Helen Berry (MCC Newcastle)

1. Coming out and confessing faith: two sides of the same coin? Personal histories from MCC Newcastle Helen Berry (MCC Newcastle)

2. Wilderness People Real-Life Stories From An Inclusive Church MCC Newcastle

3. The Participants Not a scientific sample of the congregation at MCC Newcastle Volunteers as part of our ‘Living History’ month in September 2007 (interviews in November 2007-Summer 2008) Youngest contributor was 23, the oldest 75, with a good range of ages Good gender balance – no trans interviews in original survey (added in 2011/12) Grouped in roughly descending order of age Good range of ethnicities and social backgrounds 5 different nationalities, multiple ethnic identities broad spectrum of socio-economic groups Majority of interviewees identified as either gay or lesbian, with one heterosexual-identified volunteer Where are the bisexuals?

4. Preface Reverend Elder Nancy L. Wilson, Moderator, MCC The Story of MCC NewcastleAs told by Ian Martin, a founding member Stories from the Congregation • 1. Eight Decades of Memories – Ernie • 2. I Was in a Band – Bob • 3. Still Questioning - Margaret • 4. The Son of the Manse - James A • 5. Quietly Contemplating - Roger • 6. Doing Battle - James B • 7. Getting Hitched - Annette and Claire • 8. A Passion for Justice - David • 9. The Pastor’s Tale - Cecilia

5. 10. Scotland’s for Me • 11. They Catch You, They Kill You – Mazi • 12. Changing My Life - May • 13. My Soul is in a Good Place - John • 14. My Story – Anna • 15. A Good Woman is Hard to Find – Leigh • 16. On Reflection - Emily   • 17. Married, Still Fabulous - Mikee • 18. It’s All About Love - Abigail • 19. Learning to Trust Again - Jessie • 20. Not Much to Tell – Angela • 21. My Story – Abby   • 22. The Last Word - Reno • EDITOR’S NOTE • THE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS • YOUR STORY – TO BE CONTINUED • SOURCES OF FURTHER INFORMATION AND ACTION

6. Family • I’d like to start by asking you where do you come from, and how old are you? • Tell me about your family. Do you have any brothers and sisters? What about your parents? Were you raised by them? What did/do they do for a living? • Where were you brought up? Did you have a happy childhood? Education • Now let’s hear about your education. Did you like school? • What did you want to be when you grew up? • What age did you leave school? • What happened next? The Interview Questions

7. God and MCC • Tell me about your spiritual life. Were you brought up as a Christian? • Was there a defining moment where you ‘became’ a Christian? • Tell me about any other churches you’ve been to. • How long have you been at MCC? • What does MCC mean to you? • What are the good things about MCC and the areas where MCC needs to improve? • The Future • Tell me about your plans for the future! (In any aspect of your life). This can include your hopes, fears, plans, dreams…. • Anything else for the record that you want to add? • THANK YOU FOR TAKING PART

8. How MCC Newcastle started • Advertised in Newcastle Chronicle • Two original founders: met as house church to start with • Mid-1990s, met in upstairs room in Bigg Market • Close links with scene in Newcastle • Moved to St James’s URC, met in small room then church hall • Grew from handful in 1997/8 to >50 per week by 2012, moved to main church at St James’

9. Coming out as Christian God’s been so good to me, he plays such an important part in all my life. Now you see when people talk about homosexuals and being queer and that, I always think it’s a little bit of a safety valve that God built into our lives, because if you think of all the homosexuals throughout the world and all the hundreds of years, if we’d all been producing children and complain about how overpopulated we are, couldn’t that be just a little safety valve? (Ernie)

10. Coming out as Christian At this time it was actually against the law to be gay. I mean in my life time and I can tell you about it, I know the number of people that went to prison for it, and got very close to it myself, but for the grace of God and being quick-witted. We used to have gay parties, the pubs in those days closed at 10 o’clock. I was famous for the parties that I had. But we had a friend called Madam Pinder…and she loved the gay scene. Ethel was always invited to the parties and if the door bell rang or the knocker went after a certain time [whispers] ‘Ethel see who’s at the door’, just in case it was the police. She was our camouflage. (Ernie)

