3 Ways to Find Your Nearest Affirming Church
Words matter; that’s a simple fact. What we say and how we say it can be misleading, and words have been used in problematic ways when churches discuss the level of inclusion of LGBTQ+ people in faith-based spaces. This has caused a lot of harm to LGBTQ+ people when they are looking to get more involved in their faith community or even walk through the doors of the church in some cases.
In a recent blog entitled Welcoming, Inclusive, or Affirming, we talked about how the language a church or worshiping community uses in its marketing says a lot about where they are on the affirming spectrum. What words are used on the church website, brochures, bulletins, social media bios, etc. can give a picture of who they are as a community. However, even with our best investigative skills and a better understanding of what the words welcoming, inclusive and affirming really mean, finding an accepting church can be easier said than done and still leaves a lot of room for guessing.
Thankfully, there are several websites that have already done a lot of the work for us as we search for the communities in our lives that help us find the right place for each of us. Today, we have compiled a list of three ways to find your nearest affirming church and how each of those websites can help you find what you are looking for in various ways. There is no site that is completely accurate in this work and policies may evolve often. So using these tools as starting points in your journey to find a new faith community may help.
ChurchClarity.org
Church Clarity is a database of churches and ministries that are scored based on the clarity of their policies towards LGBTQ+ individuals and women when it comes to participation and inclusion in the church. Their mission "is to increase the standard of clarity throughout the Church Industry", stating that "Ambiguity is Harmful. Clarity is Reasonable." This is a helpful site if you do not want to comb through the language that is used on a church’s website or if you still remain unsure after doing so. Church Clarity triple-checks their work before reporting back on a specific church and even gives the church the opportunity to speak for themselves to maximize clarity.
GayChurch.org
GayChurch.org is a database of what they have deemed open and affirming churches, with 9,398 churches around the world. Their website states that the intent of their Affirming Church Directory™, is "to provide an online resource for people to locate and visit welcoming Christian churches around the world", and that "all churches in this directory have confirmed that their congregation, in some form or fashion, is an affirming Christian church."
Keep in mind that these are self classifying affirming churches and in reality may fall anywhere in the Welcoming, Inclusive, and Affirming spectrum. However, GayChurch.org does their best to make sure they are as clear as possible on if a church is truly affirming to be included in their database.
Affirming Ministries with Denominational Affiliation
Those of us who are connected to mainstream denominations have the resources of ministries that have compiled lists of churches that are open and affirming. For example, the United Methodist Church has the Reconciling Ministries Network; the Baptists have the Association of Welcoming & Affirming Baptists; the Presbyterian Church (USA) has More Light Presbyterians; and so on. Many have found these ministries helpful, even after their denomination as a whole changed its governing rules to affirm LGBTQ+ individuals. You can find a fuller list of ministries (and their connected denominations) that will help you find a church within a specific faith tradition on our resources page on our website. Many of these sites have their own maps and lists based on location to help you narrow your choices to a community near you!
Next Steps
You can read more about the identity markers that churches take on when they identify their worshiping community as welcoming, inclusive or affirming by downloading our free Relational Guide for Clergy, featuring Rev. Danny Cortez.
