Thanks to a flood of calls and emails, the State Senate voted on Thursday, May 23, to include a $11.5 million one-time Salary Reserve for low-paid human service workers in the budget! Please take a moment to thank the Senate for this important...
Open and Affirming
As a member of the UCC movement of Open and Affirming Churches, First Church welcomes gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender women and men to our community of faith, and affirms the full inclusion of all God's people in the life and ministry of the church. Our congregation also strongly supports the civil right of all free and consenting adults to marry, and we gladly offer our sanctuary and our ministers to all who wish to be married here.
In 1991, this statement was adopted by First Church in its decision to become an Open and Affirming congregation:
First Church Statement of Openness and Affirmation
WHEREAS, In Christ Jesus we are all children of God, through faith. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female; for we are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal. 3:26, 28); and
WHEREAS, we believe that our value as human beings is given to us by God, and that God calls us to relate to each other as whole persons, with love, responsibility, accountability, trust, and mutual nurture; and to work for justice and wholeness in the world; and
WHEREAS, we recognize that our individual and collective fears or prejudices about other people are dispelled by the grace of God and the commandment to love our neighbors; and
WHEREAS, our Covenant Testimony calls us to foster community across every barrier and division;
THEREFORE:
1 We declare that First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, U.C.C. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is an open and affirming congregation which does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, race, gender, age, nationality, ethnicity, economic class, marital status, or physical/psychological differences; that we welcome all who would participate with us in Christ's mission; and
2 We commit ourselves to the struggle against homophobia, racism, and all individual and systemic attitudes and acts of injustice, discrimination, violence, and hatred that work against peace and wholeness.
