2025 MLK
INTERFAITH SERVICE

SUNDAY, JANUARY 12, 2:30 PM
COMMUNITY CHRISTIAN CHURCH
4601 MAIN ST., KCMO 64112

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2025 MLK Inspired Conversations
Among Faiths & Friends

Rev. Shanna Steitz_Senior Pastor_Community Christian Church.jpg

Moderator: Rev. Shanna Steitz

Senior Pastor of Community Christian Church

Lora McDonald, a Christian and executive director of the Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity (known as MORE2, pronounced “More Squared”), described her journey from disbelief to compassion. As an undergraduate student pursuing social work in a prison, her work brought her face to face with peers in her community on the other side of the bars. What at first appeared to be circumstances born of action and consequence were instead symptoms of injustice inflicted all around her — oppression and prejudice masked as the norm.

Shrirang Khare, a lifelong Hindu, is Public Relations Chair of the Hindu Swayamsewak Sangh, Kansas Chapter, a Hindu American cultural, service and educational organization. He is a Senior Software Developer at UMB Bank. He represents the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center of Kansas City in this program.

Rabbi Talia Kaplan joins Senior Rabbi David M. Glickman and Hazzan Tahl Ben-Yehuda as a rabbi and spiritual leader at Congregational Beth Shalom. She completed rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, where she also earned an MA in Jewish Gender and Women’s Studies and a certificate in Pastoral Care and Counseling. Since moving to Johnson County, Rabbi Kaplan was appointed to the executive board of Good Faith Network. Rabbi Kaplan’s commitment and ability to meet people where they are — geographically, spiritually, intellectually, emotionally — is an impressive quality admired by many.

Ira Sirkar Harritt has served as the Sufi Faith Director with the GKC Interfaith Council since 2011. He has been a student of Sufism since 1976 and is an ordained minister, a Cherag, in the Sufi Universal Worship, and a leader of the Dances of Universal Peace. He served as the Kansas City program coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker-based peace and justice organization for 30 years and is a board member of the Abrahamic Reunion, which does interfaith dialogue and peacemaking work in Palestine and Israel.

Imam Sulaiman Z Salaam is a community leader and resident Imam of Al-Haqq Islamic Center of Kansas City, Missouri. He considers himself to be a follower of the Prophet Muhammad (G-d’s Peace be upon him), to whom the Holy book Quran was revealed; and a student of the late Imam W.D. Mohammed (G-d’s Peace be upon him also).

In the year 2001, Imam Salaam earned the honorary title of “El-Hajj” after completing the fifth pillar of the Islamic faith, which is “hajj” or pilgrimage to Mecca.