General Conference sponsor, EveryQ.com will give MCC $1 for every person that signs up!
It is free and easy to sign up so join today and start interacting with other LGBT people in your city and around the world! Visit http://www.everyq.com/?idAff=20 for more information and to register today.

Tearing Down Walls. Building Up Hope.

Metropolitan Community Churches

For Immediate Release: 15 December 2009

Moderator of Metropolitan Community Churches

Celebrates the Good News of

Marriage Equality in our Nation’s Capital

Moments ago the City Council of our nation’s capital announced its passage of legislation guaranteeing marriage equality for the LGBT community. “It is with exceedingly great joy that I join my voice to the chorus of those celebrating this legislative victory, and the promise of Mayor Adrian Fenty to sign the bill into law,” said The Rev. Nancy Wilson, Moderator of Metropolitan Community Churches.

Washington, D.C. represented the latest in a string of battlefronts for marriage equality. The debate was tinged by the threat of the Roman Catholic archdiocese to withdraw all social services offered to the metropolitan area if equality prevailed.

“I think that the Council and the Mayor have demonstrated amazing dedication to the cause of human equality,” said The Rev. Pat Bumgardner, Chair of MCC’s Global Justice Ministry. “Now all of us who have worked so hard for this moment, must stand firm in our conviction to offer care and support to those in need should the Archdiocese carry through on its challenge.”

“The D.C. decision is a reminder to all of us,” added The Rev. Jim Merritt, Marriage Equality Coordinator for MCC, “of what people standing together for the singular principle of equality and justice for all can accomplish. This was not a gay or lesbian victory. It was a victory for human rights.”

The United States Congress, though not expected to intervene, still has thirty days to override the D.C. decision. “It is important to remember,” said Rev. Bumgardner, “that the city of Washington, D.C. still lacks the basic legislative freedom that other municipalities enjoy. Now is the time not only to celebrate, but to recommit ourselves to the work of freedom, equality and justice for all.”

If you would like to join the fight for the human right of marriage equality, please contact The Rev. Jim Merritt at RevJim.

“Marriage equality will become the rule of our land,

because human equality is God’s will.”

The Rev. Nancy Wilson

Metropolitan Community Churches, Rev. Pat Bumgardner, Chair and The Rev. Jim Merritt,

Marriage Equality Coordinator for Metropolitan Community Churches.

Kathy Beasley, Communications Director
Metropolitan Community Churches
P.O. Box 1374 Abilene, TX (USA) 79604
Email: Kathy Beasley
Website: www.mccchurch.org

Last week, in Austin, TX, USA the Board of Elders met and through our time together were also able to meet with the Board of Administration, the Structure Review Team, The Interim Director of Operations and The Director of Formation and Leadership Development.

It was time of discernment, prayer, exchange of ideas and most of all, renewal of faith in the movement we call MCC. The highlights of our time together were:

• The Board of Elders renewed our conviction that we want MCC to be more than sustainable . . . we want it to be UNSTOPPABLE!!!! We believe that the MCC Movement is called by God and is poised for another level of growth and impact in the world. We are not done yet!

• The Structure Review Team chair, Rev. Tony Freeman, met with the BOE and BOA and shared the recommendations from the team. We were also able to spend some time on a conference call with the entire team. We are eternally grateful to the SRT for their tireless work on this project and the incredible dedication they have to MCC.

• The BOA and BOE had a day to discuss the SRT proposal and come to consensus around some key guiding principles for structure and a basic framework from which to craft a structure proposal draft for feedback.

• We decided on the steps to move a structure proposal forward from January until General Conference.

• The BOE worked with the Director of Operations on our budget for 2010 and were able to do so within the framework requested by the BOA.

• We celebrated the receipt of two grants. One from the Soros Foundation for Leadership Development in Eastern Europe and one from the Arcus Foundation for work in Jamaica.

• We worked on a Strategic Communications Plan to use from now until General Conference.

• We heard from our Conference Director about some of the plans for General Conference 2013!

• We worked on a plan for energizing and resourcing our movement for a new decade.

• We approved a Plan for working on Racism and Diversity throughout our movement in ways that begin to have our practice match our rhetoric.

• We have never been more certain about the impact that MCC continues to have on the world and the power of our local churches to impact communities with an inclusive gospel.

• We believe that the seasons of challenge only call us to lean on the One who has called us and stand strong in our determination to change the world.

• We are invoking the ones who have gone before us to instill in us the spirit of courage and unrelenting optimism about our ministry in the world.

• We are claiming again that

• We are passionate about Inclusion in the family of God
• We are serious about building spiritual Community
• We are champions of Justice
• We believe that encountering God through the life and ministry of Jesus will Transform us

• We are emboldened to make the MCC Movement more than sustainable. With God’s help and the conviction of MCCers everywhere, we will make it UNSTOPPABLE!

Tearing Down Walls. Building Up Hope.

As political leaders and advocates for justice gather to demand an end to discrimination and violence against human beings marginalized because of diversities, Baruch’s promise meets the world’s cry for “peace on earth, good will among all.”

Baruch’s promise comes to a world where people from every nation, creed and culture need the kind of peace that passes all understanding and that can end our conflicts internally and externally. It comes to a world and its people in need of the inner peace of the soul — the peace inside that will and can manifest itself outside, and that holds the possibility of ending the suffering of so many who live under the ravages of war, hatred, greed and violence.

Our challenges, as people of faith, remain many, I know. As we mark this time dedicated to ending discrimination and bringing peace, however, I am particularly mindful of the recent announcement by the President of the United States, Barack Obama, to escalate troop deployments to Afghanistan in the hope of ending eight years of violence and bloodshed in that part of our world.

I am also mindful of the widespread skeptism about this strategy, and believe that the uneasiness many of us share may in fact be a sign of hope that people who long for peace and who believe in the promise of universal good will are coming to doubt the efficacy of war or the promises of violence. I am hoping that the unsettled feeling many of us share, is a sign of our developing belief that violence on all levels — interpersonal, communal and global — can and must end. And I am praying that the violence Jesus was born into and that continues to claim so many victims — poverty — will become our collective battlefront. I am praying today that, as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has urged, we will join hands around the globe and commit to living together in equity and peace.

I am mindful and grateful for the fact that there are more organizations and individuals engaged in serious peacemaking than ever in the history of the world. More people give more time and money and resources to pursuing peace than ever before.

Many of us no longer believe that war or its resulting devastation and impoverishment are inevitable.

Many of us have hope for a new day, a new world.

We have hope for the promise of Advent — “peace on earth, good will among all” — coming to birth in our lifetimes.

+ An end to the wars in Iraq, Afhanistan and Pakistan, and for the safety
of all in harm’s way.

+ An increase in justice and the extension of human rights for all people,
especially LGBT people, those living with HIV/AIDS, those living in
poverty, refugees, and all whose lives have been torn apart by wars. May
just and right relationships bring the world to peace.

Join me in praying today that:

+ Every leader around the globe who is charged with making decisions
that promise to impact all of us, will do so with the pursuit of peace as
their ultimate goal.

+ Every person and nation trapped in the cycles of violence and counter-
violence, from Israel to Palestine to the Congo and Uganda, will find a
new way, a more promising path for sharing life together.

+ Every human being will use each moment as the moment to speak up
for and take risks for, and live and act for peace.

I call on MCCers around the globe and people of faith everywhere to pray with me today and every day of this Advent Season, as we honor the one crowned “Prince of Peace,” for an end to the violence, terrorism and suffering so many know as their daily reality. Pray with me for that a new day of hope and promise will dawn on this earth and all its peoples.

+ The Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson, Moderator
Metropolitan Community Churches