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ARE YOU an experienced finance professional looking to make a real difference? Join us as the Volunteer Treasurer for the Open Table Network [OTN] - the national charity dedicated to creating safe, sacred, and supportive spaces for LGBTQIA+ people and allies in UK churches.

ON SUNDAY 6th July 2025, our Open Table East Cardiff community celebrated two years with a simple Communion service. Revd Ruth Greenaway-Robbins offered this reflection on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, also known as the Beatitudes (from the Latin beatus, meaning both ‘happy’ and ‘blessed’.

What may appear to be a simple question encompasses many components such as chromosomes, hormones, genitalia, and reproductive capacity. For most people, these are in alignment and so we could formulate a definition. But any simple definition could not include the rich diversity of human biology. OTN trustee and biologist Revd Jayne Taylor explains.

IN RESPONSE to a recent wave of legal challenges to transgender rights, Christian community leaders have launched Transfigured Mission, a campaign urging UK churches to educate themselves, take action, and create truly inclusive congregations for trans people. The campaign is a response to the April 2025 UK Supreme Court ruling that under equality law ‘sex’ must be understood as the gender assigned at birth.

ON SUNDAY 15th June 2025, the Open Table Liverpool community celebrated 17 years since its first meeting with a thanksgiving communion service. Revd Dr Barbara Glasson, a Patron of the Open Table Network and former President of the Methodist Church in Britain, shared this reflection on Jesus meeting Nicodemus (John 3:1-17).

OUR NEWLY PUBLISHED 2024 Annual Report tells the story of how OTN continues to be a life-line for LGBTQIA+ people seeking a spiritual home. Since our very first Open Table community began in Liverpool in 2008, we have grown into a nationwide partnership of communities across England and Wales. Together these communities offer a genuinely inclusive, affirming space for LGBTQIA+ people, their families and friends to ‘come as you are’, as OTN’s slogan says.

LAST MONTH OTN Director Kieran Bohan shared a reflection on news reports of his civil partnership - the first to be registered in a place of worship in the UK - on our ‘This Is My Story’ podcast. This response is by Moon from our Open Table Liverpool community.

AT OUR AGM on Saturday 5th April 2025 we welcomed a new trustee to our board for the next three years. Our trustees are responsible for thinking through and putting into practice plans which will develop the Open Table Network (OTN).

OTN Patron Right Revd Cherry Vann celebrated Pride Month with our community in Cardiff on 1st June. She has preached at several Pride events, including one last September in Newport Cathedral, when she offered this reflection on how love that is truly inclusive casts out fear - especially the fear LGBTQIA+ people experience in the face of rejection, hostility, and exclusion from the Church.

JUNE 2nd-8th is Volunteers’ Week - a chance to recognise the fantastic contribution volunteers make to our communities and say thank you. The Open Table Network wouldn’t - and couldn’t - exist without the volunteers who give energy, time and talents.