Wendy Stuart Kaplan and Steven Bloomer-Teague will be hosting TriVersity Talk this Thursday at 7 PM ET with featured guest pastor John E. Griffin-Atil.
TriVersity Talk! is a weekly web series with featured guests discussing their lives, activism and pressing issues in the LGBTQ Community. With TriVersity Talk!, the goal is to laugh and learn.
TriVersity Talk! Is part of TriVersity’s ICARE Initiative. ICARE stands for Increasing Community Awareness through Relevant Education. ICARE Programs are generously funded by The Greater Pike Community Foundation.
LIVE on Thursday, July 1st at 7 pm EDT, ‘TriVersity Talk!’ welcomes Pastor John E. Griffin-Atil! As part of their ongoing spiritual exploration series, Wendy and Steven look forward to learning more from John about his spiritual journey as well as his work with the Imperial Beach Neighborhood Center, his family life, and living openly with HIV/AIDS.
More on John: John E. Griffin-Atil, age 57, born in Kansas and raised on a family wheat and cattle farm. Graduating Kansas Wesleyan University in 1986, he earned a degree in Religion and Philosophy with a minor in Speech and Drama. During those four years in college, he served a rural United Methodist Church as a student local pastor. Moving to Southern California, he completed seminary at Claremont School of Theology in 1990 and was ordained in the California-Pacific Conference of The United Methodist Church serving churches in Long Beach, Huntington Beach, Imperial Beach, West Hollywood, Lakewood and in 2013 was reappointed back to Imperial Beach. In 2018, he negotiated the closure of church in Imperial Beach and the creation of a new nonprofit, Imperial Beach Neighborhood Center that has no members, but a commitment to the larger community and primarily serves those experiencing food insecurity and homelessness. He serves as its Executive Director. John and his husband, Jose were married in 2016, though together since 2005. In 2009, they adopted their son, Stephen who today is fifteen years old. Beyond being openly gay, John is transparent about his AIDS diagnosis from 1998. John is a member of the Lay Cistercian Group associated with the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky and associated with the Yokoji Zen Mountain Center in southern California. Their family also includes three pugs and a cat.
Watch John E. Griffin-Atil on TriVersity Talk! Live on Thursday at 7 PM ET on Youtube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcZNvuswq20
Or on the TriVersity Talk! Facebook page here:
https://www.facebook.com/75258021683/posts/10159326853281684/
The official website for the TriVersity Center may be found at: https://www.triversitycenter.org