The Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco (MCCSF) got its official start in 1970, only 2 years after the creation of MCC Los Angeles in the living room of Rev. Troy Perry. Rev. Howard Wells, who had heard of Rev. Troy Perry’s church, gathered with his friends in his living room and decided to start an MCC. Their first meeting in the spring of 1970 was held in Jackson’s Bar & Grill on Fillmore Street in North Beach, in an age before San Francisco’s queer community had to settle in and around the Castro.
MCCSF grew steadily even without a permanent home. The church met in about a dozen locations – members humorously joked that they had to come to church each week in order to find out where they would meet the following week! During those years the church launched a wildly successful revival-like celebration called “Be One of a Thousand” at the California Hall (now The Culinary Institute) and it, along with MCCSF's radio program called "The Gay Cross," gave the church momentum for continued growth throughout the 1970s. In 1972 Rev. Howard Wells left MCCSF unaware at the time that the church’s 35th anniversary 16 years later would record eight additional senior pastors and countless associates and students in his footsteps.
For a time, the congregation met in a church on Guerrero Street and considered purchasing it until it was burned in an arson fire on July 27, 1973. A sign had been posted at the entrance of the torched church with anti-gay hate messages and threats of further violence to the pastor. Two days later, the pastor, Rev. Jim Sandmire, led a procession of five hundred congregants and members of the LGBT community along with political leaders from the city and state in a procession that marched – with police protection – from the burned site to a new host church, Mission United Presbyterian Church, at 23rd and Capp Street in the Mission District. Arson merely destroyed a building, not the church. As in its humble beginnings in 1970 the church, regardless of where it is housed, is the people of MCCSF. However, These events ignited a passion for a permanent home, and a building fund was established.
In this decade MCCSF was the example of hope for the LGBT community nationwide, raising awareness and organizing politically to combat discriminatory local and state legislation. MCCSF was at the forefront in fighting the Briggs Initiative of 1977 that was aimed at prohibiting lesbians and gays from teaching in state schools. This tradition of involvement with core social justice issues for all people is a proud, historic legacy that continues today.
MCC was initially founded as a short-term solution to homophobia in mainline churches in hopes that queer people would be able to work from the outside to transform Christen churches. By the late 1970s it became clear that this dream would not be realized in the near to medium term. The church needed a permanent structure for its ongoing social justice programs. Finally, in 1979 a site was found at 150 Eureka Street in the Castro.
The building on Eureka Street was built in 1900. At the time of its purchase it was an independent Pentecostal church called “Voice of Pentecost.” Because of shifting demographics this church was losing its constituency in the Castro and wished to sell the building. MCCSF, with only 100 members at the time, purchased it for $250,000. When the congregation moved to its new home it discovered a sanctuary with electric-blue walls, orange shag carpeting, and chocolate trim. The restrooms were little more than outhouses and a neon “Jesus Saves” sign hung on the outside wall. The building was slowly restored to functionality and the décor eventually included symbolic, handmade stained glass windows to the sanctuary, but substantial structural concerns still remain to this day.
In 1981, the mostly male congregation sought to increase the attendance of women, by bringing in Rev. Janie Spahr and others to hold women-specific events. Soon the still somewhat conservative male church had to respond to new issues of feminism and patriarchal theology --which they did by adding gender-neutral references to God and women’s programming.
Then in 1983, Jackie (last name unknown) was the first MCCSF member known to have died of AIDS, and the deaths of hundreds more MCCSF members would follow in the years to come. It is impossible to overstate the impact of HIV/AIDS on the life of MCCSF during those years when there were no effective treatments for HIV or for many of the common HIV-associated opportunistic infections. During the peak of the crisis it was not uncommon to schedule 3 or 4 memorial services every Saturday and Sunday. Growth in new members of the church could barely keep pace with the rate of deaths. And yet, even in the midst of this virtually unbearable period the church persevered, supported fellow members throughout the darkest days, and served on the vanguard of advocacy efforts for people living with HIV/AIDS. One such example is MCCSF’s early lobbying for the use of legalized medical marijuana, an effective intervention for people with HIV/AIDS who struggle to eat because of loss of appetite. This position catapulted MCCSF to national fame.
MCCSF, with its own homeless history began a tradition of interfaith cooperation and in early 1985 shared its worship space with a gay and lesbian Jewish congregation called Ahavat Shalom. Fueled by anti-Semitism, a firebomb was thrown through the glass window of the sanctuary in 1990.
