Demonstrating Our Openness
By: Hutch Hutchinson
Our church supports many programs in our community. We do not have preconditions for members of our community who receive our support. For example, through a program called “Common Ground,” we help children in local elementary schools located in economically disadvantaged areas of our community. We have no restrictions on the race or color of the students receiving our assistance. Nor do we require that they be Christians. We do not require that they be citizens of the United States. We do not favor boys over girls or girls over boys as we provide our assistance, and we don’t ask them about their sexual identity as a condition of their receiving our assistance. Helping our community without preconditions is consistent with our church motto of “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors.”
There is a new church committee meeting on our campus that is exploring the question of how open we want to be about our open policies, especially in the area of sexual identity. Change is afoot in our society regarding sexual identity. For example, same-sex marriages are now legal in the majority of our 50 States. Many of these couples want and need a church to attend. We do not discriminate against such couples in our church, and the question arises: “Should we be more demonstrative about our openness?” This is an example of the type of question this new committee is addressing. Attendance at committee meetings is open to all. If you are interested in attending one of these meetings or have a feeling about the work of this committee, please contact the committee at reconcile@foothillsumc.org to express your feelings.