Our History

The first organizing efforts behind the Interfaith Council of Lake County began weeks before June 12, 2016, but it can be said that Interfaith Lake County, as it exists today, can credit its strong beginning to the community's reaction to the Pulse Nightclub Shooting in Orlando, Florida. Metropolitan Orlando is located adjacent to and just south of Lake County, Florida. While Orlando is a large city with a very diverse population, Lake County's population is composed mostly of rural areas and small towns. The population of Lake County is older than Orlando and predominantly white. Most of the people in Lake County are Christians with a few Jews and Muslims.

The incident that sparked the first organizing efforts behind Interfaith Lake County was local to Lake County and completely unrelated to the Pulse Nightclub tragedy. It occurred at a small Unity church in Leesburg, one of Lake County's 14 municipalities. The founder of Lake County Interfaith, Sandy Haxton, then Sandy Arnold, had apprenticed herself to a Unity minister in Leesburg, with the intention of becoming a Unity minister. However, after learning about an interfaith seminary in Manhattan that accepted online students, she applied for and was accepted into One Spirit Seminary.

In the Spring of 2016, before the Pulse Nightclub Shooting, and before Seminary was scheduled to begin in Manhattan, the Unity Church decided to sell its small church in Leesburg and move to Tavares, another Lake County municipality approximately 10 miles south of Leesburg. Tavares was considered to be a more prosperous area of the county, and it was believed by the Board of Trustees that the church would benefit by moving. The Board listed the church with a realtor. There was no serious interest from buyers until the realtor was approached by a group of Muslims, who wanted to turn the church into a mosque.

The idea that their church would be sold to Muslims created a serious reaction, not only in the congregation, but in the larger community. Rumors began circulating that Isis was starting a sleeper cell in Leesburg. There was also a rumor that some members of the congregation were approaching Leesburg city employees in zoning in an effort to stop the sale of the church. When the potential buyers made a counter-offer, the Board voted to not entertain any counter-offers from this group. The Minister and Ms. Arnold, also a member of the Board, began pressuring the Board to return to negotiations, reminding them of their fiscal responsibility to the church. They were also told that their discriminatory actions may give them some legal liability.

After a great deal of effort, the sale went through, and Ms. Arnold started organizing an interfaith group in the county. The organizing principle behind Interfaith Lake County was combating Islamaphobia. There had been an earlier interfaith organization in Lake County, but it was ecumenical in nature. Interfaith in that organization meant non-denominational Christian and Protestant. For guidance in how to start a true interfaith organization, Ms. Arnold needed to turn to the Interfaith Council of Central Florida in Orlando.

The Interfaith Council of Central Florida began over 20 years ago as the Council of Christians and Jews. The organization had become a truly interfaith movement, composed of Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, Muslims and Jews. Although there were other interfaith organizations in Florida, they, too, were ecumenical in nature. Primarily, they existed as charitable endeavors, running projects like food banks and shelters. The Interfaith Council of Central Florida was the first real interfaith organization in Florida.

The Interfaith Council of Central Florida was very helpful and generous with the first organizing efforts in Lake County. They put out a press release for the first meeting and they assisted with their contacts in the faith community in Lake County. The Bishop of Orlando, whose diocese included Lake County, was a strong supporter of the Interfaith Council of Central Florida. He encouraged the Catholic Priests in Lake County to attend this meeting. Then two months before the first organizing meeting was to be held, the Pulse Nightclub shooting occurred, and the meeting became a high priority in the press and within the local faith community.

At the first organizational meeting, held on August 7, 2016, the small community room in the new mosque was packed with faith leaders. Both local printed press and local cable TV covered the event. Muslims, two Catholic priests, the President of a Jewish synagogue, and several Protestant ministers of various denominations were present. A sign up sheet was passed around and from the names collected, an organizing committee was formed.

As Interfaith Lake County was forming, two other unrelated movements were occurring that affected the new organization. First, there was another interfaith group forming in The Villages, a prosperous retirement community just north of Lake County in Sumter County. It was being organized within the Catholic Church, and its purpose was to hold interfaith peace prayer services in local houses of worship. Ms. Arnold was encouraged to join that effort by the two Priests who attended this meeting. It was at an organizing meeting for this interfaith prayer service that Ms. Arnold met Imam Shady Alshorman, an Imam of a Muslim congregation in Clermont, the most southern and largest municipality in Lake County.

