A 2021 safeguarding survey of more than 750 UK LGBT+ Christians shows that only a third ‘feel safe to be out’ in their local churches, and just one in five feel ‘safe to be out to the wider Christian community’.

IN JULY 2021 Inclusive Church, OneBodyOneFaith and the Open Table Network asked our members and supporters to respond to a survey about your experience of online church and in-person church gatherings and events. Researcher Krysia Waldock shares the newly-published findings of the survey.

FIVE LGBTQIA+-affirming organisations have agreed to endorse and signpost to the statement of Inclusive Church, the educational charity which works with churches of different traditions, encouraging them to explore ways in which they may become more inclusive.

IN THIS final week of Advent, the beginning of the Church’s year when we prepare to celebrate the coming of Jesus at Christmas, Open Table Network Co-Chair Sarah Hobbs has shared a reflection for our partner organisation OneBodyOneFaith.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND has published a new video aiming to encourage people to take part in its Living in Love and Faith course on identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage. In the short film, four people share their experiences of taking part in the Living in Love and Faith course, inclusing OTN Co-Chair Sarah Hobbs.

ON COMING OUT DAY - 11th October - we asked you to #ComeOutForOpenTable by sharing and supporting our crowdfunder - and you did!

LAST MONTH, technology company Lenovo launched the Kind City project - One of the themes is ‘Faith in kind cities’. OTN Coordinator Kieran Bohan was on a panel from diverse faith communities who took part in an interactive podcast.

WHEN WE SING All are welcome, are we sure that we are welcoming of everyone? And how warm is our welcome? Sometimes it is those on the inside who are the best barometer of temperature, for they experience the Church in all its forms. Four LGBT clergy are looking for other LGBT clergy in England to share their experiences.

FOLLOWING the success of our recent Q&As with our Patrons (still available on our YouTube channel), in October our Q&A was a #BlackHistoryMonth special with Revd Jide Macaulay, founder and CEO of House of Rainbow in conversation with OTN trustee Revd Augustine Tanner-Ihm.

THE CO-CHAIRS of the Open Table Network, Alex Clare-Young and Sarah Hobbs, have each recorded two newly released podcasts - one each, and one together, newly published online.

MONDAY 11th October is #ComingOutDay - Will you #ComeOutForOpenTable by sharing and supporting our Crowdfunder? The Open Table Network helps make loving places where LGBTQIA+ people of faith belong safely. As more people hear of us, there’s much more work to do.

AN ONLINE SURVEY is launched today on World Mental Health Day, to understand just how safe UK LGBT+ Christians feel in their churches, and what can be done to make them feel safer.

TODAY marks the first anniversary of the Open Table Network Coordinator taking on the role full-time. We look back on the impact the Open Table Network has made in the past twelve months.

FOLLOWING the success of our recent Q&As with our Patrons, in September our Q&A was a conversation between Barbara Glasson and Mark Rowland about the recent votes on marriage, conversion therapy and gender-neutral inclusive language at the Methodist Conference in June.

IN AN INTERVIEW with the Manchester Evening News this week, OTN trustee Augustine Tanner-Ihm, recently appointed as a curate at St James and Emmanuel Didsbury, shared his journey through poverty, racism, homophobia and conversion therapy.

SAME-SEX COUPLES will be able to have their civil partnership or marriage blessed in Church in Wales churches for the first time after new legislation was passed this week.

FOLLOWING the success of our recent Q&As with our Patrons (still available on our YouTube channel), in August the Open Table Network's Co-Chairs Alex Clare-Young and Sarah Hobbs had a dialogue around key issues that matter to them and the Open Table Network.

IN AN INTERVIEW with BBC Radio 4’s Sunday programme on 15th August, Open Table Network trustee Augustine Tanner-Ihm explained why he sought conversion therapy at church in north-west England a few years ago.

A MEMBER of the Coordinating Group of Living In Love And Faith (LLF), the Church of England’s suite of resources on identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage, has published an academic article drawing on professional expertise and lived experience to critique the LLF process.

FOLLOWING the success of our recent Q&As with our Patrons (still available on our YouTube channel), July is the sixth anniversary of Open Table becoming a Network, so we heard more of the Open Table story from Kieran our Coordinator.