Nancy Maclean won this year’s Lovedy Gilbert Award from the Metropolitan Community Church in San Diego that is presented to a female congregant who demonstrates love and acceptance for all.
“You are my home. You are my family,” said Maclean just after Senior Pastor Dan Koeshall announced her as the 2015 winner.
The straight woman has a passionate belief that everyone should be invited to the communion table each week during services. She now assists in the serving of communion and the reason for it lies from her Catholic past.
Maclean was not allowed to receive communion in the Catholic Church because she was divorced and remarried. At MCC no one is barred from receiving communion that symbolically recalls the last supper that Jesus Christ had with his disciples.
“I would never have been afforded the opportunity to co-celebrate (communion) in the Catholic Church. This is something that I thought about since I was a child,” said Maclean to San Diego LGBT Weekly.
“Everyone is called to the table of Christ, not just some or those “without sin.” I came to experience communion in a different way,” said Maclean.
“I have never felt so excluded when I could not receive communion in the Catholic Church. Today at MCC, I have never felt so included,” said Maclean.
“Some were fascinated as to why a straight person would attend a “gay” church. When they asked, I would tell them that I found God here,” said Maclean. “It was through each interaction that I experienced God’s love.”
“I was very surprised at the welcome that I received,” said Maclean, recalling her first visit in July, 2012. “People greeted me warmly at the door, inside the sanctuary, and after the service. I had never been so openly received in a church before MCC.”
“Because of Pastor Dan’s openness to other religions’ ideas, we started to say the rosary every Sunday at 8 a.m. We ask for blessings for our church, the congregants and the world,” said Maclean. “This has been occurring for about 15 months.”
Maclean works in a hospital as a nurse practitioner and a counselor.
The Lovedy Gilbert Award is named after a woman at MCC who loved her two gay children and “went about educating everyone she met that God loves all people regardless of their sexual orientation.” The award is given every Mother’s Day.
The San Diego MCC Church will be celebrating its 45th anniversary Sunday, June 7. Rev. David Farrell, the guest pastor emeritus, will preach at 11 a.m. Also attending will be former senior pastor Rev. Tony Freeman and former interim pastor Rev. John Gill.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Community Choir will give a concert at 6 p.m. June 7 and there will be a dessert potluck afterwards.
