Pride, Belonging, and the Work Still Ahead

June is Pride Month, a time of celebration, reflection, and renewed commitment to the dignity and belonging of LGBTQIA+ people everywhere. For the Uniting Church, this month carries particular weight. Our commitment to being a diverse, inclusive community is not a peripheral concern. It sits at the very heart of who we are called to be. 

This year, that commitment found fresh expression in a gathering that is already shaping the direction of our work. A few weeks ago, a group of leaders, ministers, and community members came together for what was called the Intersection Gathering, a conversation about what it truly means to create and sustain safe, affirming spaces for LGBTQIA+ people within the church, with particular focus on those whose stories are most often left out of the conversation entirely. 

Among those present were the Moderator Rev. Faaimata Havea Hiliau, Jo Drayton - Pulse Team Leader, James Baker - Pulse Ex - Young Adult Ministry Facilitator, Milise (Ofa) Foiakau - Pulse Youth Ministry Facilitator, Rev Dr Seforosa Carroll - Acting Principal United Theological College, Rev Dr Cliff Bird - Mission Consultant, Greer Hudson - Minister at Adamstown Uniting Church,Tash Holmes - Mission Catalyst, Uniting Creative, Rev.Myung Hwa Park Ex-Moderator and Minister at Leura Uniting Church, Rev. Seung Jae Yeon - Minister at Eastwood Uniting Church and Rev Hee Won Chang - Minister at Hope Uniting Church, a group whose collective experience and leadership lent the gathering both depth and direction. 

What emerged from the room was honest, courageous, and at times difficult to sit with. There was grief over spaces that once felt safe and no longer do, over communities that have fragmented, over young people who remain hidden rather than celebrated. But there was also something unmistakably hopeful. A sense, as one participant put it, that it is simply time for the church to move forward together. 

One of the most significant threads running through the gathering was the question of intersectionality, and how rarely it is taken seriously in practice. The words "inclusive," "open," and "affirming" are used often in church circles. But inclusion means very little if it only extends to people whose experience fits a familiar mould. In many Pacific and non-Western communities represented within our church, queerness is still treated as sinful or unspoken, something that exists but is not acknowledged, let alone embraced. Young queer people in these communities carry an invisible weight, navigating faith and identity in spaces that were never designed with them in mind. 

The gathering made clear that the Uniting Church cannot speak about LGBTQIA+ inclusion and treat it as separate from cultural inclusion. These conversations must happen together. Queer people already exist within our First Nations communities, our Pacific communities, our multicultural congregations. The question is not whether they belong, they do, but whether we are actively creating the conditions for them to know it. 

This is the work. Not just policy statements or symbolic gestures during Pride Month, but the harder, longer work of equipping ministers and leaders, developing accessible theological resources, and building communities where a person does not have to keep coming out in every new space they enter. 

The Intersection Gathering outlined several priority areas that will guide the work ahead: developing theological resources that engage honestly with biblical interpretations often used to exclude queer people; creating practical tools including bible studies, training materials, and congregational guides that meet communities at different stages of readiness; and strengthening networks that ensure representation across theology, chaplaincy, young people, and cultural communities. 

None of this is simple. The gathering itself acknowledged that the church can still be an unsafe or painful place for LGBTQIA+ people, and that those leading this work often find themselves doing so reluctantly, carrying the weight of a broader institutional transformation that moves slowly. Leaders and space-holders have a particular responsibility here. Inclusion does not happen by default. It is shaped, intentionally, by the people who hold the room. 

What gives cause for genuine hope is that the conversation is happening at all, and that it is happening with this level of seriousness, tenderness, and theological honesty. The Intersection Gathering was not a one-off event. It is the beginning of an ongoing and expanding collaboration, with further planning already underway. 

As we mark Pride Month, the Uniting Church NSW and ACT stands with LGBTQIA+ people, in celebration and also in commitment. Commitment to doing the theological work. Commitment to equipping our leaders. Commitment to the young person in a Pacific congregation who has never heard the church say, clearly and without qualification, that they are seen, they are loved, and they belong here. 

That is the work. And it is time.