Dear Village,
I’ve just come back from Preston park after setting up the PRIDE stall for tomorrow. The position is perfect! We are right between the Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus stall and the family tent. I suspect we’re going to have lots of kids winning bags of Haribo – couldn’t be better.
This week has been a bit surreal. If you have a look at our facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/TheVillageMCC) then you’ll see that there’s a full page article in G-Scene about The Village MCC, and for reasons that completely escape me I ended up with some friends on the cover of BOYZ magazine. Very strange.
So, I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Exhausted just thinking about it, but looking forward to it. I hope you come by and say hello, try your luck at dropping some cans off the shelf. Keith has done a fabulous job putting together a steampunk theme’d setting – it looks really good. Thanks Keith.
This Sunday is our Pride service, usual time – usual place, and we will also be celebrating six months as The Village MCC.
As we go along I feel ever more strongly that our presence in the community is essential. What must it be like to be a part of a spiritual community where you don’t hear your life being affirmed from the pulpit (or equivalent)? No empowering stories with gay or Lesbian role models, no affirming anecdotes about Transgender angels. I’m pleased that LGBT people are welcomed into so many places, glad that the world is changing, but we have a long way to go before our lives are celebrated equally with every one else’s. MCC is a reminder to the greater Christian church that God loves us as we are, and that our stories are as valid and precious as anyone else’s.
I hope you have a wonderful and blessed weekend, and I look forward to seeing you!
Love
Michael.