wfn.org | Florida Lesbian Elected Leader of Metropolitan Community Churches

[UfmccHq@aol.com]

N E W S   R E L E A S E
For Immediate Release: July 25, 2005
 
(Calgary, Alberta) -- Delegates to the international General  Conference of 
the Metropolitan Community Churches have elected Rev. Nancy  Wilson as the 
denomination's new leader. 

Wilson, of Sarasota, Florida, becomes the second Moderator of MCC, the	
worldwide movement of predominantly LGBT Christians. She succeeds the
Church's  
founder Troy Perry. Wilson officially begins her six year term on October 7, 

2005 
 
The MCC is holding its annual meeting in Calgary, Alberta. More than 1,500  
church leaders from 25 countries are attending the conference, which runs
July  
21 to 26. 
 
Wilson has had a distinguished career within Metropolitan Community  
Churches. In 1976, she became the youngest person ever elected to the MCC
Board  of 
Elders and has served as an Elder since that time. 
 
She attended Boston University School of Theology with a Rockefeller  
Fellowship, also holds an M.Div. from SS. Cyril and Methodius Seminary,
served	as 
Vice-Moderator of MCC during 1993-2003 and has pastored MCC congregations in 

Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, and California.
 
Wilson is the former senior pastor of Metropolitan Community Church of Los  
Angeles, the Founding Church of the MCC movement. She currently serves as 
senior	pastor of Church of the Trinity MCC in Sarasota.
 
>From 1979 to 1999, she served as MCC's Chief Ecumenical Officer,  
representing MCC at the National Council of Churches and the World Council of
 Churches.
 
In 1987, she represented MCC as an ecumenical observer at the Bilateral  
Dialogue of the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches in Columbia, South 
Carolina, 
where she met Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, becoming one of the first  LGBT 
leaders to meet the man who is now Pope Benedict XVI.
 
Wilson has also been active on behalf of HIV issues, prisoner treatment  
programs, and women's rights. She is the founder of the MCC Conference for
Women  
in Professional Ministry.

In 1979, she participated in the first-ever meeting of gay and lesbian	
religious leaders at the U.S. White House during the Carter  Administration.
 
She is also the author of several books and is a contributing author to  
Poems and Prayers in Race and Prayer edited by Malcolm Boyd and Chester
Talton	
(Morehouse Press).
 
Wilson resides with her partner of 27 years, Dr. Paula Schoenwether. They  
both actively work for same-sex marriage equality.
 
Prior to beginning her MCC ministry, Rev. Wilson was active in the United  
Methodist Church.
 
She will be formally installed as the new MCC Moderator at a ceremony at  
Washington National Cathedral, Washington, DC, on October 29.
 
The denomination was founded by the Rev. Troy Perry in Los Angeles in 1968.  
Today there are over 250 Metropolitan Community Churches throughout the world
 
with more than 43,000 members.
 
__________________________________________
For Additional Information,  Contact:
Jim Birkitt
MCC Communications Director
(310) 360-8640, x226
E-Mail: _info@MCCchurch.org_ (mailto:info@MCCchurch.org)