Our story

How we began

The Open Table Network (OTN) began because many churches and their congregations do not easily, kindly or honestly welcome LGBTQIA+ people, therefore, many LGBTQIA+ people have nowhere spiritually to belong.

It suddenly took off in Liverpool in 2008 thanks to God’s grace, and to people with a love of God, lots of energy, and a belief in themselves as God’s beloved children. It was high time.

Small beginnings

We didn’t start as a network. We started in June 2008 as a gathering of just six LGBTQIA+ people at St Bride’s Church, Toxteth, Liverpool. Those six people (of whom Kieran our Director was one) came from different Christian traditions - Church of England, Catholic, URC and Methodist! That didn’t - and doesn’t - matter; we were drawn by our need to worship as ourselves.

What grew from this - and what still happens in all our OTN communities - is mutual support in integrating our spiritual identity with our sexual and gender identities. This was - and still is - incredibly affirming for those who have been suffering an inner conflict.

More than welcome

We met each month, to share Communion (bread and wine in remembrance of Jesus’ last meal with his friends) and to begin to create a safer space for LGBTQIA+ people, who typically haven’t been well served in mainstream churches.

At the first meeting to plan these Communion services, someone asked ‘Will it be “open table”? And we loved the phrase. It sums up a Communion in which everyone can take part, without exclusion, judgement or a test of belonging or ‘worthiness’. Many LGBTQIA+ people have been excluded, or fear exclusion, from this central act of hospitality of our Christian faith and story. We have called ourselves Open Table ever since, as a sign of our commitment to making sure everyone is more than welcome.

Growing

Our Open Table community in Liverpool grew and grew to a gathering of fifty-plus each month, and our recognition across the country grew too, both among LGBTQIA+ people and within the wider Christian community.

Our first priority, always, in our first community in Liverpool and now in our other Open Table communities, is to explore faith as fellow LGBTQIA+ Christians - and to share and celebrate together at least once a month. These celebrations are usually a Communion service or ‘Agape meal’ – Agape comes from a Greek word for self-giving love, the kind of love Jesus shows for God and for us. An agape meal simply retells the story of Jesus’ last meal with his friends and calls us to love ourselves and one another as Jesus, God’s son, loves us.

We’ve also developed services and resources for all times of our church year, and our LGBTQIA+ community calendar, as well as significant moments in our lives (baptism and renaming, coming out, relationship commitments, funeral and memorial services).

Multiplying

People across the country began to hear of us, particularly since July 2015 when Bishop of Liverpool Paul Bayes began to support us publicly, and to join us to lead Communion services and walk with us at Pride in Liverpool. He is now a Patron of the Open Table Network, one of several notable Christians who identify as LGBTQIA+, or as allies, who advocate for our Network, speaking about us and supporting us in the public eye. Meet our patrons.

We now have more than 30 Open Table communities belonging with us formally within our respectful, loving, safeguarding guidelines.

They meet as separate gatherings - but we are all part of one body. Many more churches are also considering joining OTN - and we support them as they find their way forward with God’s help.

More beginnings

We are a registered charity, since March 2021… And we feel the excitement of new beginnings budding. We hope you will want to be part of that future. Here’s how you can support us.

To enquire about joining the growing Open Table Network, you’re more than welcome to contact us.

Further reading:

• A brief history of Open Table was published in Jayne Ozanne's book Journeys in Grace and Truth in June 2016. The first Open Table community was included in the Church Army research into the sustainability of Fresh Expressions in the Church of England, published in November 2016, called Sustaining Young Churches.

• In July 2016 we had an 'Appreciating Open Table' day in Warrington, which was included as a case study in an ecumenical resource book called Appreciating Church, published in February 2017. Our shared Vision, Mission and Values began from these conversations.

• In 2019 one of our Patrons, Bishop of Liverpool Paul Bayes, wrote about our first Open Table community in Liverpool in his 2019 book The Table: Knowing Jesus, Prayer, Friendship, Justice. When the Right Revd Paul Bayes became Bishop of Liverpool in 2014, in his inaugural sermon he spoke of an 'open table' made by a poor, generous carpenter who offers a place at the table to anyone who wants to sit and eat. In July 2015 he visited the first Open Table community and charged us with a mission to give ‘the love that you share, and the openness that you manifest’ as a gift to the wider church, which struggles to receive it. The Table expands his vision of Christ’s church as an open table.

• We also co-wrote a chapter on diversity in 12 Rules for Christian Activists: A Toolkit for Massive Change by Ellen Loudon, published in April 2020.