MCC NEWS: MCC Moderator to Seek Standing in The Fellowship

Having trouble viewing this email? Click here


Tearing Down WallsBuilding Up Hope

Dear MCC Members and Friends,

When I became Moderator, one of my goals for MCC was to strengthen and initiate strategic partnerships around the globe. I am so thrilled that we have made significant steps in this regard. Our connections to secular groups like Human Rights Campaign in the U.S., Human Rights Watch, ILGA in Europe and in Africa, Other Sheep, foundations, seminaries and other institutions have expanded and matured, and are bearing fruit in projects and work that is changing the world. This is the way we must do our ministry in the 21st century! I have taken special delight in our growing relationship with The Fellowship, a young network that behaves more and more like a denomination. The Board of Elders has invested time, energy and resources, as has The Fellowship's leadership, in building a healthy relationship; and in getting to know and appreciate our differences and our similarities, our common vision of radical inclusivity. As many of you know, I offered Bishop Yvette Flunder clergy credentials in MCC in May of this year, as another step forward in deepening our historic connections and mission. Bishop Flunder is now an ordained MCC clergy person, who will sit in our clergy house at the next General Conference. Her triple A ministry is as the leader of The Fellowship, where she is acknowledged and lifted up as "Bishop." She is not, of course, a bishop in the MCC polity and structure, yet we do honor her role, her wisdom and leadership in The Fellowship, and I am proud to call her, with love and affection, Bishop Flunder. We have to be willing, sometimes to embrace ambiguity and complexity as we learn to value differences. We are inviting The Fellowship to our next General Conference in Acapulco. They are not just our guests, but "relatives" who will be sojourning with us at this very important juncture in our history. They will not hold their annual conference separately next year, but will join with us. We will hold a common plenary at Conference on the MCC/Fellowship relationship. Bishop Flunder has been invited to preach. We hope the worship, workshops and plenary sessions will nourish, challenge and inspire all of us, as we hold our first conference in Latin America. The Fellowship will doubtless also hold some meetings of their own while we are together. This will be a "yours, mine and ours" event that will build on the strengths of our movements, and our "MOVEMENT." We hope to also have friends from Unity Fellowship Church Movement join us as well; and other ecumenical guests. Meanwhile, at the upcoming Fellowship Annual Conference, I will be considered for clergy credentials in The Fellowship. You may know, this honor was extended first, last year, to our Vice-Moderator, Rev. Elder Darlene Garner, and to Rev. Dr. Penny Nixon. This is a way of mutually honoring our ministries. It is an expression of the esteem in which we are held by the Fellowship, and an expression of trust and openness to what we have to offer each other. I am honored to be invited. It means that my vocation as an MCC clergy person, as Elder and Moderator, is honored by the leadership and people of The Fellowship. When I preach at their conference, or address them, I do this not only from my position in MCC, but, in a new way, as one of them (". . .so that they may be one, as we are One." John 17:11b). At the service in Washington, D.C. last month to celebrate her MCC credentials, Bishop Flunder thanked MCC for being the catalyst for her coming out and expressed what a blessing that has been to her. I thank The Fellowship, in the context of their passionate Pentecostal and radically inclusive worship, for reminding me of my roots in MCC, and the life-saving message and ministry that we cannot turn our backs on in these demanding times! I thank Bishop Flunder and The Fellowship for valuing our connection enough to include me, to include all of us.


Grace and Peace,

+ Nancy

Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson
MCC Moderator



NOTE: This message prepared in conjunction with the Ecumenical & Inter-religious Team of Metropolitan Community Churches, Stan Kimer, chair, and the MCC Constituent Communications Team.

". . .so that they may be one, as we are One." John 17:11b