Culver City Area Interfaith Alliance - Newest URI Member in North America
February 24th, 2007
North America’s latest Cooperation Circle member of the United Religions Initiative is the Culver City Area Interfaith Alliance, from Culver City, CA (near Los Angeles). Founded in 1998, the Alliance has been a local leader in interfaith dialogue and worked with other Los Angeles-area groups, such as fellow-CC Unity-and-Diversity World Council and the City of Culver City, in putting together larger events. Their purpose and a more general description of activities follows. Welcome!
Purpose
We are a coalition of religious organizations seeking to:
- PROMOTE the exercise of faith and practice of religion in Culver City, California and adjacent areas.
- CULTIVATE a friendly cooperative and synergistic relationship between the city’s government and religious communities
- BUILD partnerships among the religious congregations to develop affective ministries for Culver City residents and to
- WORK TOGETHER for the benefit of the total community without compromising doctrinal values or beliefs
Description of Activities
Following some incidents of gang related violence at the high school in 1998, the City Council of Culver City, at the suggestion of Council member Al Vera and others thought it would be a good idea if the spiritual leaders of the community were summoned together to discuss ways that these problems could be addressed. Specifically the City wanted to know if the houses of worship might be able to help by providing after school care – safe spaces where children could go after school until their parents returned home from work. Several programs were started.
In those days leadership was assumed by Father Al Burnham of St. Augustine Catholic Church who had a great personal interest in interfaith dialogue. He was joined by Jim Krause a member of the United Methodist Church who let his organizational skills and his expertise as consultant to non profit organizations. They grew in number and had the support of the City that was a full partner.
The Alliance has sponsored two or three events per year. In addition to producing the events the group also enjoyed getting together to discuss various topics from the point of view of their various faiths traditions for example Charity, Fasting, Conversion, Humor etc.
In the current year we are continuing to emphasize dialogue in our meetings. Instead of putting energy into producing events of our own we are seeking to cooperate with other organizations who are producing events which we also support for example Peace Sunday in December and a Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Celebration in January in cooperation with the City of Culver City. We are still intending to produce or co produce an Interfaith Music Festival in the spring.