Imam Shady represented the Muslim faith at these prayer services being held in the Villages, and he was an enthusiastic supporter of interfaith peace prayer services. When he learned of Interfaith Lake County, he immediately became one of its co-founders. His mosque in Clermont became the address for Interfaith Lake County, and he sat on the Board of Directors of the organization as soon as it was formally organized as a Florida non-profit. As a member of the Board, Imam Shady was tireless in his efforts to have Interfaith Lake County duplicate the peace prayer services that were taking place in the Villages. He faithfully attended and participated in both organizations.

The interfaith peace prayer services held in the Villages were very successful and well attended. In the beginning, over 500 people would attend these services, held alternately between a Catholic Church and a Jewish synagogue. The population in the Villages was wealthier than the people of Lake County, but they were still as homogenous. They were mostly older and white. There were virtually no Muslims in the Villages, although there was a substantial Jewish population. Primarily, however, most residents of the Villages were Christian, either Catholic or Protestant. The Eastern religions of Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism were never represented in either of the interfaith organizations. There are no places of worship for these religions in either Lake County or the Villages and few followers.

The second movement that affected the newly forming Interfaith Council of Lake County was more diffuse and disorganized. A very vocal and active group of atheists were attending events held by the Interfaith Council of Central Florida in Orlando demanding that they be represented in that organization. That movement was enjoying widespread support among the members of Lake County's Unitarian Universalist Church. The more the Interfaith Council of Central Florida resisted the advances of the atheists, the more adamant Lake County's Unitarians were that this be addressed in the newly forming interfaith organization in their county.

Lake County's Unitarians actively participated in the early smaller organizational meetings. At a conclusive meeting held in the Unitarian's administrative offices, it was agreed that Lake County Interfaith would adopt the mission statement of the Interfaith Council of Central Florida, but would add that all non-theists and humanists would be accepted as members, along with members of every faith. Following these series of organizational meetings, a larger meeting was scheduled at a popular inn in Lake County to meet with the Interfaith Council of Central Florida. The purpose of that meeting was to decide Lake County's relationship with the Orlando group, and specifically whether or not Lake County Interfaith would become a subsidiary of the Orlando group. At that meeting, the issue of non-theists came up, along with a local newspaper article showing that an Imam from Lake County Interfaith spoke at a Black Lives Matter march in Tavares. Citing both, the Executive Director of the Orlando group emphatically stated that Lake County would remain a separate organization. He mentioned his concern that Lake County might damage the brand that the Interfaith Council of Central Florida had so carefully developed over the last 20 years.

The Unitarians considered that meeting to be a clear victory, and subsequently all but dropped out of Lake County Interfaith. Simply because an atheist is invited to attend a prayer meeting in a house of worship does not mean that they desire to attend one. Furthermore, to date, there have been no efforts on Lake County Interfaith's  part to organize any events that would cater to non-theists or humanists.

Throughout this time, however, Imam Shady was relentlessly advocating that the newly formed Lake County Interfaith duplicate the very popular and highly successful interfaith peace prayer services being held in the Villages. Both Imam Shady and Sandy Arnold continued to participate and be involved in those services. Ms. Arnold's early efforts to find a house of worship in Lake County large enough to hold an anticipated 500 people attending was rebuffed. The ministers from both the Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church refused to meet with her, as did the minister of a large non-denominational Christian church. The Presbyterian Church's minister told her that an interfaith prayer service would be counter to their message to the people of Lake County that Jesus was the only way. The Catholic Church was undergoing renovation and could not host the prayer service. The Catholic Priest confided that he, too, was anticipating difficulties with Leesburg's zoning department. That department had held up zoning permits for the Catholic Church in the past at the urging of members of the Baptist community. Both the Baptist Church and the Catholic Church in Leesburg sponsored private faith-based schools in their buildings, and these schools were rivals.

