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"Dreaming for the Community of Hope began in October of 1992 when I was asked to leave Memorial Drive UMC. I requested a visit with Bishop Dan Solomon to discuss my hopes and dreams for ministry, especially my concerns that a number of people in Tulsa who were living and dying with HIV/AIDS not be left with little or no pastoral care." Rev. Leslie Penrose


In October of 1992, Bishop Dan Solomon and Rev. Leslie Penrose, having both traveled in Central America, began to explore the possibility of combining the model of "shalom communities" (just being developed in the UMC) with the "base community" model from Latin America, to create a shalom base community within the Oklahoma Conference. Neither had any clear sense of what might develop, but the agreed upon emphasis was ministry to, and with, those who were socially, religiously, and economically marginalized. Leslie invited 3 people to become the core group of this base community and they began planning. That initial group consisted of three heterosexual families and four gay families, with and without children, as well as occasional participation from Tulsa District Superintendent, Dick House. The groups first step was to talk about mission -- from the very first meeting the importance of a balance between hospitality within and outreach beyond our community was critical, as was the importance of celebrating diversity. The first mission statement was:

We are a United Methodist congregation who understands our mission to be:

(1) to respond to Gods unconditional love by becoming an intentionally , multicultural, reconciling, inclusive community that seeks, welcomes, and values all people, and

(2) to act intentionally as the body of Christ with those who are marginalized. The specific scriptures in which the birthing was grounded are: Jeremiah 29:- ...seek the welfare of the place where I have sent you into exile. Mark 4: 35-40 ...and Jesus said to the disciples, "lets cross over to the other side." 2 Corinthians 5:6-20 ...we are ambassadors for Christ.

Inspired by the vision they found in the ancient words of scripture, and excited by the possibility of a different way of being "church" than they had experienced, the founding group gathered early in May, 1993, in Leslie and Steve's living room. Out of their talking and listening and wrestling to discern together "Gods hope for a new community in this time and this place," the name Community of Hope was chosen. It was an expression both of the life-giving power of community they had experienced together, and of their hope to share that experience with others.


Bishop Solomon worked with the cabinet to secure a $2,000 salary for Leslie for one year, and it was announced at the 1993 session of Annual Conference, that a Shalom Base Community was starting in Tulsa. There was no church building, no office, no telephone, no supplies, no money, and no official connection to the Conference structure. Centenary United Methodist Church agreed to let us use space in their basement on Sunday evenings, 25 hymnals were donated by Cokesbury Bookstore, and a storage room in Dr. Jeff B's office was converted to temporary office space. A $300 gift received in gratitude for Zac S's funeral --a companion who died of AIDS--provided the opening deposit for a checking account. The decision was made to open the account at the only African American owned bank in Tulsa--it was a part of our commitment to struggle against racism.


A letter of invitation was sent to various people and organizations in the community, and on June 20, l993, at 6:30 pm, the Community of Hope officially gathered for the first time in the basement of Centenary UMC. 48 participants and friends were present to worship and celebrate... and begin a journey of hope and faith and struggle with one another and with God. Leslie lit the first Rainbow Christ Candle, and as we prepared to celebrate communion, Ted C gifted the Community with a chalice he had found while attending the International AIDS Conference in Germany... a broken-made-whole chalice of hope and promise. We closed worship by gathering in a circle to sing "Shalom to you."


Things moved fast in those first months. After our third worship service, Brad M, a young gay man living with AIDS, started a ministry of feeding the homeless -- that ministry continues today. In August, a small group began teaching GED classes in the jail, and another group organized and funded a mission team to Guatemala.


The Community of Hope continued to meet at Centenary through September, 1993. When the Centenary congregation began to struggle with the awareness that several members of the Community of Hope were openly gay, we were asked to find another meeting place. A small building on North Yale with a worship area that would hold 50, and two small rooms for children, was rented for $400 a month. and in October, 1993 we moved in. Leslie requested an Advisory Council be formed both for personal support and administrative advice, as she struggled to cope both with a congregation where someone was dying of AIDS on the average of twice a month and with a growing resistance to Community of Hope from other congregations and many of her peers in ministry.


