Pilgrim UCC celebrates 10 years of welcoming LGBT

Pilgrim United Church of Christ Celebration of 10 years as an Open and Affirming Congregation

10 a.m.-noon Oct. 3

AIDS Quilt display, Shower of Stoles Project display, wind-chimes making. Performance by the Common Woman Chorus. Guest speaker is Bishop Yvette Flunder.

Pilgrim UCC

3011 Academy Road, Durham

www.pilgrimucc-durham.org

BY DAWN BAUMGARTNER VAUGHAN

dvaughan@heraldsun.com; 419-6563

DURHAM -- Pilgrim United Church of Christ is an Open and Affirming congregation, which means they publicly welcome into the full life of the church people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

"Open and Affirming" is on the welcome sign, the front door and the Web site. It's just part of who the church is.

And has been for a decade now.

Ten years ago, some members of the church were concerned about how becoming an Open and Affirming congregation would affect them. The congregation overall was supportive, but there were a few reservations, said Dan Barco, a member for 25 years. UCC congregations are independent, so while the process was presented at the denominational level, churches choose for themselves whether or not to become Open and Affirming.

"As a congregation, the topic was unsettling for some," said Barco. "It's also painful to engage in conflict."

He was chairman of the deacon board when the church went through the process, which took about two years. First, the congregation had to agree they'd talk about it and educate themselves about the implication of becoming Open and Affirming. Then they undertook committees, educational sessions and more discussions involving what the Bible does and doesn't say about homosexuality. They hosted visits from people on various sides of the issue including PFLAG parents, other pastors and churches that went through the process already, and gays and lesbians who spoke about their experiences at church.

One person left Pilgrim, but later returned, Barco said. "Actually, we ended up with less impact than my fears at their worst," he said. As deacon chair, his job was to bring everybody together. Looking back, the move was positive, he said.

"It brought us in touch with our own feelings and what it means to be a Christian in today's society -- what it means to go beyond our comfort zone with people," Barco said. The result was beneficial to the congregation as a whole as well as individuals, he said.

At Saturday's annual LGBT Pride event at Duke University, Pilgrim UCC will have a booth, organize an ecumenical service and be part of the parade. The Rev. Carla Gregg, minister of Christian education at Pilgrim, said older, heterosexual church members have staffed the Pride booth. Everyone at the church participates, she said, not just those who are LGBT.

Before she worked at the church, she attended while a student at Duke Divinity School. She moved to Durham from Charlotte with her partner and looked for a UCC church that was Open and Affirming.

Pilgrim is the only one in Durham. Others in the Triangle are United Church of Chapel Hill, Hillsborough UCC, and Community UCC and Umstead Park UCC, both in Raleigh.

Gays and lesbians at the church have always been a part of leadership, Gregg said, such as serving in the choir, on boards and teaching Sunday school.

"They act just like every other member of the congregation," she said. A first time visitor was surprised when senior pastor Rev. Ginger Brasher-Cunningham said a prayer of celebration for a long-time lesbian couple.

"It's about just feeling comfortable," Gregg said. "Just being really inclusive in the full life of the congregation seems normal here," she said.

Pilgrim UCC will celebrate its 10th anniversary as an Open and Affirming congregation with a public event next week that includes an AIDS Quilt display. The church will host a time of food and fellowship, creation of wind chimes and display of Shower of Stoles from 10 a.m. to noon Oct. 3.

The Shower of Stoles Project is a collection of thousands of liturgical stoles representing the lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people of faith. Pilgrim will display 50 of the stoles. The church will also host a display of five pieces of the national AIDS Quilt in collaboration with Partners in Caring of Duke University pastoral services.

The Common Woman Chorus will perform, and the Rev. Yvette Flunder will speak. Flunder is pastor of City of Refuge UCC in San Francisco and directs Refuge Ministries, a response to the AIDS epidemic. Flunder also serves as bishop of the Fellowship, a trans-denominational fellowship of mostly African American clergy and laity from across the country and Africa.

Brasher-Cunningham will preach about the church's Open and Affirming status during the Oct. 4 worship service. She went through a church Open and Affirming process while living in Massachusetts. One reason she considered coming to Pilgrim UCC was that status. The issue of equality is important in the Christian faith and is not highlighted enough, she said.

One question that often comes up about Open and Affirming congregations, she said, is why make a public statement. "People need to know it's safe for people to come -- that it's safe, people are wanted and included," Brasher-Cunningham said.

Over the past decade, Brasher-Cunningham, who has been in the ministry for 20 years, said she has noticed that youth today have no issue at all. As each decade passes, it gets easier, she said.

"Each person is wonderfully and uniquely created in the image of God and worthy to be loved," she said. "The mandate of Jesus is to love one another."