BLNC Facets: Open Table MCC

BLNC Facets : Pride in Everyday

Open Table MCC

MANILA

What is everyday life like as a queer person on your side of the country?

OTMCC: Open Table Metropolitan Community Church (Open Table MCC) is an ecumenical and progressive Christian church with a specific outreach to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQIA+) individuals, families, and communities.

As queer individuals from diverse backgrounds, we see that visibility is growing but so are the challenges. Many LGBTQIA+ Filipinos still face discrimination in housing, healthcare, and professional settings, as well as rejection from religious institutions and families that should offer care and support.

For those of us connected to Open Table MCC, everyday life includes the act of reclaiming space: spiritual, communal, and personal. We’ve found belonging in a faith community where we are free to come as we are. Here, we live out our Statement of Faith:

"We are people on a journey, learning to live into our spirituality, while affirming our bodies, our genders, our sexualities."

In a society that often asks us to choose between faith and identity, Open Table reminds us that we don’t have to pick one over the other. Both are gifts. Both are holy.

What would you like Filipinos to know about the LGBTQIA+ community where you are?

OTMCC: We want Filipinos to know that being LGBTQIA+ and being a person of faith are not mutually exclusive. At Open Table MCC, we believe in God’s radically inclusive love that embraces all genders, sexualities, and identities. LGBTQIA+ people are not outsiders to faith—we are part of it. We are your siblings, co-workers, neighbors, and churchmates, who live full, complex, sacred lives. Our presence is not a problem to be fixed, but a gift to be received.

We invite you to the table not just metaphorically, but spiritually and relationally. Come and be part of God’s wider work of justice, peace, and healing.

(https://www.instagram.com/opentablemcc.ph/)