Open and Affirming (ONA) is the United Church of Christ’s (UCC) designation for congregations, campus ministries, and other bodies in the UCC which make a public covenant of welcome into their full life and ministry to persons of all sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions.
Here is Fellowship’s Open and Affirming Statement, adopted in 1995:
Fellowship Congregational Church (UCC) accepts the call:
- To share and to invite in Christ’s baptism, to eat at Christ’s table, to join in Christ’s passion and victory;
- To love and serve God and others;
- To be a community of healing and hospitality;
- To resist evil;
- To be in covenant with faithful people without regard to age, language, race, gender, abilities, economic class, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
