Open and Affirming Covenant Statement
  Adopted at October 26, 2003 Congregational Meeting
        
The First Congregational Church of Natick affirms the dignity and worth of every person.  We are called to express the love and welcome of Christ. We celebrate the diversity of God’s creation, and the gifts, talents and resources of all who strive to build a church that is faithful to God.
 
We, therefore, covenant to become and open and affirming congregation.  We embrace and support those who experience rejection and find themselves to be in exile from spiritual community.  We welcome people of every ability, race, culture, gender, economic circumstance, gender identity and sexual orientation.

Following is a line-by-line discussion of the significance of each statement in our covenant statement:

The First Congregational Church affirms the dignity and worth of every person.
This affirmation is the heart of who we are and why we exist. In 1651, John Eliot gathered a native church in Natick, challenging the prevailing cultural assumption of his day, which viewed native people as savages who were not capable of receiving the good news of Jesus Christ. Not only did Eliot seek out native communities, he learned their language and translated the Bible so that they might experience God’s Word for themselves. We believe, as did Eliot, that every person has dignity and worth because each person is a child of God.

We are called to express the love and welcome of Christ.
These words are taken from our mission statement. In 1999, this mission statement emerged from a process of congregational surveys, response sheets and small groups. In those surveys and small groups, the open and affirming issue was frequently raised as a priority for our congregation. For many, the call to be open and affirming is implicit in what it means to express the love and welcome of Christ. Our whole mission statement is as follows: “We are called to express the love and welcome of Christ through word and action in our community and the wider world.”

We celebrate the diversity of God's creation, and the gifts, talents and resources of all who strive to build a church that is faithful to God.
One image in the Bible for the church is that we are the “body of Christ.” The apostle Paul reminds us that it is not our similarities, but the variety of our gifts and abilities, which allows us to become Christ’s body in the world. We are a diverse congregation. Our members come from many different backgrounds and have many different opinions on all sorts of issues, but those differences are not as significant finally as the life that we experience together in Christ. Because Christ gathers us into community, we can celebrate our differences as a source of our strength.

We, therefore, covenant to be an open and affirming congregation.
We are people united by covenant, not by creed. Whenever new members join the church, we affirm our covenant together, trusting that God has yet more truth to break forth out of the Word. We promise to listen for God’s Word to us in this time and place.
In 1985, our denomination, the United Church of Christ, urged its member churches to issue a public statement making it clear that all are welcome in our congregation, regardless of sexual orientation. In our tradition, this resolution of General Synod is not a mandate. Each congregation must make its own decision, and every member has a vote.

We embrace and support those who experience rejection and find themselves to be in exile from spiritual community.
Religion has been one of the biggest, if not the biggest, source of institutionalized homophobia. Discrimination, prejudice, fear and hate have been used for centuries to exclude some people from fullness of life in faith community. The high incidence of suicide, depression and despair among gay teens is a signal to all of us that our culture, and by extension, our religious organizations, can still be experienced as hostile places for those not in the majority. The Open and Affirming covenant makes it clear that this congregation breaks with that history of intolerance and seeks to be a faith community where no one is required to repudiate their God-given identity in order to belong.

We welcome people of every ability, race, culture, gender, economic circumstance, sexual orientation and gender identity.
As the ONA Task Force listened to feedback from the congregation, we heard in a number of contexts, the importance of affirming a welcome that is specific, yet as broad as possible for those who have felt excluded from the family of faith.
Because there has been a history in the Judeo-Christian tradition of interpreting certain passages in Scripture to condemn homosexual orientation and exclude them from the faith community, it is essential that our statement clearly state that we are a safe, open and affirming congregation and welcome people of all sexual orientations and gender identities to share their gifts with us.

