WE ARE A WELCOMING CONGREGATION

All Souls welcomes everyone into our faith community, without regard to race, gender, age, color, national origin, ethnic background, socioeconomic status, marital status, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity. Please know you are welcome here exactly as you are.

The Welcoming Congregation Program is a volunteer program for Unitarian Universalist congregations that want to take intentional steps to become more welcoming and inclusive of people with marginalized sexual orientations and gender identities. 

In October 2012 All Souls formally began the official process of becoming a Welcoming Congregation. We quickly learned that we had already put in place many of the benchmarks required to successfully achieve a “Welcoming” status.  

In May of 2014, by unanimous vote, our congregation requested to officially to become a Welcoming Congregation. The official confirmation from the Unitarian Universalist Association came a few weeks later in a letter stating:

“Congratulations! We are delighted to inform you that All Souls Community Church of West Michigan’s application to become recognized as a Welcoming Congregation has been approved. Sincere congratulations on taking this powerful step, doing collective work to educate yourselves on LGBTQ issues, and committing yourselves to vital ongoing ministry in this area.

We were especially pleased to see that you have adopted a broad definition of what it means to be a Welcoming Congregation and that you are committed to exploring issues of racism, classism, ableism, and all the ways that our society oppresses others. This is essential if we are truly committed to welcoming the whole person.” 

For more information about the Welcoming Congregation program please click on our rainbow logo to the left.