ABOUT US | Greater Lowell Interfaith Leadership Alliance (Glila)

The Greater Lowell Interfaith Leadership Alliance (GLILA) was birthed in the late 1990s out of two previous groups, the first one a Christian clergy association which evolved into a second, an Interfaith clergy association. The goal was to become a more inclusive organization and broaden our membership to include leaders, whether ordained or not, who saw themselves as leaders or desired to become leaders in any of the faith groups represented in the greater Lowell area. While the precise date of its founding is unclear, its original mission statement was adopted on 9/9/99.

For over 20 years, GLILA has been a force for INCLUSION, both regarding faith groups and for those in our community who are marginalized and often branded as “other”, whether because of race, ethnicity or socio-economic status. To grow ”inclusion”, we have reached both outwardly into the community and inwardly in nourishing our minds and spirits.

INCLUSION through COMMUNITY OUTREACH:

The outward thrust of GLILA has often been organized around our two annual events: an annual THANKSGIVING SERVICE in the fall and a service against genocide/violence or helping facilitate our aspiration to love our “neighbor” in the spring. The Thanksgiving service has continued a long tradition started by the Lowell Conference of Churches in 1986. Each year, we have woven together strands from major faith traditions in song and readings and invited the community to join in honoring our common humanity and need to “give thanks”.

We have met either outside at City Hall Plaza in downtown Lowell or in houses of worship throughout greater Lowell and often included some simple and delicious foods, representing different ethnic groups. We have met in Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim and Sufi houses of worship. Themes for our services have included “Ways of Praise”, “Streams of Gratitude” and lifting up in each of four years, the themes of water, fire, earth and air. Further included in these gatherings has been a community outreach project, such as preparing warm scarves to distribute to those in need or collecting non-perishable food items for local food pantries.

The SPRING SERVICES, starting later around 2010, have focused on PEACE BUILDING and began as services of healing with an educational effort to raise consciousnesses about genocides, where we first looked at the holocaust and in succeeding years the genocides in Armenia, Cambodia and Rwanda. We have since used the same format to consider a world without violence, the welcoming of refugees, how to embrace difference, and overcoming obstacles to "true meeting”. Again we have invited the community to join in and provided time for relationship building and enjoying a light supper together.

Just as GLILA has attempted to embrace the many colors of our faith traditions, we have also sought inclusion in wrestling with various community issues. At different times in our history, we have emphasized the issues of homelessness, immigrant justice and a “Stop Hate - Stand for Respect and Hope” rally in downtown Lowell (early 2000s) and the “Hate Has No Home Here” campaign (2015 to present). For many years, we have tried to support the good work of Habitat for Humanity and have volunteered several times at “builds”, one particularly meaningful and moving one two days after 9/11!

As Lowell became more ethnically diverse, it came into our attention in 2006 from GLILA members attending City Council meetings, that the council began every meeting with the Christian “Lord’s Prayer”, what Catholics refer to as the “Our Father”. This offended our mission to welcome and include persons of all faiths in our fair city; we felt a specifically Christian prayer left everyone else out in the cold. It became clear that a Christian prayer was not representative of our community and that it subtly privileges the predominant faith group, excluding others. As a committed interfaith organization, we felt we had to take this issue on and advocate for a change. This became a yearlong effort to educate the council about our concern, engage the city’s legal department (that eventually sided with us that the prayer needed to change), and then to come up with an alternative, which was eventually passed in May 2007 and has been used ever since. While a number of us spoke in support of this measure before the City Council, we were grateful for the leadership the late Rachelle Comtois and to Sr. Pauline Leblanc in this endeavor.

BUILDING INCLUSION through INREACH:

Meeting monthly on the first Thursdays, GLILA has sought to build a welcoming and nurturing community through SPIRITUAL and INTELLECTUAL NOURISHMENT, where we take turns learning about one another’s faith traditions, share in various spiritual practices to deepen our experiential awareness, and also explore the moral implications of one another’s faiths. We frequently have monthly book groups to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of our faith traditions as well. For several years, a group met to study the book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible.

We also invite leaders from community groups to help us learn more about important issues facing us here - such as racism, immigration, homelessness, violence - and occasionally include a look at international social justice issues through engagement with the Greeley Peace Scholars who come to UMass Lowell on an annual basis.

Through it all, GLILA seeks to be a caring community where we affirm one another’s goodness and support and pray for one another’s needs, CELEBRATING important milestones, like Margaret Frisch Klein’s ordination to the rabbinate; BLESSING important life changes, such as the retirement of long-time members, Revs Gordon White and Larry Zimmerman; and GRIEVING those who have died, such as our dear Rachelle Comtois.

GRATITUDE:

We are grateful for the many leaders we have had, especially our Presidents.

Fr John Cox, OMI - St Joseph the Worker Shrine
Margaret Frisch Klein - Temple Emanuel of the Merrimack Valley
Dr Stephen Fisher - Healing Springs Counseling
Rev Ginny McDaniel - Christ Church United, Lowell
Farook Taufiq - Islamic Society of Greater Lowell & Tej Tanden - Om Temple
Rev Dr Jean Wright - American Baptist Missionary Society
Rabbi Dawn Rose - Temple Emanuel of the Merrimack Valley
Rev Imogene Stulken - Protestant Campus Ministry, UMass Lowell
Jeff Hillam - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

We are also deeply thankful for Sr Pauline Leblanc, SCO’s 14 years of devoted service as our scribe extraordinaire, our Secretary (2005-2019).