From the beginning, the question of what it means to be Gods church has been part of almost every aspect of the life of Community of Hope. The simple fact that we were identified as a base community rather than a church, forced us over and over again to struggle with what each term meant and, therefore, with who and what we were called to be and become. Many participants came from having been rejected by churches because of sexual orientation or AIDS; others came with layers and layers of internalized shame and self-hate learned in churches and/or in religious families. The kinds and levels of woundedness that people brought with them into the Community of Hope, led them toward two very different expressions of their search for healing: (1) a deep longing to be accepted by and participate in the same church that had rejected them; and (2) an intense rejection of anything that at all resembled the church that had rejected them. Negotiating the two needs took (and continues to take) intentional dialogue, care, education, and flexibility as worship styles, faith language, symbols, and participation methods developed.


Having mutually agreed that, given the deep struggle within the United Methodist Church over homosexuality, COH would not celebrate holy unions or weddings for one year, Leslie and Bishop Solomon began, in January of l994, to work to create a ceremony in which the Community of Hope could witness the vows of gay couples. We held our first holy union on July 9, 1994, celebrating the union of Mark V and Brad M. Both men were living with AIDS, and Mark died less than a year later. Several United Methodist clergy were present for the holy union, and, subsequently, for the memorial celebration of Mark's life, the following May.


In the spring of 1994 Michael S and Lynetta C started New Hope, a musical ensemble group committed to finding, singing, and eventually writing music that expressed the journey of faith, hope and the struggle for justice to which the Community of Hope was committed. That group and the music they created in our midst provided both a healing balm and a voice of hope as we grieved the loss of our companions to AIDS, struggled with the larger church, and tried to be faithful to our own sense of calling.


By June of l994, one year into our ministry, we were averaging 45 in worship and were beginning to discuss moving into a larger space. The Community took financial responsibility for increasing Leslies salary to the minimum level required for "full time" status in the UMC, and Michael Silva started volunteering 20 hours a week doing administration and music leadership. During that first year we had involved ourselves significantly with the homeless, with the incarcerated, with persons dealing with HIV/AIDS, with Domestic Violence Intervention Service, with Project Get Together, and with the Human Rights Commissions efforts toward civil rights for gay and lesbian persons. We had sent one VIM team to Guatemala, and were preparing a second team to go to Nicaragua, hosted a game night for neighborhood children , started a support group for women with HIV, hosted a multi-racial racism dialogue, and helped initiate an outreach ministry to gay/lesbian youth in Tulsa.


During our second year of ministry, our focus as a community shifted from starting new things to supporting the people and the ministries we had undertaken. In an effort to empower and support growth toward whole and healthy living, an ongoing series of spiritual nurture and life-skill study groups was developed. Since that time COH has sponsored a number of groups on understanding scripture, dealing with addiction, nurturing spirituality and prayer, parenting skills, healthy relationships, co-dependency, and grief management.


We hired Michael as part-time Office Manager and began to be intentional about seeking financial support and resources. We applied for and received a number of grants for our work with HIV/AIDS and racism, and also actively sought support from friends in the larger community. We also expanded our network of connections with other organizations as COH participants took leadership positions in RAIN (Regional AIDS Interfaith Network), the AIDS Coalition, Shanti, Rainbow Village, the HIV Resource Consortium, the UM AIDS Task Force, DVIS (Domestic Violence Intervention Services), TMM (Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry), Tulsa Community AIDS Partnership, and the Human Rights Commission. Leslie took an adjunct faculty position at Phillips Theological Seminary , and an on-going relation-ship of field education and academic support began to develop between COH and the seminary.


In August of 1995 we leased our 3rd home -- a dilapidated warehouse in an at risk neighborhood. All the work to refurbish the building was done by participants in the community over several months. Thousands of hours and dollars were donated to rebuild, carpet, paint, equip, and furnish the building to a simple but adequate standard.


