By Brenda Erdahl
At Bethlehem United Church of Christ (BUCC) in Maple Lake, everyone is welcome. It says so in multiple ways on the churches’ electronic sign that flashes at passersby along County Road 37 in eye catching colors.
One of the promises the sign professes is “open and affirming.” According to BUCC Pastor Marc Well Nagel that’s more than just a pledge, it’s an official designation of the United Church of Christ (UCC) and just recently the BUCC achieved it.
This fall, the congregation passed on a 26-0 vote, the decision to seek the open and affirming designation. To the UCC, that means making a public covenant of welcome to people of all sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions.
“As God’s children, as all of us are, it’s important for us to be able to say, you are welcome here,” Well Nagel said. “To say, this is a safe place biblically and theologically. It’s not a place of judgement and condemnation, but a place of love and acceptance.”
As an open and affirming church, the BUCC will be listed as such on a state and national level by the UCC for people actively searching for a church that meets those parameters.
The BUCC has advertised as an “open and welcoming” church for the last five years, that means they’ve been accepting of LGBTQ persons, but have not had the official designation through the church. That alone has attracted new members from different parts of the county and state who believe in open and affirming. It’s not easy, after all, to find a local church with the same designation. The BUCC is the only one in Maple Lake and one of a very few in Wright County. While the church has a few members from the LGBTQ community, they have more members who have friends or relatives who identify as such.
When the question whether to pursue the open and affirming designation came up at the small Maple Lake church, Pastor Well Nagel said there was no negative response at all among the congregation and the vote to go forward was passed unanimously by the church council.
The BUCC church recognized its new designation at worship on Sunday, Oct. 22 with guest speaker Reverand Kelly Gallagher, Associate Conference Minister of the Minnesota Conference of the United Church of Christ.
“This designation is important to us because we want to be seen as an open and affirming church, to show that you are loved here, not shamed and not seen as sinners,” Pastor Well Nagel said.
The Bethlehem United Church of Christ in Maple Lake was recently designated as an open and affirming church where all are welcome.