OUR MISSION
- Other Sheep - Multicultural Ministries with Sexual Minorities is a leading worldwide ecumenical Christian organization dedicated to empowering sexual minorities throughout the world with the Good News of God's unconditional love for all and salvation through God's Son, Jesus Christ. With other LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender) activists throughout the world, we recognize that ideological fundamentalism in various religions, especially Christianity, Judaism and Islam, constitutes a major obstacle to justice for our people. Consequently, within the International Lesbian and Gay Association, Other Sheep pioneered the establishment of the ILGA Working Party on Homophobia, Ideology and Religion.
OUR ORGANIZATION
- Founded in 1992, Other Sheep is at present mostly a volunteer, non-profit (501.c.3) organization, and with offices is in St. Louis, Missouri (USA), and New York City. Although a small organization, its scope is international, with special emphasis on Latin America and current work in East Africa, Nepal and India, and with contacts/correspondents in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, China and Hong Kong.
OUR FOCUS
- Other Sheep is particularly, although not exclusively, directed to serving in geographical areas where information and organizations are still relatively scarce.
- To share the good news that God loves all people and calls us into inclusive communities;
- To provide programs, support, and counseling that build self-esteem and wholeness, capacity to love and the freedom to participate fully in religious and community life;
- To network with and equip those who seek to challenge existing prejudices and discriminatory practices, especially in the areas of theological and pastoral training, human and civil rights, and HIV/AIDS prevention and care.
OUR DIRECTIVES
- We direct ourselves:
- 1. To the sexually diverse population who suffer prejudice, marginalization and a sense of inferiority, if not outright rejection, from the Christian churches because of the churches' attitudes, which they have internalized. As a result, most lesbians and gays reject not only the churches but God as well, whom they see as the cause of their problems.
- 2. To the Christian churches which, because of their homophobic sexual ideologies and pastoral policies, harm the spiritual well-being and deny the human rights of the non-heterosexual population. We advocate sexual diversity as normal, rather than as a perversion of nature.
OUR MINISTRIES
- Other Sheep works on many levels, both internationally and locally. Its international ministry activities include the following:
- 1. A team of biblical and theological scholars, including our founder, Rev. Dr. Tom Hanks, write and teach in Spanish and English on the subject of sexuality in the Bible.
- 2. We provide positive material related to sexual diversity, the Bible and Christian life to 74 resource centers throughout the world, including five in Africa and 58 in the 33 largest cities of Latin America. We seek to collect relevant materials (articles, books, videos) in English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and French and make them available to our resource centers, on our websites, and on request. This often involves translation of materials from English into Spanish and vice versa. Our hope is to greatly expand our contacts and work in Africa, and a volunteer coordinator for this is needed.
- 3. We work with existing lgbt Christian ministries in Latin America and actively pursue the development of new ones, particularly in cities where they do not currently exist, through mission trips and communication via telephone and e-mail.
- 4. We are very active in seeking out and mentoring men and women who feel a call to ministry but are not able to fulfill that call in their own denomination or who feel a call to work in ministry to the sexually diverse population.
- 5. We also join forces with lgbt human rights groups (often ILGA affiliates) in the struggle to obtain equal human rights for sexual minorities in a variety of countries.
- 6. Other Sheep has two Websites, one bilingual and academic in nature and one in Spanish which is pastoral in approach. The latter especially provides the opportunity for counseling with people from all over Latin America and Spain who experience conflict between their faith and their sexual orientation.
- 7. On an institutional level, we network with other like-minded people and organizations on an international, national and local basis.
- In the United States, because of its ecumenical approach, Other Sheep offers the opportunity to form a coalescing organization at the local level by bringing together sexual minorities from the various denominational lgbt groups to support campaigns for equal human rights, sponsor weekend appearances of nationally-known lgbt speakers and carry out other activities which smaller groups alone could not achieve. This in fact has been done in St. Louis, Missouri and Evansville, Indiana
OUR REASON FOR BEING
- Why multicultural ministries with sexual minorities?
- Networking over critical issues produces creative responses. Events such as the founding of Metropolitan Community Church (1968) and Stonewall (New York, 1969) sparked the establishment of affirming movements for us that sustain a liberation movement and solidarity in many denominations. What might spreading the news of these and other triumphs in human rights, and the AIDS struggle, inspire for those in remote areas and situations?
- "We are everywhere." Gifted leaders in countries with emerging movements espousing freedom and justice for sexual minorities need the encouragement of affirming, life-saving print and media resources that we in the First World take for granted. Our first privilege and responsibility is to listen, but the work of human liberation will escalate across the world when we share our "First World economic and information privilege" and empower others.
- No single nation or culture can pretend to have a monopoly on the best insights, experiences and answers for advancing the liberation of sexual minorities. International networking can hasten the spread of solutions to oppression and AIDS to and from any corner of the globe.
