Vote to Expand Non-Profit Caps 17-Year Conversation
See the Jan. 17, 2023 Cape Gazette article
Rehoboth Beach— January 11, 2023 — Representatives from the eleven member churches of the Lewes Rehoboth Association of Churches (LRAC) voted on January 10 to affirm a Board recommendation to expand the membership of the 40-year helping organization to include faith communities other than Christian churches. The 11-1 vote changed the name to Lewes-Rehoboth Association of Congregations, defining it as an “interfaith organization composed of people of faith who have come together to love God and neighbor.” The decision caps a 17-year conversation and opens LRAC membership to “all congregations in the Cape Henlopen school district area who share a passion to live out their faith in God by caring for our neighbors in need.”
LRAC representatives last considered expanding from an ecumenical an interfaith organization in May 2018, voting 23-14 to limit membership to Christian churches. Twelve years earlier, LRAC members representatives had considered and rejected a proposal to include non-Christian faith groups as members while “official worship services coordinated by the Association will reflect the theological basis of the World Council of Churches.” As a result, Rabbi Beth Cohen, of Seaside Jewish Community, started the Cape Henlopen Progressive Interfaith Alliance in 2014, welcoming several LRAC members.
LRAC Board President Rev. Dr. Bo Gordy-Stith expressed his appreciation for the members past and present who worked to draw the circle of God’s love and service wider. “Our welcome of ministry partners of different faiths flows naturally from following Jesus’s way of expanding our comprehension of the boundaries of God’s love. Throughout this months-long conversation about inclusion, we were guided and goaded by Jesus who taught ‘whoever is not against us is for us’ and ‘I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.’”
Father Brian Lewis, pastor of St. Jude’s Roman Catholic parish, and Father William Cocco, pastor of St. Edmund Roman Catholic parish, communicated word of their disaffiliation from LRAC by email to Rev. Dr. Gordy-Stith the day after the vote.
Eleven area churches formed LRAC in 1983 as an expression of Christian unity and understanding in “two basic categories” of (1) worship and of (2) “united action and sharing of resources for human services.” Gordy-Stith, who serves as Epworth United Methodist Church’s Pastor of Community and Communications, celebrates the vote as a recognition that “our worship is our service to others.” Representatives from five of those charter churches participated in the January 10 vote. A clothing closet in one of those churches expanded into the New Life Thrift Shop, on Coastal Highway, with annual sales of over a million dollars, thanks to the management of Andrea Caswell and dedication of over 125 volunteers and countless contributors.
The LRAC Board of Directors grants money generated by the New Life Thrift Shop to over a dozen helping organizations in Lewes and Rehoboth Beach. LRAC’s primary ministry partner is the Community Resource Center (CRC), started by the group of churches in 1985 as the Lend-a-Hand outreach program. In 2011, they renamed this helping ministry the Community Resource Center and moved in into a building on Oyster Road owned by Faith United Methodist, a member church, and renovated by 75 LRAC volunteers. Today, CRC is run by Executive Director Jo Allegro-Smith and governed by a separate Board of Directors. LRAC provides the building for CRC operations and most of its annual income.
The President of the CRC Board of Directors, Rabbi Beth Cohen, Rabbi emeritus of Seaside Jewish Community, will now be able to officially be a part of an organization for which she and her congregants have for many years volunteered and helped lead. LRAC has always welcomed volunteers and provided grants and help to all persons, regardless of religious affiliation. From now on, that welcome extends to faith groups sharing a love for God and neighbor who wish to join the Lewes Rehoboth Association of Congregations.
• The Episcopal Parish of All Saints’ Church & St. George’s Chapel
• Bethel United Methodist Church
• Coolspring Presbyterian Church
• Epworth United Methodist Church
• Faith & Israel United Methodist Charge
• The Lutheran Church of Our Savior
• Metropolitan Community Church of Rehoboth Beach
• St. Edmond Roman Catholic Church
• St. Jude the Apostle Catholic Church
• St. Peter’s Episcopal Church
• Westminster Presbyterian Church
LRAC Point of Contact:
Rev. Dr. Bo Gordy-Stith
Pastor of Community and Communications at Epworth UMC and
President, LRAC Board of Directors
Cell: 302-373-5143
Email: Bgordy-stith@epworth.faith