Some reflections from our church family on being an Open and Affirming congregation:

“I transferred my membership to [this congregation] almost 18 years ago. I was a MEMBER with a capital “M” and I felt at home here. All that changed the first Sunday that I came in and sat down in a pew after I had realized that I might be gay. I did not belong. The feeling only intensified as time went on…I wonder, if a mature, 40-something with a church resume like mine can suddenly feel like an outcast, what must a teen-ager feel? It must be terrifying to come to a knowledge of yourself and think that you have lost God…I stand before you today, after months of apprehension about identifying myself publicly, for one reason. I ask you to join me in this process of listening to each other, re-reading the Scripture, asking questions ~ to let our hearts speak and our knowledge of God’s love lead us as we choose to declare ourselves “Open and Affirming.” I ask for the sake of the children, those here now, those who grew up here, those to come, those sisters and brothers, nieces, nephews, children and grandchildren ~ children of God.”

“ How can a church become open and affirming if the gays and lesbians in the church aren't open enough to come forward and be affirmed? …I am a Deacon, a Trustee, I have been Treasurer, have sung in the choir; my youngest son was baptized and both of my sons were confirmed in the First Congregational Church of Natick…I want to tell my story. I want to dispel the myth that we are talking about ‘people that don’t currently belong to our church’… It is time to widen the circle. For some mainstream gays and lesbians, it is increasingly clear that we have an obligation to ourselves, to the general public and to young people ~ gay and straight ~ who need ordinary and real role models to help them form opinions and decipher truth from all the fiction…We have so many problems to solve and so much work to do as Christians in the wider world. Whether we are going to welcome our neighbors to church should not be one of them.”

“The ONA meetings that I attended were moments of discovery for me, and the most basic and important lesson I learned was, ‘what we don’t know does hurt us!’…The work of God in Christ says that we are loved, valued, redeemed and counted as precious no matter how we might be valued by a prejudiced world. So I pose this question to you today: What does it mean in our faith journey if someone in their wholeness we say is ‘incomplete?’”

“ I am not sure exactly what my purpose is in writing this, but I do want to make a change. I wish that society were different and I wish that I wasn’t scared to tell my friends that my mom is gay. I have some friends who are homosexual and I know that the world is a scary place for them. I also know that the world can be a scary place for my mom. And I am certain that the last place that she or any gay person should be scared is church. I would give anything to make people understand that there is nothing wrong with being gay or bisexual. I can’t do that and I know that many people will never understand. Sometimes I wish that my mom was “normal” and that she and dad were still married – then everything would be OK. But that is a selfish thought and I don’t really wish that because my mom is who she is and I love her for it. I am proud of her and the fact that she opened herself up to the congregation while knowing that the results could be unfavorable for her. I hope a change does come out of what she, her partner and others did. I hope that she doesn’t have to be afraid to go to church. I also anticipate the day when my brother and I don’t have to be afraid, either.”

“ We use the term ‘open and affirming’ so much that it has become akin to reciting the Lord’s Prayer without thinking of the meaning behind the words. What I am getting at is the meaning of the word ‘affirming.’ We may think that we are open, but we need to affirm that we are open. Voting and adopting a covenant puts it out there for all to see. It eliminates the need for people to ‘read our minds.’”

For more information, visit these websites:
www.macucc/emj/ona.htm
www.ucccoalition.org

Church office hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

STAFF
Pastors: The Reverend Victoria Alford Guest
(508) 650-5404, pastor@fcc1651.org. For more information about our pastors click here.
The Reverend John Lilly (508) 660-2625, jrlilly58@comcast.net. For more information about our pastors click here.
Coordinator for Children and Youth: Georgeanne Bennett, ce@fcc1651.org
Organist : Joshua T. Lawton
Choir Directors: Susan Setta, Choir Director and Sarallyn Keller, Children's Choir Director
Nursery School Director: Teresa Iodice, Nurseryschool@fcc1651.org, 508-655-2171 Administrative Assistant: Lynne Parker, admin@fcc1651.org
Financial Assistant: Dan Hines
Sexton: Fran Beaudin