Dear Westwood Community, 

Only four days until Pride Month! Which means, starting four days from now, you aren’t allowed to say one negative thing to or about a queer person for the following thirty days. (Haha!) (Just kidding!) (But also, you should be extra nice to the queer people around you.) 

Westwood will be marching in TWO PRIDE PARADES! Alongside West Hollywood UMC, we will be participating in both West Hollywood Pride this upcoming Sunday and LA Pride the Sunday after. According to our dear Molly Vetter, Westwood has not participated in a pride parade since 2006! It’s a big year for us.

As many of you know, queer people have a complicated relationship with Christianity, to say the least. The dominant narrative of Christianity in our country (and the world) is one of queer exclusion, strict gender roles, and repressive ideology. For many people “queer Christian” sounds like an oxymoron for this very reason – it is often assumed one identity does not allow for the existence of the other. 

Being an affirming Christian space is not a passive thing. Because the default for Christian spaces has been homophobia and exclusion, creating a church community that truly embraces queer people requires active attention and effort. A queer-embracing church faces both inward and outward. It means we pay attention in our own congregation to places where deep rooted anti-queerness still pops up every now and then, which it inevitably will. It means holding each other accountable with compassion as we grow and learn together. 

As for “facing out,” I mean in part that we are actively inviting and welcoming to queer people in our community, wherever they are in their spiritual or identity journeys. I think this effort is in part embodied by what we are doing this weekend and the next, visibly showing up for our queer neighbors. It is also practiced in our Found Family group, and in our consistent support and love of the Queer Group at church. But it also means reaching out to people we know who don’t quite understand the whole queer thing just yet. 

Jesus invites us to walk through the world with open arms, reaching for connection with people who are different from us, both in and out of our community. That means being extra kind to queer people, but it also means making an effort with people who have not yet reached a place of queer acceptance. 

If you are an ally to the queer community, I invite you to be intentional this month about engaging with the people in your life who still have room to grow. Call your homophobic uncle and engage with him about where those views might be coming from! Talk to the coworkers who still misgender your trans colleague about why pronouns matter! Have a conversation with your friend who supports trans people, but still isn’t sure what’s going on with the whole gender thing. Let this Pride Month be an opportunity for you to support queer people and make the world a better place for them. 

And, of course, if you yourself have any questions or topics you feel curious about, stop by queer group sometime! It’s full of open, thoughtful people who would love to have a conversation with you. 

I had some members of our queer group put together a list of some of our favorite queer content, and I invite you to pick a few from our list to engage with this month as well. If you do, reach out and let us know what you think! 

Happy Pride Month, Westwood! I look forward to celebrating with you. And I am, as always, grateful and honored to be in community with you. 

Keep the faith,

Everest