The Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), also known as the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC), is an international LGBT-affirming mainline Protestant Christian denomination. MCC claims to be “the world’s first church group with a primary, positive ministry to gays, lesbians, bisexual, and transgender persons.”
The fellowship has Official Observer status with the World Council of Churches. The MCC was denied membership in the US National Council of Churches in 1992, but many local MCC congregations are members of local ecumenical partnerships around the world and MCC currently belongs to several statewide councils of churches in the United States.Metropolitan Community Church glbtq article The MCC has also been considered to be non-denominational.
According to a census of the association published in 2025, it had 172 churches in 20 countries.
History The first congregation was founded in Huntington Park, California, by former Baptist minister Troy Perry in 1968. Perry felt called to return to religious work after a suicide attempt in 1967, and after his friend was arrested during a police raid on a gay bar in 1968. This was a time when Christian attitudes toward homosexuality were almost universally unfavorable. The first congregation originally met in Perry's Huntington Park home on October 6th, 1968, which 12 people attended. The church first gained publicity by ads taken out in The Advocate magazine. Perry declared the church was made up of born again believers.
In 1969 the congregation had outgrown Perry's living room and moved to rented space at the Huntington Park Women's Club. It was at this point in time membership in the church grew to about 200 people. Due to discrimination the church was forced to move, and had a hard time finding a permanent place. During this period during the spring and summer of 1969 the church moved first to the Embassy Auditorium, and then a United Methodist Church for two weeks. The church ended up renting out the Encore Theatre in Hollywood from 1969 through 1971.
Within months of the first worship service, Perry began receiving letters and visits from people who wanted to start Metropolitan Community Churches in other cities. MCC groups from eight US cities were represented at the first General Conference in 1970: Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Costa Mesa, California; Chicago, Illinois; Phoenix, Arizona; Kaneohe, Hawaii; and Dallas, Texas. An MCC group existed in Miami, Florida, but did not send a delegate.Four Historical Readings from 44 Years of MCC Ministry At the conference, the congregations formed the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC) as their governing body.
The church moved to a building it purchased at 2201 South Union Avenue in Los Angeles in 1971. The building was consecrated on March 7, 1971. MCC says this purchase makes them “the first gay/lesbian organization in the USA to own its own property." They also shared this building with Beth Chayim Chadashim, the world's first LGBTQ synagogue. MCC worshiped there until January 27, 1973, when the building was destroyed in two suspected arson attacks, which the Los Angeles Fire Department called fires "of suspicious origin." Multiple other MCC locations were the targets of arson attacks in 1973, including the Nashville Mission location and the San Francisco church location, which were both destroyed.
An additional arson attack in 1973 at the UpStairs Lounge in New Orleans killed 32 people, including one-third of MCC New Orleans’ congregation. This fire was “the largest mass killing of gays and lesbians in the United States until the 2016 massacre at Pulse.” By 1982, 17 MCC churches were damaged or destroyed by fire.
In 1972 Freda Smith became the first female minister in MCC, and was the first woman elected to the Board of Elders in 1973 at the fourth general conference in Atlanta, when the Board of Elders was expanded from four members to seven. Later MCC adopted gender inclusive language in its worship services.
In 1973 MCC began its Global Outreach program and established MCC locations in of London, England and Ontario, Canada. Soon after, they sought to connect with the larger Christian community by applying to the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC) in 1981. In 1992, NCC formally denied MCC’s membership and also denied them observer status.
In 1974, MCC Los Angeles purchased the Belasco Theater to house the congregation and the UFMCC offices. In 1987, MCC Los Angeles decided to sell its building and purchased property at Washington & La Cienega in Culver City, CA. However, in 1994 the building was destroyed in the Northridge earthquake. By 1996, the church was able to purchase a new property at Santa Monica Boulevard. In 2008, they moved again, and in 2012, MCC Los Angeles moved a final time to their current location on Prospect Ave in Los Angeles, CA.
Around 2000, church leadership began to analyze its organizational structure, particularly as Troy Perry announced he would retire in the upcoming years. The denomination also felt the need to adjust as they began to decline in membership and have continued to decline since the 2000s. In 2003, MCC lost a significant number of members when the Cathedral of Hope congregation in Dallas, Texas disaffiliated from MCC. The congregation left as Rev. Michael Piazza was investigated by MCC for “financial mismanagement, insurance fraud, and abusive leadership.” They were the largest MCC church at the time, accounting for 3,000 members out of 46,000 total MCC members. In 2006, the Cathedral of Hope became a member congregation of the United Church of Christ (UCC).
