Fairview opens doors to all

Fairview Community Church members struggled this week to drape the towering gold cross that stands in the front of the church’s sanctuary with rainbow-colored ribbons. A church member had to climb a wobbly ladder perched over the baptismal font to drape the roughly 10-foot cross with the multicolored fabric.

The ribbons symbolize a subtle but deliberate change for the church, which officially will open its doors to openly gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people this weekend.

Not one for subtly, the Rev. Sarah Halverson wants all of Newport-Mesa to see the ribbons.

“I wish the whole thing were covered in ribbons,” she said. Halverson has always been passionate about welcoming people into the church regardless of sexual orientation. She always wears a rainbow-colored bracelet on her arm, and a friend made her a stole out of a rainbow-printed fabric after she became the pastor at Fairview about two years ago.

Becoming what is known as an “Open, Welcoming and Affirming” church took about a year of discussion within the church to officially complete, but the process has been ongoing for the past 20 years, Halverson said. The church completed a program through the United Church of Christ Coalition for LGBT Concerns to obtain the status. Today, a framed certificate from the United Church of Christ hanging outside the pastor’s office makes Fairview’s gay-friendly status official, but little else has changed at the church, she said.

The congregation has always unofficially been open to all, regardless of sexual orientation, Halverson said. The question of officially welcoming gay and lesbian members first arose after Fairview allowed an openly gay pastor who was ousted from his own church to preach there in the 1970s.

“The term ‘open and affirming’ didn’t even exist back then,” Halverson said.

Whether to announce to the world that Fairview welcomed gays and lesbians was something the church has struggled with ever since, she said.

“Some people weren’t quite ready to take the next step and actually come out and say it,” Halverson said.

A few people left the church over the question of officially becoming gay-friendly, but the process went smoothly for the most part, she said.

Halverson believes Fairview is one of only one or two others in the Newport-Mesa area that openly welcome gay people, but the movement toward open and affirming churches is gaining momentum nationally, said the Rev. Ruth Garwood, executive director of the UCC Coalition for LGBT Concerns, which oversees designating United Church of Christ churches as Open and Affirming.

There are about 730 Open and Affirming churches in the United States today, Garwood said. It took three years to get the first 50 churches to officially become gay-friendly after the program first began in 1987, but today the program is adding about 100 more Open and Affirming churches to its rolls every two or three years, she said. To complete the program, a church must pass an official written declaration that it is open to people regardless of sexual orientation.

Fairview’s congregation will celebrate its new official status as an open church 10 a.m. Sunday at the church, 2525 Fairview Road, with a special service that will include a sermon by the Rev. Peter Laarman, executive director of Progressive Christians Uniting, an organization that promotes social justice causes in churches across Southern California.

The church also has invited several community groups to participate in the event including PFLAG and the AIDS Services Foundation. Officials from both the United Church of Christ and Evergreen Assn. of the American Baptist Churches, USA, also will attend the event.

Becoming an Open and Affirming church has several advantages, Garwood said.

“Very often it brings new people to the church because gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are looking for open churches,” Garwood said. “It often brings in new straight people to the church as well, because people are looking for a welcoming church. There are folks who want to be part of an inclusive environment.”

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at brianna.bailey@latimes.com.