11. Coming out as Christian I often think it’s a place that people who don’t realise that they need God yet would find...I think not just gay people I think certainly students I think would really benefit from MCC - just things it like what I was saying before you don’t have it slammed down your throat that you shouldn’t have sex before marriage, you don’t sort of say you shouldn’t go out and have a good time, you have to sort of stay in and read your Bible all the time. (Angela)

12. Coming out as Christian In the past I have been to churches and I’ve not felt very welcome there, I’ve not felt at home there like the way I do at MCC. Like some churches, maybe it’s just that the congregation once they realise that you’re gay they look at you differently and they treat you differently, especially one evangelical church I went to, when they found out that I was gay they seemingly came to me house and pelted eggs at the window. So to me to go to any other church I would be very wary and very cautious as to what I told people, I wouldn’t be able to be meself. If I couldn’t be meself I couldn’t feel that level of unconditional love, that level of welcomeness and hospitality. (Abby)

13. God’s help – in unlikely places There wasn’t a soul there. I was just in the toilet, right in the middle, and then all of a sudden I heard the baseball bats going at all the doors. I immediately- for all I’m little I’m fairly strong - I got up and I put me shoulders to the back of the door and of course they were trying to push the door open, they were bashing. They said ‘look up here, this is what you going to do, what are you doing in there?’ Course being crude, trying to be butch acting, I said ‘having a fucking shit what do you think I’m doing?’ to offset the ‘we know what you’re doing, you’ll get this when you get outta here’. Talk about prayer, my God me prayers were straight up to God and they bashed all the other doors in. (Ernie)

14. Theology I eventually came to the conclusion that God creates us in an image of God which is both spiritual and sexual, and to be a whole person you have to put the two together.… as I started to find out more about MCC and read more about what they were doing I was starting to realise that MCC is actually at the cutting edge of putting the spirituality and sexuality together and that there is no conflict at all. Whatever the words say in the Bible, they do not mean that I can’t be a sexual person, loving somebody of my own gender. (Ian)

15. Looking for community I became disillusioned with church - there was the freedom to be able to say, ‘no I’m not going to go to church’, and the freedom to rebel without causing hurt to my parents. There was also a feeling I could be Christian and not be involved in organised church, organised religion. The faith didn’t go at all, no. I always felt that God was with me in that period, but there was a gradual realisation that it helped to be in a faith group. (Ian)

16. Homophobia: from Tehran to Stockton When I came this country, the government sent me to Stockton-on-Tees. In Stockton I had a horrible time. Look, after all talk about gay life in Persia, even here the Home Office send me with people from my country and they knew I was gay, and it was the wrong place. Stockton is little homophobic, but I don’t know all the people there. I had loads of the same problems with the people from my country, it was nightmare… (Mazi)

17. Homophobia: from Tehran to Stockton The [Iranians in Stockton] called me gay, they wanted kill me because I’m gay, they wanna bash me. I find out MESMAC in Middlesbrough and some gay man helped me…Straight away I found the Baptist Church near where I used to live in Stockton, I went there, I had a Baptism. Everything was fine until I ask my priest, ‘what you think of gay people, can they be gay be baptised or come church?’ and he said, ‘no, if you gay you can be baptised and come to church, but no relationship, no sex’. When I met John he said, ‘we have MCC, you’re welcome to church in MCC’, and he used to give me lift every week from Middlesbrough to MCC and back. I didn’t go my church more because I couldn’t tell them I’m gay, I didn’t want to upset them, cos they did love me and I did them too all of them. People were nice, but still is not easy to be gay there. Even now I miss them a lot but I cannot go back and say I am gay or pretend I am straight, I don’t want it.

18. Finding normality I always sort of was looking for a church and I used to pray, I wanted to have Christian friends because I didn’t have any Christian friends my own age who were like me. All the Christian people I’d met who were my age I just found really boring and didn’t seem to have very much of a life. Which seems awful [laughs] very judgemental but I never felt I could relate to them because they just seemed to be like middle-aged people who were just young. (Angela)

19. A Safe Home ‘It’s somewhere I feel very safe, somewhere I feel very at home.’ (Abby) ‘my beloved MCC’ (Claire) Coming to MCC wasn’t just because of the gay thing actually. I’d always felt, I’ve never felt at home in a church. I enjoyed churches, because I’ve always sort of been had a relationship with God since I was very very little, so I’ve always sort of wanted to enjoy spending time with God and feeling God. (Angela)

20. www.mccnewcastle.org