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MCC History

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MCC Newcastle has its own history with stories of great faith, great courage and, of course, laughter and tears along the way. It is also part of a world wide denomination, which is touching and changing lives every day.

In 1968, a year before New York's Stonewall Riots, a series of most unlikely events in Southern California resulted in the birth of the world's first church group with a primary, positive ministry to gays, lesbians, bisexual, and transgender persons.

Those events, a failed relationship, an attempted suicide, a reconnection with God, an unexpected prophecy, and the birth of a dream led to MCC's first worship service: a gathering of 12 people in Rev. Troy Perry's living room in Huntington Park, California on October 6, 1968.

That first worship service in a Los Angeles suburb in 1968 launched the international movement of Metropolitan Community Churches, which today has grown to 43,000 members and adherents in almost 300 congregations in 22 countries. During the past 36 years, MCC's prophetic witness has forever changed the face of Christianity and helped to fuel the international struggle for LGBT rights and equality

These edited excerpts are from "The Lord Is My Shepherd, And He Knows I'm Gay" authored by MCC Founder and Moderator, Rev. Troy D. Perry. The book is available on-line at Click here

If you wish to know more about the history of the UFMCC Click Here

MCC Newcastle

MCC Newcastle was born in November 1991, at a public meeting of 16 interested people in the Society of Friends' Meeting House, Jesmond. The Church quickly moved from mid-week meetings of five or six people for bible study in people's homes, to regular Sunday worship which began in March 1992. The Church moved to new premises in 1993. It thrived and welcomed many visitors as word spread, and a number of people stayed to form a dedicated core of membership.

By Spring 1994 the congregation had grown sufficiently in confidence to start looking for a new home. The move to our present location at St James' United Reformed Church in Northumberland Road, Newcastle upon Tyne took place in September 1994. The new meeting-place, in an upstairs room of a well-established Church just on the edge of the City's main shopping centre, seemed ideal and the members of MCC Newcastle quickly settled in.

The Church continued to grow steadily with new faces appearing almost every week, and began to hold monthy worship meetings in Middlesbrough. Unaccompanied hymn-singing gave way to piano accompaniment on the arrival of several talented musicians. The Church gained enough confidence to start experimenting with various layouts of worship space and forms of worship. It decided that MCC Newcastle should always aim to provide a warm and welcoming atmosphere and diverse worship in a style of its own that would, as far as possible, embrace the best of all Christian traditions. In this spirit, the Church's pastoral team began to establish links with other denominations and with the Newcastle City Centre Churches Together - an ecumenical gathering of denominations represented in the city centre. We encountered and overcame many hurdles along the way during this period.