Beyond the Possible: 50 Years of Creating Radical Change in a Community Called Glide

In Beyond the Possible, Reverend Cecil Williams, one of the most well-known and provocative ministers in the United States, reflects on his fifty years creating radical social change as the head of San Francisco's Memorial Glide Church.

Williams' innovations, such as HIV testing during services, have drawn protest from more conservative factions within the Methodist Church, but his work in the community has drawn praise from the likes of Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and Warren Buffett.

Written with Glide Church founding pastor Janice Mirikitani, and with a foreword by Dave Eggers, Beyond the Possible is a book of wisdom, providing lessons that Reverend Williams has learned so that readers can learn to embrace their true selves, accept all those around them, and fully live day to day through social change as worship.

Love
Acceptance
Community

With admirers ranging from Harvey Milk and Huey Newton to Warren Buffett, Maya Angelou, and Dianne Feinstein, Glide Memorial Methodist Church in San Francisco has been inspiring, infuriating, welcoming, and changing the world for fifty years.

Now in Beyond the Possible, the two founders, Reverend Cecil Williams and Janice Mirikitani, show how Glide transformed a dwindling all-white congregation into a diverse and energetic community of the poor, the disenfranchised, the homeless, the addicted, the mentally ill, the newly immigrated, and the politically passionate.

A vivid storyteller, Cecil describes removing the trappings of conventional religion to make way for a new spirituality—one that embraces gay rights, jazz in the sanctuary, the antiwar movement, and Celebrations that fill the church to this day. In prose as gripping as her acclaimed poetry, Janice recalls starting out at Glide as a nonbeliever in the 1960s who found herself drawn to Cecil's vision for social justice.

Soon we see how Cecil's charismatic power, combined with Janice's organizing genius, created a model for wraparound health care, a million free meals a year, apartments for the homeless, and a stand-up pride that confronted police brutality, riots, racism, and institutional bigotry. And we discover that Glide's insistence on inviting rather than avoiding controversy has revolutionized approaches to drug addiction, racial conflict, and domestic violence.

Both a personal love story and a riveting view of American history, Beyond the Possible demonstrates what is truly possible for all of us. Here is Obamacare with a human face. Here is Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of "the beloved community" come to life at last. And here is a courageous couple facing impossible odds—and discovering the power of unconditional love time and time again.

“The Glide community with Cecil and Janice at the helm has been a beacon in San Francisco and something for which we can all be proud. And now they share their many stories and lessons of wisdom, courage and leadership through the years so we all can benefit. Thank the heavens for Cecil, Janice and Glide !” - Jeremy Affeldt

“During an era when people were boasting about the power of that little red book by chairman Mao Tse-tung, Rev. Cecil Williams took the Bible into the bars and the hangouts of some underground people and said read this little book, it will guide you to lead a fuller, blessed and a kinder life. Rev. Williams and his wife, the poet laureate Janice Mirkitani, welcomed the underground characters, criminals, prostitutes, drug dealers and everyone into the church. They said that Jesus Christ made wine out of water, and spoke to publicans and walked with sinners. Williams taught us Jesus came to bring us joy and bring it in abundance. As students and followers of Christ, it offered joy to all of us, to the pretty and plain, the rich and poor, the fat and thin, the gay and straight, and we accept it. We learned and we grew and I am one of one thousand to join tens of thousands to say thank you to Cecil and Jan.” - Joy! Maya Angelou

“It’s a radical Christ that Cecil Williams follows. Social justice is a next door neighbor to redemption, in Williams’ wisdom... no faith without actions is his doctrinal certitude. Glide is the only parish I know where you can get an HIV test during the service...and everyone, I mean EVERYONE is welcome as they are. If I lived closer, I’d go to church every day.” - Bono, co-founder of ONE and (RED)

“Cecil and Janice took a dying church and turned it into one of the most important social institutions that I’ve seen in this country.” - Warren Buffett

“Humor, courage, and conviction radiate through these stories…The authors’ persistent self-examination and honest recounting provide a generous, faithful window into Glide’s consequential ministry.” - Publishers Weekly

“Glide Memorial has been the soul of San Francisco and the model for what the church ought to be for more than 50 years and at its heart has been Cecil Williams. Cecil has always led the way when it comes to putting flesh and bones on the saying ‘God Loves you.’ He has shown the broken down nature of the conventional church and conventional church people even to the point of incarceration and threats to his own life while pointing us forever us in a different, real direction. Thankfully for all of us, he now shares his wisdom earned over a lifetime of saying and doing right against all odds. Blessed are we!” - Archbishop Desmond Tutu

“Glide is one of the few radically accepting places where true unconditional love is practiced like the most dogmatic of faiths.…Beyond the Possible is the perfect title for an inspiring portrait of transformative love and a model for a jubilant revolution.” - Sojourners