Iowa/Illinois Quad Cities - On Sunday, March 22, 2015 the Metropolitan Community Church of the Quad Cities ("MCC QC") will celebrate its 35th Anniversary, as well as its current pastor's 10th Anniversary of being called to the congregation. The public is invited to attend the 11:00 am worship service and to join in a potluck dinner following the service.
35 Years of Ministry in the Community began In the fall of 1979, eleven years after the founding of what was then known as the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, a group of individuals from both Iowa and Illinois began discussions about forming a local congregation of MCC in the Quad Cities. Under the guidance of Rev. Reid Christensen, pastor of MCC Illiamo in Quincy, Illinois, the group came together to form an advisory board and later began worshipping in the living rooms of members' homes. The first facility rented as a Church building was a small, single room building at 1618 W. 3rd Street in Davenport. Founding members Jim Moore and Peter Pond spent many hours crafting and renovating items for use in our first and subsequent buildings.
The Church organized the first Gay and Lesbian Pride Picnic for the Quad Cities, held at Scott County Park in June of 1982 and has worked tirelessly for equal rights and marriage equality on both sides of the Mississippi River. MCC QC is a member church of Churches United of the Quad City Area, and helps feed the hungry by supporting our local food pantries, by serving a meal at the Salvation Army feeding site once a month, and by participating in the annual Quad Cities CROP Hunger Walk campaign. The Church owned a building in Rock Island until an electrical fire required a move to a facility at 31st and Harrison Streets in Davenport. In 2013 the congregation sold that building and in 2014 purchased the current facility at 2930 W. Locust St. in Davenport, formerly a Blockbuster Video store.
Rev. Rich Hendricks grew up only a few blocks away from that current Church location. "The property was a part of 'Gruber's Gladiolas' farm and I used to walk to Wilson Elementary School by cutting through the pasture. My very first job was planting gladiola bulbs in those fields. I remember I wore shorts and my knees were raw and bloody from the dirt clods at the end of the first day. With some help from my Grandma Vada's Watkins' Salve, band-aids and determination, I went back the next day and kept working that summer."
Hendricks graduated from Drake University and has a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law. "After three years of practicing corporate law, and starting to raise a family, I knew that pastoral ministry was my true calling," says Hendricks, who received his Master of Divinity degree from Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta. After coming out as a gay man in 1999, Hendricks moved to Chicago and practiced nonprofit law until becoming credentialed in the Metropolitan Community Church.
In October of 1994, Hendricks answered a call to come help MCC QC perform public "I Do" ceremonies - Civil Unions blessed by the Church in a public way to call attention to the need for marriage equality. "It turns out MCC QC needed a pastor, and I accepted their call in January, 1995. Never in a million years would I have thought my journey would lead me back to Davenport, Iowa - and then back to the very neighborhood where I grew up!"
Time Capsule Time is a wonderful, funny, fickle thing it seems. "Since we have come such a long way in our 35 years of existence, we thought we should commemorate our journey with time capsule," says Hendricks. The time capsule is to be dedicated Sunday the 22nd and is not to be opened for 40 years. It will be sealed in a "mouse hole" opening in one of the new building's metal beams in the social hall. The contents will include items indicative of MCC QC's history - and a thumb drive filled with pictures and memorabilia from current life here.
Rev. Dr. Nancy Wilson Presenting the message of "Seeing Jesus" at the 11:00 am service is the leader of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, Rev. Dr. Nancy Wilson. Dr. Wilson was elected to the position of Moderator of Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC) in 2005, following the retirement of the Founder of MCC, Rev. Elder Troy Perry, and in July 2010, she was re-elected for a term of six years. She is only the second person, and the first woman, to serve in that role since the founding of Metropolitan Community Churches in 1968.
Dr. Wilson has been the official delegate of MCC to the World Council of Churches General Assemblies in Canberra, Australia (1991); Harare, Zimbabwe (1998); and Porto Alegre, Brazil (2006). In 2011, President Barack Obama appointed Rev. Wilson to the President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Following President Obama's re-election in 2013, Rev. Wilson gave a Scripture reading at the Inaugural Prayer Service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and was the first openly gay clergy member to participate.
Dr. Wilson's published works include : Outing the Bible: Queer Folks, God, Jesus, and the Christian Scriptures (LifeJourney Press); Outing the Church: 40 Years in the Queer Christian Movement (LifeJourney Press); Nossa Tribo: Gays, Deus, Jesus e a Bíblia (Metanoia); Our Tribe: Queer Folks, God, Jesus and the Bible (Alamo Press); with Fr. Malcolm Boyd, Amazing Grace. Rev. Wilson's prayers and poems are included in Race and Prayer, edited by Malcolm Boyd and Chester Talton (Morehouse Press).
MCC QC - where you and your spiritual journey are welcome
