Paul Bass Photos
Congregation at Sunday’s inaugural Restoration Church service.
Co-founders Betty Lorde and Kim Jenkins.
In the front row of an historic church service, Kim Davis sang a hymn entitled “Holy, Holy, Holy,” not as an outcast, but as a deacon.
No one was an outcast at the service, which launched New Haven’s first African-American gay-and-lesbian-oriented congregation.
That was the point.
It was a miracle the roof remained in place at Betsy Ross School’s century-old restored former St. Peter’s parish hall, one of New Haven’s magical spaces, by the time Davis and more than 100 others finished singing, shouting praise, and dancing in the aisles Sunday.
A megawatt burst of joy and liberation filled the Kimberly Avenue hall for two and a half hours as Davis and other members of Restoration Church of Connecticut (RCC) held their inaugural worship service on Palm Sunday. A Peter Pan busload of parishioners from New York City’s six-year-old LGBTQ-friendly Restoration Church came to New Haven to join a dozen or so local deacons in launching the sister “progressive Presbyterian” congregation.
Overseer Yvonne M. Harrison delivers the homily.
Presiding over the event was both congregations’ founder and senior pastor, Overseer Yvonne M. Harrison, who came to the event accompanied by First Lady Tiffany A. Harrison.
Overseer Harrison delivered a full-throated sermon on “enlarging the tent.” Quoting Isaiah 54:2 — “enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations” — Harrison appealed to congregants to stretch the boundaries of their lives. And she spoke of the necessity of the church itself to stretch its own boundaries, to broaden its tent.
Which is the point behind RCC’s founding: to widen the tent to gays and lesbians who have felt unaccepted because of their sexuality.
Kim Jenkins in the front row.
Historically, church-loving African-Americans like Kim Jenkins haven’t felt that the church has loved them back because they’re gay.
Jenkins, who grew up in the Brookside public-housing development in New Haven’s West Rock neighborhood, loved attending her family’s Baptist church. But as she grew older she found its anti-gay message difficult to endure. She certainly didn’t feel comfortable being identified as a lesbian.
“You attend the church because it’s all you have,” said Jenkins, who is 52 years old and repairs trains for Metro-North railroad. “Then you feel uncomfortable.”
Pastor Leslie Esi leads the hall in rampart-shaking song.
By the time she reached her 30s, she stopped going. She missed it. Especially the music.
“You lose your connection to God,” she said. “You feel you don’t belong. They don’t want you there.”
From 2001 to 2008, Jenkins lived in Atlanta. There she found an “inclusive” black church that welcomed gays and lesbians. She loved it.
After she moved back to New Haven, she missed that church.
She met Betty Lorde, who attended an inclusive church in Bridgeport. Lorde, too, had discovered her first inclusive church when she moved to the Bible Belt, in Winston-Salem, N.C., and started looking for a similar home when she returned north.
Brian Jenkins hugs sister Kim Jenkins after presenting a proclamation to RCC from Mayor Toni Harp.
The Bridgeport church no longer exists. So Lorde and Jenkins (each of whom has had a romantic partner for the past year) worked on Overseer Harrison from New York’s RCC to help them start a New Haven branch.
Harrison visited a year ago to preach a service for gays and lesbians at Agape Christian Center on Goffe Street. It took a while, she said, but eventually she heeded the call to make the relationship permanent and launch RCC this Sunday.
Deacon Angele Wilkerson distributes a frond for Palm Sunday.
Randall Suah says a private prayer before joining the Tru Spirit Mime trio in performance at Sunday’s service.
Harrison had the reverse experience of Lorde’s and Jenkins’s: She came out as a lesbian after receiving her ordination in Texas and found “they didn’t accept me there,” she said. She found her inclusive church back north.
That was 17 years ago.
“The world is changing” fast since then, she said. Ten years ago she knew of fewer than 20 “inclusive” African-American churches in the country. Since then the phenomenon has exploded, with “over 100,” maybe 200 in operation, Harrison said.
Including one, now, in New Haven.
Asked why they showed up Sunday, worshipers gave variations of the same answer: “I get to be who I am.”
RCC plans to hold worship services at Elm City Phoenix Club, 56 Wallace St., every second, third, and fourth Sunday of the month at 3 p.m. (For more information, call 404 – 268-1387 or 203 – 953-4443.)
One suggestion, based on Sunday’s service: Bring your best singing voice. An open spirit.
Kendra Wallace greets Tisha Melvin.
And plenty of hugs.
Congratulations to Restoration Church of Connecticut. I do think the headline is a misleading. I have been a pastor of two New Haven churches and I know there are plenty of predominantly black churches that are LGBT friendly. My own denomination, The Episcopal Church, has a long history of welcoming LGBT people. I can think of at least one Episcopal church in New Haven that is predominantly African-American and welcomes LGBT people.
This is not to take anything away from RCC and all the wonderful work they are doing. I think it is a wonderful addition to the family of churches here in New Haven. I just want to make it clear that, in my experience, there are many churches here in New Haven that welcome LGBT people with open arms, and have for many years now. Some of these churches are predominately black and other churches are more diverse in their membership. I wish nothing but the best for RCC and their ministry here in the city of New Haven.
[Paul: Thanks for the comment! I struggled to find the right headline word to signal that this is a church oriented toward and led by gays and lesbians. I fear "friendly" might not have been the optimal way to express that. For now I've changed the word to "led" in the headline. Still doesn't tell the whole story -- but let's see what folks think!]