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Metropolitan Community Churches
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Throughout the history of Metropolitan Community Churches, thousands of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and heterosexual people have found hope, and have lived the joy, reverence, and excitement of our fellowship and faith in God. We have seen how people have been changed by this experience. Quite simply, we make a difference in people's lives.
Today, as self-aware and self-affirming people, we reclaim the fullness of our humanity, including our spirituality. We find great truths in the religious tradition, and we find that our encounter with God is transformational and healing.
Thousands of individuals have experienced emotional healing and reconciliation from abuse and oppression, and countless members and friends credit their involvement in the Fellowship and its congregations with saving their lives. We experience our communities of faith as places of healing and hope, places of reconciliation with family, with self-esteem, and with individual spirituality.
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The Center for Progressive Christianity
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The CPC promotes an understanding of Christian practice and teaching that leads to a greater concern for the way people treat each other than for the way people express their beliefs, the acceptance of all people, and a respect for other religious traditions.
They affirm the variety and depth of human experience and the richness of each persons' search for meaning, and they encourage the use of sound scholarship, critical inquiry, and all intellectual powers to understand the presence of God in human life.
The CPC is opposed to any exclusive dogma that limits the search for truth and free inquiry, and they encourage work that eases the pain, suffering and degradation inherent in many of the structures of society, as well as work that keeps central to the Christian life fair, open, peaceful, and loving treatment of all human beings.
Our congregation affirms "The 8 Points" that the CPC developed to define what we mean when we call ourselves "Progressive Christians."
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Westside CARES
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After many years of education and relationship building, Pikes Peak Metropolitan Community Church was welcomed into Westside CARES membership in 2009. However, Westside CARES has a long and powerful history...
El Paso County has owned the land that is now Bear Creek Park, located at 21st Street and Gold Camp Road, since 1899. The El Paso County Poor Farm was dedicated in 1900, as a place for members of society who couldn't care for themselves. The Poor Farm operated into the 1970s, but in its later years, functioned as a temporary shelter in a partnership with the El Paso County Department of Social Services. It closed its doors in 1984, and was demolished. Its residents were suddenly thrust into the wider community. A number of the churches of the west side of Colorado Springs came together to help these neighbors in need. At the end of this process, right around Thanksgiving, members of these churches gathered Bethany Lutheran Church with a Thanksgiving worship service, followed by a pie social. The shared work and worship moved the people so much so that they decided to form a more permanent relationship. And Westside CARES was born.
Westside CARES was originally staffed solely by volunteers and was housed within the Billie Spielman Center of Pikes Peak Community Action Agency. In 1993, the organization, moved into its current location in the basement of Bethany Baptist Church. Over the years, the volunteer staff has grown to over 390 volunteers, and the paid staff has grown as well. Programs and Services have changed and grown as well. Despite all of these expansions, our focus has remained on uniting people of faith in service to our neighbors in need.