On November 10, 2003, MCC received a letter from then-President George W. Bush that congratulated the church for its 35th anniversary. Perry publicly questioned the motives for the letter being sent and characterized it as "puzzling," given that he had proclaimed the week of October 12 to 18, 2003, as Marriage Protection Week. The White House did not respond to requests for comment, and Bush would continue to oppose same-sex marriage throughout his time in office.
Perry served as moderator of the fellowship until 2005, when Nancy Wilson was elected moderator by the General Conference; she was formally installed in a special service at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC, on October 29, 2005. She is only the second person, and the first woman, to serve as moderator. She was also reelected in 2010.
In 2010, the first MCC congregation in Spain would be established in Madrid in October. If successfully established, the MCC would have been the first recognized church in Spain to officially solemnize same-sex marriages.Spain is country where the overwhelming majority of the population belongs to the Roman Catholic Church, the former state church which refuses to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies or adoptions An MCC congregation was not permanently established in Madrid in 2010, but it is unclear why. In 2018, the first religiously affiliated same-sex wedding recorded in Spain was performed by a vicar of the Lutheran Church of Sweden. The Lutheran Church of Sweden and the MCC are in partial communion with each other and the vicar is stationed in Spain on a long term 5-year mission. Despite these facts he cannot legally officiate any wedding wherein either party is a Spanish citizen and can only perform ceremonies in which at least one participant is a Swedish citizen. Later that year an MCC congregation finally opened in Madrid. As of 2020, the MCC website describes their "emerging" congregation in Madrid as thriving and expanding. When or if this congregation has performed any LGBTQ weddings is unclear, however.
In 2011 the Good Shepherd Parish of the MCC was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame.
From 2016 to 2019, Rev. Elder Rachelle Brown served as an interim moderator. In 2017, MCC decided to restructure its leadership, which included a greater focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. It also included the elimination of the Office of Emerging Ministries where Darlene Garner worked. Garner was ordained in 1988 and became the first Black person on the Council of Elders in 1993. On August 23, 2017, Garner was informed that she would be placed on sabbatical and that her position would be terminated on December 31st. Garner disagreed with the terms of the separation agreement and said the decision came without warning. Several MCC board members also left in protest. In response, MCC allowed Garner to continue unpaid on the Council of Elders until she retired in March 2018.
In 2019 Rev. Elder Cecilia Eggleston was elected as MCC’s moderator and was reelected in 2025.
Beliefs and practices
MCC bases its theology on the historic creeds of the Christian Church, such as Apostles' and Nicene creeds. Every church is required to celebrate the Eucharist at least once a week, and to practice open communion, meaning that recipients need not be a member of the MCC or any other church to receive the Eucharist. Beyond that MCC allows its member churches independence in doctrine, practice, and worship as worship styles vary from church to church. The MCC is considered to be Bible-based and many pastors take a fundamentalist approach to scripture.
MCC sees its mission being social as well as spiritual by standing up for the rights of minorities, particularly those of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) people. MCC has been a leading force in the development of queer theology.Edward R. Gray, Gay religion By Scott Thumma, Alta Mira Press, 2005
Many local churches are also involved with other national and international campaigns, including Trade JusticeE.g., MCC of North London: see "Camden Churches Fairtrade Directory July 2007" , retrieved October 2009 and Make Poverty History.
The MCC supports same-sex marriage, and has performed the first church-based weddings for same-sex couples in the United Kingdom. MCC's founder, Troy Perry, performed the first public same-sex marriage in the United States in Huntington Park, California, in 1969. In 1970, he filed the first lawsuit in the US seeking legal recognition for same-sex marriages. Perry lost that lawsuit but launched the debate over marriage equality in the US. Today, MCC congregations around the world perform more than 6000 same-sex union/marriage ceremonies annually.
Brent Hawkes and the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto were key players in the legal action that ultimately brought same-sex marriage to Canada.
A notable aspect of MCC's theology is its position on homosexuality and Christianity, where it fully embraces and welcomes LGBT people. Indeed, the majority of members are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, with many clergy being openly LGBT. MCC fully affirms the ministry of both men and women, seeing them as equal, and the past election of Nancy Wilson as Moderator makes MCC one of a small number of communions with female senior leadership.List MCC Board of Elders as of 16 October 2009 The MCC also believes that abortion should be legal.
In 2016, a new statement of faith was passed, almost unanimously, and was adopted at the 26th General Conference in Victoria, British Columbia. It is now considered one of the core documents of MCC, separate from its bylaws, as it is part of MCC formation and identity, but not part of its governance policies.
MCC is currently a plaintiff in New England Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America v. Department of Homeland Security (D. Mass.), 4:25-cv-40102. The preliminary injunction bars immigration enforcement agents from raiding conducting warrantless arrests at any of the plaintiffs’ churches.
Governance and administration Leadership