By Lewis Reay (From Seeds April – May 2025)

It is 15 years since Metropolitan Community Church, Edinburgh, joined with AUC, so it is time to celebrate!

I came into MCC in Bath in 1995. There I found a safe and welcoming place to heal from the trauma I had experienced at the hands of evangelical Christians.

A few years later, I transitioned, and it was the affirming relationship with God that I found in MCC that made this a possibility.

MCC Edinburgh was founded at the first Pride Scotland event, also in 1995. Maxwell and I were at that first Pride event and helped staff an MCC Outreach Ministries stall to meet people and see what the possibilities were for establishing a new MCC. When we left London, in 2002, we moved to Edinburgh to be part of the MCC here. We were both active in ministry in different aspects of church life and heavily involved in supporting other trans men and working on transgender issues in the wider denomination of MCC.

In the summer of 2009, members of MCC Edinburgh and members of AUC went to a church growth retreat at Northern Lights Metropolitan Community Church in Newcastle. It was there that we realised that we had more in common than we realised. It was from this weekend that discussions began about working together, eventually closing MCC Edinburgh, and our members who wanted to transferring their membership to AUC

“It is a profound and intimate moment of connection with God and with one another”

It seemed like we could do much more together than apart. This has proven to be true over the last 15 years.

God was at the heart of this process, and becoming part of AUC was an answer to the challenges we had been facing. We were welcomed with an openness which was truly wonderful.

And that is where Our Tribe started. By April 2010, we were ready to launch a Saturday night gathering for LGBT folk, allies, friends and family. An open space to meet with one another and to experience all that God’s inclusive love can mean.

Communion is an important aspect of demonstrating this affirming and welcoming reality. It is a profound and intimate moment of connection with God and with one another. We share communion at our online meetings as we did at the in-person gatherings before Covid.

For many, communion is something that queer people have been excluded from when they come out. We hope to heal the trauma of exclusion and demonstrate the inclusive love of Jesus in this meal.

Over the years, we have seen greater acceptance of LGBT+ people of faith in the wider LGBT+ community. Having a faith is not treated with the suspicion it once was. However, there is still considerable trauma for people in LGBTQ+ communities about faith, and conversion practices are real and damaging.

We have seen many people come and go, find the acceptance they need, deepen their relationship with God and move on to many places across the world and in other faith communities.

I continue to feel passionate about our ministry to the LGBTQ+ community. A safe, affirming and welcoming space is needed even more in these challenging social and political times.