After the first year of formal organization, Imam Shady was successful in his attempts to have Interfaith Lake County sponsor a peace prayer service that duplicated the ones held in the Villages. The Catholic Church in Leesburg had completed its renovation and had a large, new sanctuary, as well as a communal meeting area with tables and chairs for fellowship after the service. To date, Lake County Interfaith has sponsored three such prayer services, two in the Catholic Church in Leesburg and one in the Lutheran Church in Clermont. It was decided to hold two such prayer services annually, one in each location. Lake County Interfaith has not yet been able to attract the numbers that the Villages enjoyed in their first services. However, the peace prayer services in the Villages are no longer occurring. By importing those prayer services to Lake County, Imam Shady has guaranteed their continuation.

In addition to the question of venue, there were other factors impacting Imam Shady's efforts. There was a question being debated among Board members as to the direction that Lake County Interfaith would take. Would Lake County Interfaith attempt to grow into a large organization or would it remain small? Ms. Arnold's attempts at the first formal Board meeting to have the Board undertake a strategic planning process was rebuffed. The Board felt it was too early to undertake that type of an effort, and that the organization was too small to do so. Some Board members questioned whether the organization should be accepting membership dues, and whether it should have filed with the State of Florida for non-profit status. The decision to file for Florida non-profit status was made prior to the first Board meeting. Any discussion of filing for 501(c)3 status with the Internal Revenue Service was indefinitely tabled. In order to sponsor an event as ambitious as a peace prayer service with the potential of drawing 500 people, the organization would have to decide that it would grow into that capacity.

The decision whether to remain small or to grow was resolved with the formation of the Education Committee of the Interfaith Council of Lake County. The Education Committee was formed by another co-founder and Board member, Dennis Wick. Mr. Wick, while not a member of the clergy, was a lifelong devoted Lutheran. When the decision to hold peace prayer services was eventually made, it was Mr. Wick's Lutheran Church in Clermont that hosted one of the services.

Mr. Wick had a vision for the Education Committee. He saw the Committee holding educational forums that would be hosted by different houses of worship throughout Lake County. Mr. Wick envisioned that those forums would be fashioned after a very popular radio show on Orlando's public radio entitled the Three Wise Guys. The Three Wise Guys was connected to the Interfaith Council of Central Florida. The format of that radio show was to have a permanent panel of a Rabbi, an Imam and a Minister. The panel would interview people and would discuss the relevant topics of the time. Mr. Wick wanted to fashion such a panel in Lake County, although the participants would vary, allowing the hosting house of worship an opportunity to put their spiritual leader on the panel, and preventing any one spiritual leader from being overworked. It would not matter the size of the congregation. Sooner or later, Mr. Wick believed that most people of faith in Lake County would have heard of or would have attended one of these forums.

Imam Shady immediately embraced this concept. He became as enthusiastic a member of the Education Committee as he had been a member of the Villages Peace Prayer Service Committee. Whether the venue was large or small, Imam Shady fervently believed in education as the means of bringing about religious tolerance and unity. Since all of the religions represented by Interfaith Lake County were Abrahamic religions, all of the sacred texts presented, the Torah, the Gospels and the Koran, were strikingly similar. More importantly, all of the member religions worshipped the same God. Imam Shady hosted several of these educational forums in his own mosque, and many were well attended by Muslims, Christians and Jews.

Because of the good will among the members of Interfaith Lake County, these prayer meetings and educational forums were notably non-controversial. An exception was a forum held at the Mosque with the topic "Who is Abraham in your faith?" On the panel was Imam Shady, along with a Christian minister, a Jewish spiritual leader and a member of the Baha'i faith. All religions represented were Abrahamic in origin, but the results were surprising, and may have illuminated one of the deep rooted causes of conflict in the Middle East.

The leader of the Baha'i religion was an American with no middle eastern connection, and who furthermore was a second generation Baha'i. She did not appear to know that the Baha'i religion was an outgrowth of Islam or that the founder of the religion claimed to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed. Instead, she insisted that the Baha'i connection to Abraham was through a third wife, who was unknown to most of the attendees at the Forum. The Protestant Christian minister, a retired Lutheran, stated that there was a very tenuous connection between Abraham and Christianity since the birth of Jesus Christ. The minister stated that Jesus' teachings were ascendant in Christianity.

