Beyond the Possible: 50 Years of Creating Radical Change in a Community Called Glide - Hardcover

Cecil Williams

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062105043 ISBN 13: 9780062105042

Publisher: Bravo Ltd, 2013

Synopsis

Beyond the Possible One of the most well-known and provocative ministers in the United States, Reverend Williams shares the wisdom he's learned over the 50 years he has spent leading San Francisco's Memorial Glide Church toward profound social change. Full description

About this title

Review:

"Cecil and Janice took a dying church and turned it into one of the most important social institutions that I've seen in this country."--Warren Buffett

"Humor, courage, and conviction radiate through these stories...The authors' persistent self-examination and honest recounting provide a generous, faithful window into Glide's consequential ministry."--Publishers Weekly

Cecil and Janice took a dying church and turned it into one of the most important social institutions that I ve seen in this country. --Warren Buffett"

Humor, courage, and conviction radiate through these stories The authors persistent self-examination and honest recounting provide a generous, faithful window into Glide s consequential ministry. --Publishers Weekly"

Glide is one of the few radically accepting places where true unconditional love is practiced like the most dogmatic of faiths. "Beyond the Possible" is the perfect title for an inspiring portrait of transformative love and a model for a jubilant revolution. --Sojourners"

"Glide is one of the few radically accepting places where true unconditional love is practiced like the most dogmatic of faiths....Beyond the Possible is the perfect title for an inspiring portrait of transformative love and a model for a jubilant revolution."--Sojourners

From the Back Cover:

Love
Acceptance
Community

With admirers ranging from Harvey Milk and Huey Newton to Warren Buffett, Maya Angelou, and Dianne Feinstein, Glide Memorial Methodist Church in San Francisco has been inspiring, infuriating, welcoming, and changing the world for fifty years.

Now in Beyond the Possible, the two founders, Reverend Cecil Williams and Janice Mirikitani, show how Glide transformed a dwindling all-white congregation into a diverse and energetic community of the poor, the disenfranchised, the homeless, the addicted, the mentally ill, the newly immigrated, and the politically passionate.

A vivid storyteller, Cecil describes removing the trappings of conventional religion to make way for a new spirituality—one that embraces gay rights, jazz in the sanctuary, the antiwar movement, and Celebrations that fill the church to this day. In prose as gripping as her acclaimed poetry, Janice recalls starting out at Glide as a nonbeliever in the 1960s who found herself drawn to Cecil's vision for social justice.

Soon we see how Cecil's charismatic power, combined with Janice's organizing genius, created a model for wraparound health care, a million free meals a year, apartments for the homeless, and a stand-up pride that confronted police brutality, riots, racism, and institutional bigotry. And we discover that Glide's insistence on inviting rather than avoiding controversy has revolutionized approaches to drug addiction, racial conflict, and domestic violence.

Both a personal love story and a riveting view of American history, Beyond the Possible demonstrates what is truly possible for all of us. Here is Obamacare with a human face. Here is Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of "the beloved community" come to life at last. And here is a courageous couple facing impossible odds—and discovering the power of unconditional love time and time again.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bravo Ltd
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0062105043
• ISBN 13: 9780062105042
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240