Tom Oloughlin clapped only twice in his life in the Episcopal church of his childhood; he didn’t feel included. Sunday he clapped to his heart’s content as New Haven’s first LGBT congregation moved into a new home.
The congregation, Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), now in its 32nd year, held its first service Sunday morning at its new home in the United Church on the Green Parish House on Temple Street.
The MCC had another reason to celebrate Sunday. Its former landlord, the (Methodist) United Church of Westville, over the last year had prohibited the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered) congregation from performing same-sex unions on its premises. At the church’s new home, that will no longer be a problem.
Plus, there’s more space, a great kitchen, $200 cheaper monthly rent.
An engineer from Milford, Oloughlin (pictured above) was the coordinator of the relocation. He said that congregation moved mainly because it was cramped and sharing the Harrison Street space in Westville with two other congregations.
“We had use of the sanctuary on Sunday morning for 75 minutes, after which we had to get out,” said MCC pastor Marilyn Bowens.
But that was clearly not the only pressure on MCC’s 50-member congregation.
“We had been informed by the [Methodist Church’s new] superintendent that we could not perform same-sex marriage. We needed a new home.”
Enter John Gage, the pastor of the United Church on the Green, which also has a mission of outreach to the gay community. He and Bowens (pictured at the top of this story) had met at a conference in October affirming the church’s 20-year-old open and affirmiing policy of the United Church of Christ. The two hit it off.
You might think that a church with a gay mission on Temple Street already would hesitate to welcome competition 100 yards away and in its own parish building. But that was not the case.
There’s more than enough need and “more than enough of God’s spirit to go around,” said Gage.
Now the MCC-ers don’t have to watch the clock. They can be in the space every Sunday until 2:30. There’s a good-sized kitchen, where the coffee essential to fellowship can be brewed. There’s also a choir rehearsal room where New Haven Police Department Officer Jeannette Miles (on the right in the photo) and the rest of the on-fire MCC chorus can prepare.
Miles called the occasion joyful. Like Oloughlin, she’s a longtime member.
While for him MCC is like family, for Miles there’s the additional benefit of the MCC network of other churches. Its umbrella organization, the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, was founded 42 years ago in L.A. It now has houses of worship across the country and the world.
When she travels or goes on vacation, Miles connects with other MCC churches. “I don’t have to worry about being unwelcomed,” she said.
Sunday morning’s opening hymn, “A Brand New Day,” in which contralto Miles and a dozen other congregants sang, brought the MCC’s new house down — or rather up, up, and up.
For more information about MCC’s services and program, click here.
Awesome! I am proud to live in CT and in New Haven.