“If you’ve ever been hurt by church, we want to offer healing through Love!”

Since 1985, the United Church of Christ (UCC) General Synod, has encouraged UCC congregations to “Declare Themselves Open and Affirming.” The UCC General Synod does not tell churches how to hire a pastor for example or that they have to be Open and Affirming (ONA); it is totally up to each congregation to make that decision. At present, there are more than 1800 ONA UCC churches. (See https://openandaffirming.org/about/history/ for more UCC ONA history.)

The Open and Affirming Coalition of the United Church of Christ, encourages, promotes and celebrates ONA Sunday every year in June. In 2024, that Sunday happens to be June 30. The coalition says ONA Sunday is a chance to celebrate and recommit to doing the hard work of intentionally unlearning our biases and working through our own issues to make sure we don't bring trauma and harm to the LGBTQ+ community. It is also important to publicly declare being an ONA congregation because, “LGBTQ+ people of faith often experience emotional and spiritual injury in churches that condemn their capacity to love and seek love. Because many have learned the hard way that ‘All Are Welcome’ usually doesn’t apply to them, LGBTQ+ folks can’t assume that every church will be safe for them and their families. (https://openandaffirming.org/ona/why/)

The UCC Open and Affirming Coalition states that, “All sacraments and rites of an ONA congregation are available to LGBTQ+ people, including baptism, confirmation, communion, and marriage. ONA churches take seriously the Bible’s admonition to ‘accept one another, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.’” (Romans 15:7, NIV)

Black Forest Community Church became an Open and Affirming Church of the United Church of Christ, in 2017.

The congregation and how we live into being an ONA church has changed in the past six years. Flags with rainbows and our messages of welcome are hung on the church walls inside and out; we participate in the Colorado Springs PrideFest Parade, we have signs on our doors and windows that declare we are a safe space for our LBGTQ+ community, our new outdoor sign has a rainbow on it, and we plan and hold classes teaching about pronouns, gender identity and more.

We have also learned through the years about the importance and significance of saying we are an open and affirming congregation instead of just being welcoming to all.

We are of course welcoming, after all, it says so on our welcoming/ONA statement and on our certificate. (Check out our statement: https://www.blackforestcommunitychurch.org/#new-page). Obviously, it is our desire and hope that we will be a church that is welcoming to everyone who walks through our doors; however, there is definitely a difference between the two.

In June 2023, we asked Reverend Candace Woods to talk to us about the difference of saying ONA instead of just welcoming. She said, “Churches like to say everyone is welcome, but very often that welcome comes with a lot of conditions and buts. The message is clear though that you're not good enough, you're going to have to get out of your loving relationship and you're expected to renounce your identity. That has been part of the history and that's why saying you're Open and Affirming is a deliberant stance that declares we are not going to just say that you're welcome here; we are saying we see you, we affirm you in your identities, we are going to officiate your weddings, we are going to baptize your children, we are willing to have conversations with you about pronouns, gender and sexuality. We are going to ordain you. We welcome you with no buts.” 

Reverend Woods said, “In a perfect world, we would be able to just say, everyone is welcome, but we don’t live in a perfect world, and there are historically excluded communities to which we have to say an intentional, yes. We intentionally say, this means you, you are God's beloved, we affirm you in all of your glory and goodness.”

BFCC is the only ONA church in Northern El Paso County, Colorado. We will continue to strive to live into our mission at BFCC which is to Serve God, With Our Whole Heart. Love, With No Exceptions, and Create Sanctuary, For All People, On Earth as it is in Heaven. And that means not only being welcoming to all, but also continuing to say every Sunday with conviction....” Welcome to Black Forest Community Church, an Open and Affirming Church of the United Church of Christ.” 

Why Being Open and Affirming Matters by Reverend Shelly Wilson

In the Pride parade this year, our church’s presence was kicked up a notch by our resident DJ, Levi Murray. Not only did he bring his superlative speaker system so that everyone on the parade route got the uplift of the familiar LGBTQIA+ anthems as our colorful trailer rolled by, but over the mic, he preached a little to the crowd, too. In a good way. The message rang and echoed off the buildings and swirled around the people: “If you’ve ever been hurt by church, we want to offer healing through Love!” Along with our joyful waving, flags, galloping stick unicorn, and social justice Barbies, his message of affirmation rang out and showed on the faces of the crowd. Shouts, dancing, waves, and thumbs up followed. In a world where a verbal welcome in a house of worship may be offered, but a tricky judgment may follow, an Open and Affirming Church can offer healing and new life for all of us! 

Theologically, it only makes sense. To affirm a creation and Creator filled with boundless variety and beauty is to affirm the beauty of a community’s diversity. If our theology teaches that the Spirit is unlimited, then we seek to overcome the limits of our own prejudices and binary thinking. When we understand God as trans*cendent, then we can look beyond the edges of our biases and approach one another with acceptance, active listening, and celebration of everyone’s gifts and graces.  It is a blessing and a joy to learn Love’s nuances and to be touched by all the gifts brought to the community. Love is Love.