The Covenant Network of Presbyterians welcomes its newest congregation, the First Presbyterian Church of Lincoln, Nebraska.

The Session’s decision to affirm the Call to Covenant Community emerged from a discernment process about how the congregation could be bolder in letting people know what it’s about. As Pastor Sue Coller wrote to the congregation after a recent Session retreat:

We hope people will feel accepted and welcomed when they come through our doors, but we don’t advertise it. We don’t proclaim it. We aren’t out there letting that light shine. We need to … because there are people in our community who are hungering for the kind of acceptance and affirmation that is here, but they aren’t going to walk through our doors unless they already know that about us. Our session felt that it is time we be more bold in letting people know who we are.

 The church will now be listed on the Covenant Network website, list their affiliation on the church website and in other publications, and publicly welcome LGBTQ and all other people to, as Pastor Sue wrote, “a church without borders and a church without walls.”

First Presbyterian Church was organized in 1869 when Lincoln had a population of 30 people.  Today, the church’s 400 members still worship in the heart of the state capital, serving their neighbors with a food distribution program, musical outreach in schools, and a thriving ministry with the Sudanese community that includes weekly worship in the Nuer language.

Welcome, FPC Lincoln, to the Network! For information on how your congregation can become part of the Covenant Network, email Brian Ellison, executive director, at brian@covnetpres.org.