The short answer is that yes you can. But as most of us have encountered, finding that home isn’t as easy as googling it on the internet. In today’s world, the general attendance at churches is dropping, which is probably of no great surprise to anyone. In today’s world, the baby boomers are getting older, and less of them took their kids to church when they were younger. So, Gen X may have never even been exposed to organized religion. There are scandals popping up in what seems to be daily news releases. Many churches are starting to use the internet as a place to advertise as well maintaining a website.
Now, depending on where you are in the world, what religion you may practice or have been raised under is as varying as the types. You could be in San Francisco in the center of self-expression or in contrast, you could be in the deep south of the US, at the center of conservatism. Could you find a church in both locations that accept you for who you are; yes? Could you also hit a wall of disgust in both places; again, yes?
Then how do you start looking? This is the very simplified version. Things will likely never go this smooth; if they did I would not be writing this. Well, a good place to start is to actually look up the list of overall churches and visit their websites. Yes, this goes opposite of what I said about them advertising, but you have to find out what this religious organization is about, and you have to start somewhere. If you don’t like what you are seeing, then there is no point in looking any further at them, and you should move on to the next one.
I am going to use the Episcopal Church as my example. I am Episcopalian, and with the exception of a few, completely accepted within my congregation. If you check the church’s main website you’ll notice a stated message, “All Are Welcome.” You may find several religions that you never even considered or have heard about; keep your mind open—just as you want a new church home to do for you. When I went looking for my church home, I had two religions that I looked into.
So now what? You found a religion(s) you are interested in; which church should you go to?
Next time, I will offer some help in figuring that out without having to attend 20 places to find out which one might be the best choice for you
Codille Benton
Latest posts by Codille Benton (see all)
- Can you really find a Church that will accept all of you??? - May 26, 2019
I live in the deep south as well(Alabama) If you want an accepting church, get thee to a Unitarian Universalist congregation. I attend one sporadically (and will go more often after I move). Wonderful fellowship, wonderful people and they are very accepting of LGBTQ. They are also accepting of Atheist, even Pagans.
I was painting a home interior a few years ago. I was wearing short cut off denim short shorts, boobs in a tank top, bare feet with painted toes and boho foot jewelry… That’s only important to mention because after two weeks of painting there, and joining the home owners for supper each night, did I discover the home owner, a wonderful lady and husband Farmer, is a Minister at a rural United Church. I have not gone into a church for many years now, yet I do believe we are all doing God’s work here. I did tell this… Read more »
Find a church that proclaims “No Perfect People Allowed" there’s a book out that explains the challenges churches face in our new, “post-modern" world.
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/712924-no-perfect-people-allowed
People talk about “tolerance & discrimination". Fact is the most discriminatory group of people are those that get together, all across America, at the same time EVERY SUNDAY MORNING! And it’s high time THAT changes . . . (ps: My church’s live Sunday VDO stream is here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSD-02AvgtANhYwdWCrwoQ )
It’s not really easy to accurately assess churches and their acceptance level by their websites. Keep in mind that some churches actually can separate gender identity and sexual preference. This means that they may have reservations regarding all the GBLT, but be able to accept transgender. One web site that rates churches for their acceptance rates my church as non-accepting, but I find that to be inaccurate. Sometimes, a compromise is necessary, both on the part of the church and the transgender individual. I’ve worked out that kind of compromise at the church I’ve attended for over thirty years. I… Read more »
God listens to prayer. It is society that doesn’t listen always to God (All the way back to the Garden of Eden). Well written Patricia, and pray for others!
Codille
Agreed. . . that’s why, what we do here is so necessary and important 😉
We are the offspring of a deathless soul. . .
Namaste’ 😉
Char
Metropolitan community church is for the entire LGBT community
Try United Church of Christ. They are very accepting of all including me .
I had the same question right when I wanted to start my transition. Luckily I had a friens who was priest in the church of Sweden so I got a short chat with him about how the Church of Sweden would handle the “new" me. was really surprised when he told me that he has led a small service for one person in his parish and he told me that the C of S had no rules about this, just that all are welcome who want to be a member of the church, He just gave me a small warning… Read more »
I live in the Deep South, I really like my church and my pastor however I know when I start HRT, my pastor or anyone in the church will understand. I am really thinking about meeting we my pastor and telling him about Wanda. I have discussed this with my therapist because she knows how important religion is to me.
WandaS
As far as I have understood this , this can be very depending of which “branch" of the religion, Christian or other, that the congregation is represented. I know that some groups of Christians are really upset about the existence of transgender persons. So I would advice that you try to look into how your closest congregation lookse upon us. Ant let that guide you to how you need to treat the relation. Always remember that this is nothing the we have “got as bad ideas" We are just like we are. The most important for you is to feel… Read more »
Wanda,
If you need to bounce any thoughts off anyone on how you want to approach this let me know, I am a pretty good listener.