The Rev. Darrell Goodwin is seeking those who have been estranged from hope.
The leader of nearly 600 New England churches has recently launched a campaign to reach those in need of hope, Find Hope Now. It’s a new take on the gospel, offering radical love, inclusion and what he calls “an extravagant welcome.”
Goodwin, who lives in Bloomfield, is the executive director of the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ, a collection of 570 churches in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.
The conference was formed four years ago when the state conferences voted to join together, and Goodwin was appointed to lead them. He is the first LGBTQ Black American person to lead a UCC conference.
His selection, he said in an interview with The Hartford Courant, is itself a message of welcome and affirming to members of marginalized communities.
“Our oldest church in the Southern New England Conference is 405 years old,” Goodwin said. “And I often say when I visit our churches that are celebrating 400, 300, 175-year anniversaries, you know, when you were founded, I wouldn’t even be allowed in your pulpit.
I’m not even sure I would be allowed to be here in the space. And so, not only am I in the space, but I’m serving as the spiritual leader of these 600 churches. To me, that ripples. I think it impacts.”
Goodwin and his husband were married at Asylum Hill Congregational Church in Hartford in 2022 in a ceremony that was open to the public and livestreamed on the church’s website.
“The fact that me and my husband could find a church in the heart of the city to be married with a packed sanctuary and a clergy person to do the ceremony and not just be willing but glad about it and the church streamed it on their website …” illustrates the depth of support the church offers, Goodwin said.
That is for queer people and for people of color.
“I think for communities of color, who have sometimes seen themselves as adjacent to the congregational experience but not centered in it, they now see they can be centered in it.” (FULL REPORT)
