Just in time for Pride Month, our congregation met for the Annual Meeting and voted on the long-awaited Welcoming Congregation Designation. After eight months of discussions and educational events led by the Welcoming Congregation Committee, the motion to authorize an application to UUA was approved in a resounding majority vote.

The application is currently underway, and we hope to have a response before the end of the month. Once our congregation is recognized as a Welcoming Congregation, the UUA LGBTQ Ministries will send us an official letter of recognition and two posters that celebrate our Welcoming status. Congregations are encouraged to develop their own additional artwork—banners, plaques, and the like — that further lift up our welcome.

Our congregation will also be recognized on the UUA website: a rainbow chalice will appear next to our name, and we will show up in searches for Welcoming Congregations in our area using the UUA tool. We will celebrate the status on our own website as well!

We are very proud of our congregation wanting to provide a warm and loving spiritual community for everyone, especially here and now in a political climate which is becoming more and more unfriendly to adults and children who are LGBTQIA+. We feel that displaying this designation can not only grow our congregation and make us a stronger church, but also that offering a loving and friendly community to people who may be experiencing rejection and isolation actually has the potential to save lives.