Posted on 11/26/2012 8:11:34 AM PST by null and void
Predominantly LGBT church on Madison Avenue shuttering after 19 years of ministry.
After 19 years of serving the LGBT community, the Liberation United Church of Christ is closing its doors on Madison Avenue.
The church will host its last service on Christmas Eve.
The building at 13714 Madison Avenue has been home to the church for the past 14 years. When the church began in a community center at Case Western University in 1993, churches weren’t too accepting of the gay community.
However, as society became more inclusive, so did churches.
“Twenty years ago there were very few churches welcoming the LGBT Community into full membership, either as clergy or as members,” said the church’s pastor Rev. Kurt Wieser. “(Liberation) was established by the United Church of Christ to be just that, a worshiping community for and by LGBT persons. In recent years the church and society have changed.”
For the Liberation church, that means that there’s been a gradual decline in membership, as well as dwindling resources.
“In a way, this transition for us has been the answer to our prayer: that someday we would be so integrated into society and the Church that ministries like this would no longer be needed,” said Wieser, who has served as senior pastor for the past 10 years. “It was not an easy decision.”
The final ruling to dissolve and close the church was made at a special congregational meeting last Sunday.
“Some people who have been hurt by the Church in the past are still seeking us out, but the reality is that this ministry is no longer sustainable,” said Wieser.
“Our work is not done by any stretch of the imagination, but the society we live in today as well as the Church are far more welcoming,” he added. “The net result on Liberation in recent years was to position us as a re-entry point rather than a permanent home for LGBT folks.”
In its 19 years, Liberation has worked closely with a number of organizations, including the Lakewood Community Services Center, community meals programs, AIDS Food Bank collections, Cleveland Pride and Equality Ohio Lobby Days.
The Liberation facility has also hosted the to Community United Head Start and Day Care, several AA groups, the Lakewood High School Gay-Straight Alliance and others. The facility will continue to be home for the head start program and other groups currently using the building for classes and meetings.
The church will host a “special service of celebration and gratitude” at 2 p.m. Dec. 23.
The next day, the church will officially close following its Christmas Eve Service at 10 p.m.
“In the meantime I am encouraging folks to form small communities to go out together to find new church homes, so they have a small 'family' at their new settings when they arrive,” Wieser said.
Soon the Church Of Obama ,with Blasphemy laws to follow
Its funny how the more “inclusive” they become, the fewer parishoners they have. They are including greater and greater amounts of nothing!
Quite the contrary. If you read between the lines, their job is finished. It’s now the spent husk of an infected cell that has burst open and released more virii out into the wild. An empty cradle.
‘Inclusive’ isn’t new. Some churches haven’t cared in a long time about a clergy member’s orientation as long as that person remained celibate.
Some don’t even care about that.
Maybe the site can house a traditional church with traditional Judaeo-Christian values. That’s what there’s a crying need for today as the wheel has turned.
Disgusting scum. I am happy they are closing their doors. There is a special place in hell reserved for these heathens.
When these corpse is nothing but bleached, dry bones, the parasites move on.
Yes, these ‘inclusive’ churches wilt and die eventually.
Did the gays stop having children or something?
Oh,wait.......
Declining huh? I find that highly ironic given that supposedly getting more lax and more inclusive means more members? However, I have a feeling that the newer generations for this church, like for many other religions, are simply experiencing the same kind of problem: people just aren’t as interested in religion as the previous generation, but since this church has a relatively small membership, well, it’s devastated. Then there’s the issue of how well the adopted kids were taught to believe and attend that church... I’m guessing not that well.
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