Change is coming to Chestnut Hill church

The Philadelphia Association of the United Church of Christ voted unanimously April 18 to accept the Chestnut Hill United Methodist Church as its newest member church, one of several steps the Chestnut Hill congregation has pursued in recent years to open its doors even wider to the LGBT community.

The church, which has officially changed its name to Chestnut Hill United Church, is still affiliated with the United Methodist Church, but has also incorporated the affiliation with the UCC, a traditionally LGBT-affirming church.

Linda Noonan, the openly bisexual co-pastor of Chestnut Hill United, said the church has seen an upswing in LGBT congregants in recent years, and the church’s commitment to diversity has helped fuel its revitalization.

“The church was pretty much on its last gasping breath about 20 years ago when [current co-pastor] Hal Taussig came on, and he and a small handful of people had to decide whether they wanted to either just bury the church or revive it, and they chose to revive it,” she said. “And part of their mission was to make a more intentionally inclusive church and theologically diverse church. They definitely wanted to have a more progressive bent, a really open, social bent.”

That shift in the culture drew in a vast number of LGBT community members, Noonan said, and she herself joined the church as co-pastor in 2001.

The UMC, however, follows the tenet that homosexuality is a sin and has a policy of not ordaining LGBT people.

To take a public stand against these ideas, in 2002, the church voted to become a “Reconciling Congregation,” a distinction now held by nearly 300 UMCs nationwide that enables them to publicly express their support for the full inclusion of LGBT individuals.

Noonan noted that church members wanted to “do more” to speak out against homophobia within the UMC, and were especially mobilized after Pastor Beth Stroud, the openly lesbian former leader of the nearby First United Methodist Church of Germantown, lost her credentials in a church trial in 2004.

Over the past few years, the congregants and leadership at the church have spent time studying and discussing how the church could become even more inclusive of the LGBT community and eventually decided that federation, or official affiliation, with the UCC was the most viable option.

“The UCC felt like a good political, theological and social fit,” Noonan said.

Beth Walker, moderator of the Philadelphia Association of the UCC, said the organization was thrilled to welcome the new member church.

“We are just as happy as can be,” Walker said. “God’s grace is here, and all are welcome.”

Noonan said the congregants will notice few logistical changes.

“In practice, it’s pretty simple. We just now have identification with both churches, so we participate in both denominations,” she said. “On paper, we had to go through the process of crafting a system of rules and regulations, since the Methodist Church is slightly more structured, so it just meant adding on the partner church so that both are in covenant with one another.”

While federation is not uncommon, Noonan noted that Chestnut Hill United’s motivation for the transition is rare.

“There are lots of churches that have federated, but it mostly happens because there’s a Presbyterian church on one corner and a Lutheran church on the other and they’ve both gotten old and gray and decided to get together and see if they can make it as one. Most churches don’t do what we’ve done, adding this denomination onto their identity because of political reasons,” she said.

Walker said Chestnut Hill United is the first Methodist-affiliated church to join their ranks.

“I don’t think there are very many Methodist churches interested in affiliating with the UCC, so this is a very special moment in time,” she said. “It’s a great moment to be able to make this union. And it’s a sign of change. I really do think that the world is waking up to the idea that everyone is welcome at God’s table.”

Noonan noted that the congregants were very excited about the latest step in the church’s expression of support for the LGBT community.

“They feel like finally there is a church they can relate to and that shares their vision of a truly inclusive church, one that is a real place for all people,” she said. “It was important for the congregation to become Reconciling, that showed them that anyone who comes through our doors that we’re open to them, but if you were a queer person just driving down the street and knew anything about the Methodist denomination, you probably wouldn’t stop and come in, even though we have a rainbow flag on our sign. People have a tendency to be reticent or leery to darken the doorsteps of those churches. So the congregation is really excited that we now have another way to tell people, ‘Give it a try.’”

Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].

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