Metropolitan Community Church Philippines
Fulfilling God's Promise
By Mikee dela Cruz

The most beautiful word in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, states the Metropolitan Community Church Philippines (MCCP) in its Web site (mccph.wordpress.com), is “whosoever.”  In the Gospel of St. John, chapter three, verse 16, for one, it is stated that “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."

“All of God's promises are intended for every human being, (including) gay men and lesbians.  How tragic it is that (many Christian churches) exclude and persecute people who are homosexuals,” MCCP adds, stressing that “we are all created with powerful needs for personal relationships. Our quality of life depends upon the love we share with others, whether family or friends, partners, or peers. Yet lesbians and gay men facing hostile attitudes in society often are denied access to healthy relationships.”

SPREADING HOPE Reverend Pastor Regen R. Luna, ULCS, has been promoting God's love among GLBTQIs.

In actuality, this very exclusion was the main drive in the establishment of the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) in Southern California in 1968, a year before the Stonewall Riots (largely accepted as the precursor of the gay liberation movement in the modern times).  After a failed relationship, followed by an attempted suicide, Reverend Troy Perry wanted to reconnect with God to respond to “an unexpected prophecy” to give “birth to a dream” to respond to “Jesus Christ’s calls (for) us to find ultimate meaning in life through a personal relationship with our Creator. This important spiritual union can bring healing and strength to all of our human relationships.”

Right from the start, “talagang target na ng (MCC) ang GLBTQI community,” says in the vernacular Reverend Pastor Regen R. Luna, ULCS, the interim pastoral leader of MCCP, especially since MCC is the first church group “with a primary, positive ministry to gays, lesbians, bisexual, and transgender persons.”  “Marami ng mga simbahan ang nagkalat para sa mga (heterosexuals), bakit hindi sa atin (A lot of churches already exist for heterosexuals, why not open one for us, too)?”

HIGHER CALLING

Though the first worship gathered only 12 people, right in Perry’s living room in Huntington Park, California, the movement launched the MCC, which now has over 100,000 members in over 300 congregations in 22 countries.

Established on September 7, 1991, MCCP is the first MCC in Asia, brought by Fr. Richard Mickley, Ph.D., OSAe., a former Roman Catholic priest who became a member of MCC in the US.  Right from the start, it aimed to become a “spiritual and social center for the local gays, lesbians, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, and intersex (GLBTQI) communities through its special outreach to homosexuals and to other sexually oriented minorities,” so that with MCCP, “many have found a new meaning to their sexuality and realized the inseparability of it from their spirituality.”

After Mickley’s retirement (he then founded the Order of St. Aelred), other MCCP leaders included Rev. Edgar Mendoza, Rev. CJ Agbayani, IPL Lino Tan Lee, IPL Jojo Encelan, and now, Luna.

	1 | 2