OPENING STATEMENT

My name is Amy DeLong and this is Lynn Church. We are the co-chairs of Kairos CoMotion. We have been waiting for you and we rejoice that you here. What we have learned over the past 15 months in planning Kairos CoMotion is that when progressive folks gather, people get nervous.

When we point out troubled places, we are called troublemakers. When we advocate for the full inclusion of God's people, we are called divisive. When we take seriously the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, we are called radical.

All I know is that we are faithful people committed to living out that faith, committed to being in solidarity with one another, committed to embodying the expansive, lavish love of God-now. Now is the acceptable time.

We are here because we want to talk about new ways of being together, new ways of being the church. We are here because we are tired of feeling bad about how bad it is in the church for some of our brothers and sisters and we want to participate in the solutions. We are here because there is a disconnect between what the church says and how it treats God's people and we want to close the gap. We are here because we believe "all are welcome" means all are welcome.

At Kairos CoMotion we boldly proclaim a vision for the church and world where no one - not one in this room, not one outside this room - can be excluded from full partnership in our worship and common life.

I had the pleasure this summer of reading a book called Mango Elephants in the Sun. It is the autobiographical account of a woman who joined the Peace Corps and went to Cameroon.

She wrote that the women of the village would greet each other by raising both hands open-palmed in front of their chests and asking, "Jam bah doo nah?"

It means, "Are you in your skin?" or a better translation would be "Is your soul in your body?"

The women would respond, "Jam core doo may!" "I am in my skin!"

It is our prayer that you are in your skin today - that your soul is in your body as never before - that you will come to this event as fully as you are able - with all your joys and apprehensions, your imperfections and possibilities, your fears and hopes, your anger and your love, your questions and your answers.

Bring it all here and know that you are welcome. Welcome to Kairos CoMotion.