Within six months in our new location, our attendance increased to an average of 70, and we expanded the support groups and other ministries we were able to host. In January of 1996 a newly formed Unitarian Universalist congregation began to rent space from us on Sunday morning and an independent Catholic congregation rented space on Saturday evening. Late in 1996 a duplex was donated to Community of Hope, which we restored with volunteer labor, commissioned as "Hope House," and managed as low cost housing for two families living with HIV/AIDS. By the end of 1997 our average attendance was 85-90, and in addition to our own mission and ministry groups, we hosted a youth group sponsored by Youth Services of Tulsa , a Native American men's support group, several 12-step support groups, and occasional community service meetings.


At General Conference in April of 1996, a statement was added to the Book of Discipline declaring that "ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers or in our churches." During the remainder of that year and all of 1997, much of the time and energy of the community was invested in wrestling with our response to that ruling. Several community meetings were held to hear one another's rage and fear over "having to choose between our relationships and our membership in the UMC." A theology and ethics of joining together was created and claimed by the community, and the decision was made to continue celebrating all life-commitments, gay and straight. We expressed our hope that a dance of mutual respect and cooperation could continue with the United Methodist Church, but also acknowledged our awareness that charges--which would result in ordination being revoked--could be filed against Leslie at any time.


We continued to celebrate holy unions of both heterosexual and homosexual couples, and to be in open communication with the cabinet about our actions. All couples were and continue to be required to participate in pre-marital counseling and the whole congregation continued to work hard to respect the struggle of the larger church without sacrificing our own integrity.


After one year in the warehouse-made-home, the property owner expressed a need to sell the property and our investigation into zoning and occupancy requirements ruled out our buying it. So the search for a home began for the fourth time. It took 8 long, hard, frustrating months of working with several realtors and losing several properties to finally locate an adequate, affordable property. Because of the tentativeness of our relationship with the UMC, the Advisory Board recommended that the words United Methodist be legally removed from our corporate name before purchasing the building, and that was done in January of 1998. It was a necessary but painful reminder of the fragility of our connection to the denomination that birthed us.


In March of 1998, we moved to our fourth location -- an abandoned, slightly vandalized, very worn Assembly of God church with a leaking roof, no functioning heat/air units, and a host of other problems. In addition to raising $30,000 for down payment and closing costs, within the first three months, we had to raise an additional $5,000 for repairs, and invest tremendous amounts of volunteer time cleaning, roofing, and repairing the building. The neighborhood surrounding our new building initially had some difficulty with our presence, and there were a few incidences of verbal insults and harassment, however, as the property was improved and we proved ourselves to be good neighbors the harassment stopped. In May, Michael S resigned as Office Manager, and as New Hope's leader, and Victor Evans was hired part-time as Music Director.


The increasing administrative demands brought on by the growth of the community and complicated by the move and immediate needs of the building, pushed the community to create an administrative structure to facilitate the involvement of more people in leadership.


A Coordinating Council was created in June of 1998, with the hope that supporting ministry teams and communication ambassadors would be developed to expand the capacity of the Council to hear and respond to the needs of the community and the call of the Gospel.


In February of 1999, an official complaint was filed against Leslie for signing as an officiant in abstentia of a holy union. March 3, 1999, when press coverage resulted in a holy union conducted by Leslie at the Community of Hope being aired on a television news program, rather than expend any further energy and money on a church trial, Leslie made the decision to withdraw from the United Methodist Church and apply to transfer her orders to the United Church of Christ. At that time, the Community of Hope began its own process of exploration and discernment regarding denominational affiliation. The Advisory Board agreed to act as the coordinating committee for the transitional process.


On May 23, 1999, at an Ecclesiastical Council at Fellowship Congregational Church in Tulsa, Leslie was extended privilege of call in the United Church of Christ and on September 11, 1999 the Community of Hope was accepted as an "Exploring Congregation" with the UCC. We were welcomed into full membership in the United Church of Christ in Dec of 2001 and are now involved at all levels of the denominations' life.
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