Series MS-15-1 - Safe Harbour Metropolitan Community Church

Safe Harbour Metropolitan Community Church was an LGBT-focused United church built and run by the LGBT community, and serving it with projects such as Manna for Health, a food bank directed at people facing serious illness and poverty. The church was founded by J.J. Lyon, Robert Byers, Bruce Moore and Terry Parker following an informal evening of Christmas carol singing. Worshippers began meeting in February 1991 in the small boardroom at the Aids Coalition Office on Gottingen Street, Halifax. In September 1991 the congregation officially became part of the Metropolitan Community Church, adopted the name Safe Harbour MCC and moved to the Brunswick Street United Church, having outgrown their original space. In September 1992 the congregation hired Reverend Darlene Young to be the first minister of Safe Harbour MCC, and moved to the Universalist Unitarian Church on Inglis Street. In April 1993, Safe Harbour officially welcomed its first members, when 20 people joined the church. On Sunday, 5 September 2004, the congregation celebrated its first service in its own space in Bloomfield Centre, where it stayed for two years before moving to its final home at Veith House in Halifax's north end. After the death of Reverend Darlene Young in 2008, Bob Bond served as interim pastor until Reverend Jennifer Paty was hired in 2009. She conducted Safe Harbour's final service on Eastern Sunday 2001.