Reconciling Committee
PSUMC’s Reconciling Committee works to create a truly open community in which all people are welcome, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. It also works to change the rules in the larger United Methodist Church so that it, too, reflects the radical inclusiveness of God’s love.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
--Galatians 3:28
The Reconciling Committee takes its name from the national Reconciling movement within the United Methodist Church to change church policy. The term 'reconciling' for this mission was suggested in 1982 because of the need for reconciliation between the United Methodist Church and its Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT) members.
As of this writing, there are 223 United Methodist reconciling congregations explicitly affirming the full participation of LGBT people in their churches and opposing the UMC’s anti-gay rules. A national grassroots organization, the Reconciling Ministries Network, is dedicated to realizing the full participation of queer Methodists in the church.
PSUMC has been a reconciling church since 1985. The church's commitment to reflecting God’s love for all people is evident in the PSUMC creed as well as our policy on holy unions (until all can get married in our church, none shall be married here). It is also lived in the daily work of the Reconciling Committee, work that is actively supported by the entire congregation.
Every year, PSUMC marches in both the Manhattan and Brooklyn Gay & Lesbian Pride Parades. This picture was taken in 2002.
PSUMC’s Reconciling Committee works on many fronts. One part of our work is efforts to change the UMC’s doctrinal prejudice and institutional discrimination against LGBT people. We participate every year in our regional church body’s annual governing conference (known as the annual conference), joining with other churches to bring a powerful, unavoidable witness to the four-day conference. PSUMC was instrumental in founding Methodists in New Directions (MIND), a regional, conference-wide grassroots organization working to end the church’s bigoted rules, and remains centrally involved in MIND. In 2005, PSUMC memorably introduced a very controversial resolution at the annual conference meeting, calling on the conference to simply refuse to obey the church’s discriminatory rules, and mounting a creative visual presence with the help of 4,500 three-inch post-it notes.
We also seek to be in ministry to queer communities. In particular, we work to undo the harm done by institutionalized religious prejudice and seek. We want queer folks to know that bigotry they’ve experienced from organized religion is a betrayal of the true message of the Gospel: love for ALL of God’s children and defense of the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized of society. We participate every year in the New York City Gay Pride March and the Brooklyn Pride festival and march. We have distributed tens of thousands palm cards that list several inclusive Bible verses on one side and our holy union policy on the other. And we have worked with the Church of the Village, another reconciling UMC congregation, in support of the their LGBTQ homeless youth shelter.
For more in-depth information, see the following: