A Work in Progress, A Work of Love

Beginning in the fall of 2023, two groups of church members spent a full year discovering new and progressive ways to “be the church.”  One group worked with a program from Yale Divinity School

called “Reimagining Church.” We studied and were inspired by the work of various church leaders, shared stories, experiences, and ideas with several other churches around the country of varying denominations and backgrounds. The other group worked with a church consultant, called Convergence, benchmarking other local churches and community organizations.

The focus of both groups was on exploring long-term visioning and developing strategies to best serve God, our community, and each other.

In the fall of 2024, the groups combined, continuing to work with Gregg Carlson, our consultant from Convergence. He encouraged us to talk about our values, and to come up with the top three visions that best reflected those values. He said, “Consider how you can permeate the community with your presence.”

Those visions evolved into three potential missions, to:

• Support and assist the unhoused

• Help to feed those suffering from food insecurity

• Provide support, resources and a safe space for LGBTQIA+ community, specifically young people

We explored the possibilities of all three. Long story short, we came to the realization that the first two of those programs were already quite active and well-served in our community. Although we are already involved with some of that work, there are several local organizations that provide many more resources to the unhoused and food insecure than we can.

• Beth-El Center is a thriving resource for the unhoused, and is currently building a new facility to help augment the wonderful work that they have been doing for the past 40 years. We continue to provide support for Beth-El, and have for many years now.

• All In For Milford is constantly working to advocate for the needs of the unhoused and food insecure.

• We continue to offer food and monetary support to organizations like The Purple Pantry, Bridges, Bridgeport Rescue Mission, and others.

The third “vision” was a little different. We have been an Open and Affirming congregation for 20 years now. So, we realized it was about time we explored what we could do to support the LGBTQIA+ community in the Milford area. We decided to focus on LGBTQIA+ youth, who are vulnerable, marginalized, and sometimes even ostracized by their own families. We held a forum for all members on November 10, 2024, and heard some useful and positive feedback from our church family, and it helped to shape our way forward.

Through this visioning process, we recognized this imminent need to support the youth of our community – LGBTQIA, their allies, and possibly their families. Especially in light of what is happening in our country right now, we felt this to be an extremely worthwhile venture.

We formed a group of church members, called the “Woodmont Rainbow Alliance,” and we are looking at providing a safe space and resources for LGBTQIA+ youth to learn, explore and just be the wonderful children of God that they are, with the full support of our church.

We will not present our program as specifically a “church” program, but more as a community resource. We understand that some queer folks, especially youth, are still questioning their spirituality. Some are apprehensive, and sometimes even fearful, due to the harm done by other church factions.

So, we are moving forward on a year-long exploration of how to best serve this community of youth. We have partnered with the Milford School System and the GSAs in the middle and high schools, and our contacts there have issued a survey for us so that we can learn more about what their needs might look like. In March, we raised money to help students from the three middle schools and two high schools to attend the True Colors/SOGIE  Conference in Storrs. We will also be partnering with other similarly-aligned organizations in our journey. STAY TUNED!

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If you would like to learn more about the Woodmont Rainbow Alliance,

or would like to join our effort, please call the church office at 203-878-3885, ext. 2.