MORE LIGHT
(Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Intersex)
We’ve gone national! The current issue of MLP News has our “open door” shown on their Web site in living color – www.mlp.org Lynne, John, Susan, and Betty invite everyone to join in.
Westminster Hills Presbyterian Church is a "More Light" church. This means that we are one of over 100 Presbyterian churches dedicated to an additional welcoming mission in our communities. "More Light" churches have, and seek, congregations that happily include members who identify themselves as being lesbian or gay - or heterosexual - and those who prefer to refrain from discussing their sexual orientation. We welcome all visitors or members, whatever their sexual orientation may be. At WHPC, our commitment to a caring and loving environment for all people who seek us out is evidenced by the public stand we took in 1997, as revealed in the Declaration printed below (see "Passion Sunday Declaration; A More Light Church.")
We have connections with the following nation-wide Presbyterian groups whose Web sites are shown as links:
More Light Presbyterians - www.mlp.org
That All May Freely Serve - www.tamfs.org
The Shower of Stoles - www.showerofstoles.com
Another important national Presbyterian group is Covenant Network that is working towards inclusion in churches regardless of sexual orientation by somewhat different methods - www.covenantnetwork.org
A non-Presbyterian but local community connection is The Hayward Lighthouse Community Center - www.lcchayward.org
(Passion Sunday Declaration)
A MORE LIGHT CHURCH
Westminster Hills Presbyterian Church has gathered in a sanctuary, around a table beneath a cross every Sunday for over forty years. The witness of this community of believers, our grateful response to the experience of affirmation and redemption experienced as we begin to grasp the depth of the compassion and the breadth of the invitation has been a legacy of outreach and service in a vibrant and wonderfully diverse community.
Sadly, we have come to understand that like all human institutions, the Church has succumbed to defining itself by lines of exclusion rather than by the grace and forgiveness of the Christ who is our foundation. We have experienced the glory of those moments when by the grace of its Founder, the church's curtains of division and rejection have been torn and the light of God's love and mercy has brought newness and hope and the taste of a vision and completeness for which we long.
And so, moved by grace toward this vision, we declare that: God's call to discipleship will be honored and nurtured at Westminster Hills Presbyterian Church. All those who hear this call will be welcomed to full participation in the life of the congregation, especially those who have suffered exclusion for their sexual orientation, race, nationality, disability, marital status, gender or any other category that is held up as a target of the ignorance and hatred the shackles from which we are freed as we approach the table at the foot of the cross.
This declaration on Passion Sunday, March 23, 1997
Does establish this congregation as a
MORE LIGHT CHURCH
To God be the glory!
