A culture of giving back: Opening faith’s door to inclusion
Posted on December 19, 2016
My church, Trinity United Methodist Church in Springfield, is very important to me and my family. I am especially active in the youth fellowship, leading a youth service several times throughout the year and helping with the youth groups.
My proudest moment at Trinity was when we voted to become a Reconciling Congregation. The Methodist Discipline has language that is excludes gays and lesbians. Methodist ministers who perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples can face discipline, up to and including being defrocked. The Reconciling Ministries Network has been working to remove that language from the Discipline and to help Methodist churches become more open and inclusive, to truly live up to our promise of “open minds, open hearts, open doors.” A few years ago, I helped lead a workgroup to gauge our congregation’s feelings on the topic, offer educational resources to people with questions, and discuss what becoming a Reconciling Congregation would mean to our church. After about a year of prayer and discernment, our congregation voted unanimously to become a Reconciling Congregation.
This year, the New England conference passed a resolution to “not conform or comply with provisions of the discipline that discriminated against individuals who are LGBTQ.” At this time, there are over 800 Reconciling Congregations or communities throughout the U.S. (and one in the Philippines). On Sunday, my church proudly displays a rainbow banner next to our welcome banner to let people know that we truly do have “open minds, open hearts, open doors.”
-Nicole B.
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I love this church and very proud to have been a member when we took our faith to the next level!
Thanks to Nicole’s leadership and involvement, the “walls” of Trinity have expanded considerably! She is a wonderful team builder, a visionary thinker, and a hard worker.