Thanks to that welcome, a small, committed gay and lesbian community has grown at St. Philip’s. Recently, with the support of the vestry and the Diocese of New York, the church became the host for Epiphany, the first Episcopal group for black Christian gays and lesbians. The church’s leaders hope they can deepen the welcome to the LGBT community, drawing gay and lesbian people into parish leadership and encouraging members used to fighting for black civil rights to demonstrate the same passionate concern for their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters—and children. The next frontier for St. Philip’s: keep moving on LGBT welcome while building greater relationship with the poor community that now dominates their corner of sweet Harlem.
I think the cross over our altar says it all. You can’t tell if Jesus is being crucified, if he’s ascending or descending. What’s clear is that his arms are outstretched to embrace us all.
JOHN YORK, ST. BARTHOLOMEWS-ATLANTA
Tucked away in the land of blooming dogwoods, St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta, Georgia, is like a radically welcoming oasis. It bears all the marks of a healthy, suburban Atlanta parish—multi-building campus, more than 700 members on an average Sunday, thriving children’s programs—and one mark you might not expect: the first out gay rector called in the Diocese of Atlanta. That move took a lot of guts. It also took plenty of preparation; the community’s leaders had to carve out appropriate spaces for questions, storytelling, healing, venting, and even healthy departure before and after William “Mac” Thigpen’s arrival.
For years, St. Bart’s has made its mark by connecting with the people other churches might not, first creating a nightly shelter for homeless families in their own parish hall and then welcoming young adults tied to the nearby Emory University community for worship and leadership. Whatever they do, lay leader John York told me, they try to imagine how it speaks a fresh, liberating word about God. “We have this opportunity to say, ‘Not all churches are like the one you grew up in,’” said York, a Texan transplant who grew up Southern Baptist. “I think the cross over our altar says it all. You can’t tell if Jesus is being crucified, if he’s ascending or descending. What’s clear is that his arms are outstretched to embrace us all.”
The next frontier for St. Bart’s: extending the welcome and keeping people of color and people without the economic privilege most members take for granted.
Some of us were reluctant to open to the neighborhood. We worried about stealing. We needed to go through some change to become a place that wasn’t afraid of having “them” around.
NANCY CLAYPOOL, ST. PAUL’S-DULUTH
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Duluth, Minnesota, was once known by neighbors as “the fortress.” Duluth’s class stratifications run deep, and for most of the church’s history, a spot on St. Paul’s rolls went right along with a country club membership. Then the money drifted further east. Now St. Paul’s sits in one of America’s largest poor, white communities, with increasing numbers of people of color only adding to the complex mix.
St. Paul’s tried running from their neighborhood, usually preferring to “do for” their less privileged neighbors. The tide and the church’s attitude have turned decisively during the last decade. But they did more than open their doors to the poorer and more ethnically diverse neighborhood. They opened the doors and listened. Then they set up or revamped their own ministries according to what they heard. Slowly, this historically white and wealthy church has opened its lovely, historic building in order to house homegrown social ministries and provide ample meeting space to a variety of secular community social services. As long-time parishioner Nancy Claypool admitted, “Some of us were reluctant to open to the neighborhood. We worried about stealing. We needed to go through some change to become a place that wasn’t afraid of having ‘them’ around.”
Now the parish is building unprecedented new relationships with its community, tearing down the walls so that neighborhood children and their parents can adopt the church as their own. They have vibrant ministries with young adults and are even taking steps to break through midwestern cultural silence regarding the presence of gay and lesbian people. The next frontier for St. Paul’s: seeing to it that the poor children and families streaming inside during the week for various community ministries are welcomed as a consistent, empowered presence in the Sunday worship community.
Please, preach in Spanish and then offer the English translation. It compels me to pick up a new language because I want to make friends with all these other people around me.
DANIEL MOGBO, HOLY FAITH-INGLEWOOD
Over the years, Holy Faith Episcopal Church in Inglewood, California, has bent and stretched to accommodate its Los Angeles–area community. When Holy Faith was founded in 1911, the church was just like its community: white, reserved and wealthy. In the 1960s, blacks swept into Inglewood and whites swept out of the neighborhood and, at a slower pace, out of the church. It took another two decades, but by the early 1990s, Holy Faith was half white and half black. Within a decade, Nigerians and Latinos arrived and made their mark, turning an integrated parish into a multicultural one.
With every change, members have struggled visibly with racism and classism in order to incorporate the leadership, liturgical sensibilities and voices of the new community. Now they are learning how tough it is to keep performing the balancing act and to become a strong community (and not just several cultural groups that call the same building home). “The best times are when there’s a combined service,” Nigerian lay leader Daniel Mogbo told me. “I hope we do that more often. Please, preach in Spanish and then offer the English translation. It compels me to pick up a new language because I want to make friends with all these other people around me.” Mogbo said they have to keep pushing, keep engaging other cultures and opening more fully to the discomfort of doing or hearing something new in the liturgy and leadership.
That’s what they got when they called Altagracia Perez as their new rector. The first woman called to the post, Perez is Puerto Rican and black and fully bilingual. Her leadership is far from conventional, by design. “I try to bring a different set of questions. Not just how do we get more people, but how do we share power, how do you create a culture that is flexible and fluid enough to be open, constantly evaluating and reorganizing based on the reality around you.” They will need those skills for the next frontier: welcoming the different socioeconomic backgrounds and cultures of their ever-evolving neighborhood.
One of the largest, most visible, progressive Episcopal churches in the country, All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, hasn’t traveled an easy road toward radical welcome. On the surface, it looks simple. During the Vietnam War, All Saints served as a center for the faith-based peace movement. Throughout the more recent gay and lesbian liberation struggle, they have become a powerful voice urging the church to move from fear to hope. Many congregations look to them for direction on how to step out on social issues while growing in numbers and financial health. What they could never face was the race divide.
We’ve put so much energy into same-sex blessings and welcoming GLBT people, so now the boundaries are a little more permeable for everyone.
STEPHEN CHENEY-RICE, ALL SAINTS-PASADENA
Until now. Over the last few years, they’ve worked to build passion for the genuine inclusion of people of color, and to confront and transform systemic racism and classism throughout the congregation’s many sub-communities. According to lay leader Stephen Cheney-Rice, that’s the hardest work of all. “We’ve put so much energy into same-sex blessings and welcoming GLBT people, so now the boundaries are a little more permeable for everyone,” he said. “Still, at base, people don’t want to give up the goodies. There’s still an uncomfortable feeling when they talk about race or class.” Leaders have taken some bold, even controversial moves in order to jumpstart change at All Saints, and those efforts are finally bearing real fruit. The next frontier for All Saints: continue spreading the critical consciousness within the congregation and building