However, Abraham was extremely vital to both Islam and Judaism. At question in both religions was which son Abraham intended to sacrifice, Sarah's son or Hagar's son? Another question was whether Hagar was a first wife or a mistress? The significance of those questions was to which peoples did God make his promise once the child was spared from sacrifice? The Muslims believed that their line came from the union of Hagar and Abraham and that Ishmael was the son to be sacrificed. Therefore, God's promise was to the Muslims. The Jews believed that the son to be sacrificed was Isaac and that they were the recipients of God's promise. It was the first time in the organization's history that there was any real religious debate, and yet the entire forum was well conducted and respectful, largely a testament to Imam Shady and his own thoughtful and respectful demeanor.

For the first two years that Interfaith Lake County was formally organized, the educational forums and the peace prayer services comprised most of the work of the organization. It was the beginning of the third year that a new conflict emerged, one that is only now resolving. By the beginning of the third year, Ms. Arnold had been ordained as an interfaith/interspiritual minister and had remarried. She was now Rev. Sandy Haxton. She had a much more global understanding of interfaith through not only her education at One Spirit Seminary, but as a result of her attendance at the World Parliament of Religions held in Toronto. She was finding herself being drawn to the work of Rev. William Barber and the Poor People's Campaign, as well as the social justice action orientation she was seeing in other interfaith organizations worldwide. At the World Parliament, she attended a workshop on social action held by several Canadian interfaith organizations, and attended by members of other interfaith organizations around the world.

More and more, at Board meetings and in private conversations with Board members, Sandy was calling for a social justice action component to Interfaith Lake County. The resistance she faced was both forceful and immediate. Her refrain, "Words without action are meaningless," became an affront to several members of the Board. She seemed to be negating all of the work they had done to date. Imam Shady at first believed that she was encouraging the sort of rebellion he had seen in his birthplace in Jordan. Among several board members, she was perceived as being divisive and too radical for the people of Lake County. Some board members told her of their fear that she was going to bring about the end of the organization.

Over a period of months, however, a gradual shift took place on the Board. The minister of the Lutheran Church where a peace prayer service was held bemoaned the fact that although the topic of the prayer service was homelessness, no action was being taken. He pointed to the oft-maligned phrase, "Our thoughts and prayers are with you," as being representative of our work. The Board member who attended that church was standing close by to take the rebuke. Then, Sandy called for a special Board meeting to discuss the future of the organization. At that meeting, she invited a new statewide interfaith organization called Florida Faith in Action. The representatives of that organization who attended the meeting were eloquent in their call for action. Following that meeting, there was a consensus that the Board would add a call to action to their educational forums and prayer services.

The first opportunity to put their new resolution to work came quickly. The Lake County Historical Society was moving to acquire a confederate statue to be placed outside of a government building. Prior to this attempt, there were no confederate statues in Lake County. In fact, Lake County was not incorporated until after the Civil War. This particular confederate general had never stepped foot in the county, nor is he associated in any way with Lake County. However, Lake County does have a very well publicized and violent history of racism.

The county received national notoriety with the publication of the Pulitzer Prize winning book, Devil in the Grove, Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America. The book documents the arrest of four young black men in the 1950's by the racist sheriff, Willie McCall, for the alleged rape of a white woman. One of the four fled and was killed. The other three were beaten by McCall to force confessions and were convicted. Thurgood Marshall was then a young lawyer for the NAACP. He came to Lake County to appeal their conviction. While awaiting a new trial, Sheriff McCall shot two of the three survivors, murdering one of them, claiming that they were trying to escape. The location of where the young men were incarcerated, beaten and tortured is where the Lake County Historical Society wants to put the confederate statue.

A local African-American minister is leading the campaign to stop the statue from coming to Lake County. The Board of Interfaith Lake County voted to support him in his action. Members of the Board, including Imam Shady, met with this minister. A march is scheduled to take place in August. Interfaith Lake County has requested that a young Muslim woman, and a new member of their Board, speak on behalf of the organization.

The next peace prayer service is being organized to take place in October of this year. The Peace Prayer Service Committee has held their first organizational meeting. They have chosen immigration as their topic and will be formulating a call to action that will follow the service. Additionally, a committee is being formed to work with the Homeless Coalition to raise money and awareness for the plight of the homeless in Lake County.

How successful Interfaith Lake County will be in melding education and prayer with social action remains to be seen, but it is an exciting new era for the organization.