Why do we celebrate Pride?
For more than fifty years, this congregation has worked to insure that we are a safe place for LGBTQ people to worship, work and witness. Today, they are we and we are they. We recognize no distinctions of race, ethnicity, age or gender. Our God is the Creator of rainbows, arcs in the heavens composed of every shade and hue. Embraced in the rainbow of all-healing love, we embrace all among us as perfect reflections of our Maker.
Sadly, though, our cousins around the world continue to attack, berate, reject and even kill people who only want to live in peace with the ones their hearts have chosen. The crimes committed by Christians demand to be answered. And so we repent on their behalf and we march and we sing because we are filled with Pride.

How do we celebrate Pride?

Sunday Worship

Our guest preacher is Rev. Dr. D. Mark Wilson, Ph.D. We are honored to welcome this exceptional religions leader who has been references by a former member as funny, warm, immensely talented, remarkably intelligent, and and exceptionally committed to love and justice.

Also on Sunday…
•We look forward to inspiring music
thanks to our Minister of Music, Mikki Boyd.

•A book table will feature works on
LGBTQ history and accomplishments. (Many of these works are being banned from school libraries as we speak.)

•Communion will be served to any and all who wish to receive it.
•Following Worship, our famous Rainbow Cupcake Coffee Hour, hosted by the Department of Worship and Congregational Care will provide portable snacks that you can take into the Forum that follows.

The Forum will be a conversation with Pastor Mark about what the Church can do to create more bridges to the LGBTQ community and best ways to overcome the messages of hate that continue to pour out from our Baptist cousins.

Rev. Dr. D. Mark Wilson, Ph.D.

D. Mark Wilson is a Chaplain of Palliative Medicine and Spiritual Care at Kaiser Hospital, Oakland and Richmond, California. He is the former the Director of Music at Easter Hill United Methodist Church, Richmond, California, and former Lecturer in the Music Department of University of California at Berkeley, where he recently was the Music Director of the UC Berkeley Gospel Chorus, for 5 wonderful years. He has been a Contra Costa County COVID Crises Counselor with the National Alliance of Mental Illness, a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology Department at UC Berkeley and St. Mary’s College of Moraga, California and is the former Director of Music at St. Columba Catholic Church, Oakland, California. He earned his undergraduate degree from Howard University, his Masters of Divinity Degree from Harvard Divinity School and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Michigan. In addition to his academic work and scholarship, he has used musical performance to create diversity and global justice in Cuba, Nicaragua and Sri Lanka. He is an African American clergyperson ordained in the American Baptist Churches, USA, the former Senior Pastor of McGee Avenue Baptist Church (Berkeley), where he served for twelve years, and former Assistant Professor of Congregational Leadership at the Pacific School of Religion. In 1998, Pastor Mark, as he is affectionately known to church members, became known as one of the first Baptist pastors to come out in an African American Baptist Church and to be welcomed and embraced by the church’s membership. He is also an early leader of the Welcoming and Affirming Movement to affirm LGBTIQ people in the Baptist faith community. As a mentor to Queer youth in the Bay Area, he is a past Youth Program Manager at the San Francisco Bay Area’s oldest LGBTIQ center, the Pacific Center for Human Growth, in Berkeley, California. He is a frequent baritone soloist with the Oakland-based Cantare Con Vivo Chorale, conducted by David Morales.

Oakland Pride Parade — Sunday, September 8, 11am – 6pm PDT—  This year Rev. Dr. Allison Tanner will lead us as we gather with hundreds of other marchers at 10 a.m. near City Hall. It is always a surprise to see the numbers of other marchers. It is just how many people from different organizations, different walks of life, with their different experiences and stories come together to march in the parade. There will be bands and musical acts on floats as well as big corporate floats all proclaiming that LGBTQ people have a right to be fully included at every level of society.

At 11 we will be right there, in the mix, carrying our church banner and our “You’ll Fit Right In” banner to tell the world that we are a different kind of Baptist Church and that at Lakeshore it is safe to be who God created you to be.  Our team will bring our banners and literature when they arrive at the festival site. They will set up and take the first two-hour shift as hosts in the booth. Our marchers will assemble between 11:15 and 11:45 near City Hall and start marching at noon. Contact Pastor Allison for more information.

For more Oakland Pride details, please see https://www.oaklandpride.org/

Getting there: Take BART to 12th Street station. Go up to Frank Ogawa Plaza from the far end of the station.  We will meet up in the staging area a block or so from there. The parade starts at 11 and the route is level.  There is no cost to march in the parade. We will march about six blocks, shaded by the trees and tall buildings along Broadway.

Festival—  At the end of the route, the Parade pours into the entrance of the Festival. Wristbands are required to enter but Exhibitors receive six free ones for their hosts. Our booth will be set up with a table and chairs. Our team will bring our banners and literature when they arrive. We are asking people to take two-hour shifts. Hosts are encouraged to explore the festival, enjoy the food, listen to the music and soak up the vibe before and after their shifts. There is even a special “Children’s Garden” for families with little ones.
Considering how long Lakeshore has been welcoming and affirming, we still meet people every year who have never heard of an LGBTQ-friendly Baptist Church. This is why we need to be there.

Resources—You Are Not Alone

Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists — www.awab.org
Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere — www.colage.org
Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network — www.glsen.org

Human Rights Campaign — www.hrc.org
Lavender Seniors — www.lavenderseniors.org
LGBT National Help Center — www.lgbthotline.org
*LGBT National Coming Out Support Hotline — www.LGBTcomingOUT.org
*LGBTQ Reads — www.lgbtqreads.com
National Center for Transgender Equality — www.transequality.or</span>g
Oakland LGBTQ Center — www.oaklandlgbtqcenter.org
Pacific Coast Baptist Association — www.pcba.org
Parents &amp; Friends of Lesbians and Gays — www.pflag.org
*ShopQueer.co (lgbtq-related merchandise) — www.shopqueer.co <<no “m”

Books

Book Link
https://bookriot.com/books-about-stonewall/

Sci fi books
https://bookriot.com/lgbtq-fantasy-and-sci-fi-adventures/

Graphic Novels
https://bookriot.com/fun-lgbtq-comics/

Young Adult Books
https://bookriot.com/queer-ya-books-about-friendship/>

Non fiction LGBTQ books
https://lgbtqreads.com/non-fiction/

The “T” in LGBTQ
Welcoming the “Trans” community has been a long-avoided topic in church circles.  Personally, I don’t know any trans people and I don’t know why that is.  Am I too focused the l’s or the g’s or the b’s or have the trans folk been so hated by church people that they stay deeply undercover?

Am I transphobic? There must be reasons we don’t see more trans folk among us and I want to challenge us to find out why.  Let’s keeping widening our welcome.