In 1986 MCCSF invited Rev. Jim Mitulski, pastor of MCC New York City, to San Francisco to meet with members of the congregation. Without even seeing the actual church Rev. Mitulski went home to New York to say good-bye and returned to San Francisco shortly thereafter with his partner, church musician Bob Crocker. Under Rev. Jim Mitulski’s leadership, joined with Rev. Sharna Sutherin in 1991, MCCSF entered a period of sustained growth and shifted from being a place to worship on Sundays into an integral part of the San Francisco queer community.
Even under the continuing specter of AIDS, the church grew and transformed throughout the 1990s. In 1991 Rev. Penny Nixon moved to San Francisco and quickly became a favored guest preacher at MCCSF. In 1996 she was hired as the Associate Pastor and in 1998 was elevated to Pastor alongside Rev. Jim Mitulski.
During her tenure, both women’s programming and the overall involvement of women in the congregation and in leadership positions grew.
MCCSF has a proven track record of training and raising up dedicated ministers then sending them out to share the voice of freedom and compassion to the LGBT community worldwide. One such example, Rev. Karen Foster joined the staff of MCCSF, first as a student and then as Assistant Pastor. Among Karen’s many contributions was the formation of the mid-week Prayer at the Heart service in the Taizé style. Rev. Foster dreamed of “a new way of doing church,” and in 2000 MCCSF helped her raise what is now New Spirit Community Church in the East Bay. The birth of NSCC was unprecedented. It linked the Universal Fellowship of MCC in affiliation with two additional denominations: the United Church of Christ and the Disciples Of Christ.
In the mid- to late-1990s, the lives of people with HIV/AIDS and the overall epidemic were miraculously transformed by the advent of medications that suppressed HIV replication and enhanced immune function. Given this blessing, the church began to look at other social issues facing the broader community.
In 1997, The Metropolitan Community Foundation was formed as an umbrella organization for the church’s social justice and outreach ministries, and in 1999, the church began a relationship with Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, a local public elementary school. Several programs such as a reading program, the purchase of school supplies, and the provision of a part-time music teacher continue to be an important extension of the church’s ministry.
In response to the crisis around San Francisco’s homeless population, MCCSF began a program called “Simply Supper” to feed the hungry or homeless in our community. The program reaches several hundred people each week, serving bag lunches at a needle exchange site on Tuesdays and a hot meal at the church on Thursday and Friday afternoons.
In 2001, after serving the congregation for 15 years, Rev. Jim Mitulski stepped down as pastor, and Rev. Penny Nixon became the Senior Minister of the church. Later, Rev. Terri Eichelberger, now Senior Pastor of Peninsula MCC in San Mateo, California, and Rev. Joe McMurrray, now Senior Pastor of Trinity MCC in Gainesville, Florida, joined the staff of the church. Rev. Leah Brown also served at MCCSF, most prominently as executive director of the Metropolitan Community Foundation; she now serves as pastor of MCC Wichita Falls (Tex).
By spring 2001 the congregation began a process of organized reflection. The result, a Visioning Task Force report expressed in broader terms the path that MCCSF would embark upon during the next several years. The congregation embraced a vision of itself as “A house of prayer for all people. A home for queer spirituality.” To meet the increasing demand for the building and all the church’s programming, the church adopted a plan to buy or build a new home—a Spiritual Center—that could serve as a sacred space for queer people no matter what path to God they follow. The Spiritual Center would also serve as a place where the congregation would expand its programming space and its capacity to undertake social justice programs.
In 2003, MCCSF engaged Ji-Sing Norman Eng as a Minister of Buddhist Spirituality, and MCCSF became the first MCC to offer weekly, non-Christian spiritual practices as part of its regular programming. Q-Sangha was launched on the Lunar New Year in 2003 with over 250 people in attendance (a capacity crowd in the small 150 Eureka Street sanctuary) and attracts up to 100 people weekly.
Current attendance at Sunday Worship Services averages between 250 and 300 with Taizé on Wednesday nights averaging 35-45. Q-Sangha services average about 20 on Monday nights. The programming for MCF is housed on Eureka Street along with dozens of other support groups from all over the community. In all, 150 Eureka Street welcomes over 2,000 people every week and the structural strain is showing.
On June 30, 2006 the building was shut down due to unsafe structural damage. Once again, the church was not deterred; services simply moved to the LGBT Center on Market Street.
Through its history as a church, MCCSF has referred to itself as homosexual, then later as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender, and now as queer. This history has created a liberation theology that embraces sexual bodies as spiritual and sacred bodies – neither at the exclusion of the other. MCCSF speaks of a God of many names and many images, and the church is indeed a house of prayer for all people. Each generation in its history has been called to find their own voice to speak their own truth as a justice seeking people.