Pride Sunday

Hey Sacred Place Family,

This Sunday is Pride Sunday at Sacred Place, and it’s also our Open and Affirming Sunday—the day we say out loud, on the record, who we are.

I want to tell you why we keep it. Plenty of churches will say everyone’s welcome and leave it there, vague enough to mean nothing. Open and Affirming is different. It’s a covenant—a public, documented promise that LGBTQIA+ people belong here fully, in every part of the life of this church, with nothing withheld and nothing conditional. We made that promise on purpose, and we name it again every year on purpose, because in a season when so many forces are working to make queer and trans people feel like a question still up for debate, saying it plainly is its own act of faith. You are not a debate here. You are family.

So we hang the flags and we keep the day, not as decoration but as testimony. This Sunday we do it at the table, too—it’s a communion Sunday, and the table at Sacred Place is open to everyone, no exceptions, which is really just the same promise said a second way.

We gather at 11:00 AM Pacific, in the room and online. Coffee beforehand. Bring your whole self; bring someone who needs to hear they belong somewhere.

Grace and peace, Pastor Matthew