The Pride Flag with the words "You Are Loved" will be raised in a ceremony 10:30 a.m., Sunday, June 12 at Mountain Lakes Presbyterian Church. The church has handed out stickers like this for the past year.
SEELEY LAKE - The Mountain Lakes Presbyterian Church (MLPC) will raise the pride flag on June 12 at 10:30 a.m. to welcome members of the LGBTQ+ community and honor Pride Month. The plan was set into motion May 8 when members of the Mountain Lakes Presbyterian Church council unanimously approved a proposal to fly the flag year-round.
The pride flag, or rainbow flag, has been an iconic symbol of solidarity, inclusion and acceptance for the LGBTQ rights movement since the 1990s. Out of the 18 Presbyterian churches and two new worshiping communities across northwest central Montana, Mountain Lakes Presbyterian, according to Glacier Presbytery, is the first to fly the pride flag year-round.
The Glacier Presbytery said they support all their congregations in demonstrating hospitality and justice, which includes MLPC welcoming the LGBTQ community. While the proposal to fly the flag was relatively recent, MLPC Pastor Carrie Benton has been inviting conversations about inclusivity since she became pastor in 2013.
"I think. Mostly, I've been inviting people to wrestle with their uncomfortableness, inviting people to have hard conversations, inviting people to get out in the community and get to know somebody who, for them, this is their reality," Benton said.
Before becoming a pastor at MLPC, Benton served as an associate pastor at a church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The church had five denominations and was intentionally interracial, multicultural and LGBTQ supportive. Benton's denomination is the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA), a denomination she said struggled with LGBTQ inclusion in the '60s, '70s and '80s but has since become more inclusive and voted to allow same-sex marriage in 2014.
"As a Presbyterian, I appreciate that we don't make everyone sign on the dotted line," Benton said. "We can agree to disagree but agree at the same time to still share communion, to still love one another and serve together."
Benton said the MLPC wants the community to know that everyone is God's child and "all God's children got a place in the choir." Members of MLPC have expressed their support, including Betsey and Steve Ellis, who wanted to emphasize that the Presbyterian Church is all-inclusive.
"We don't exclude anyone from worshiping in our church," Betsey Ellis wrote in an email. "We welcome anyone regardless of race or gender. We are hoping that this message will reach those in the Seeley Lake who feel disenfranchised because of race, gender, etc. that they are welcome to worship at MLPC."
Last year, the MLPC handed out pride stickers and encouraged church attendants to share them with someone else in the community, to see what happened. Benton said when she handed out stickers, people recognized her as a pastor and were surprised, but open about their stories of pain and exclusion.
Benton said she's seen the impact it's had on people and when they see her around town, they sometimes want to tell her more. She hopes that flying the flag will help reduce some of that pain and absolve feelings of exclusion in the Seeley Lake community.
"One of the things we've talked about quite a lot is that nothing may change in our building, no one may show up," Benton said. "We hope that if at least one person can know at the core of their being, that who they are, as God made them, is loved intimately and deeply because of who they are, not in spite of who they are."
Reader Comments(1)
WindingTrails writes:
I disagree entirely with a church flying a 'pride flag.' We are told with regard to sexual sins to go forth and sin no more.' Taking pride--read: unrepentant sin--is specifically warned about repeatedly throughout the New Testament. We also read in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10: 'Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.' By encouraging active and ongoing sin, you are leading people astray and have failed entirely the mission of any real church. Romans 12:2 might be worth considering, as you have collapsed and are entirely about conforming to the world and its sin and fallen state. Dismiss this if you will, but you have to ignore the Bible in order to do such. It is one thing to welcome a gay individual into the church--as we should. It is entirely another to welcome homosexuality. It is just the same were a church to encourage alcoholism, or theft. Thieves, alcoholics, sinners are welcome, and indeed, we are all sinners, and we all fall short. But we are not to embrace sin, even as we all fall into it.
06/10/2022, 9:42 am