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Kieran Bohan, a part-time student presbyter at The Queen's Foundation, and part-time Director of the Open Table Network [OTN] shares this blog on its origins.

PICTURE the scene: Six LGBT+ Christians from four traditions meet in a Liverpool church because their desire for worship and fellowship is stronger than the differences between their traditions.

They agree to meet monthly for a Communion service, as this is shared in all their traditions (Anglican, Catholic, URC and Methodist). They value Communion as the central act of hospitality of their faith. They recognise, from their own experiences and others like them, that Communion has been used to exclude LGBT+ people.

One of this hopeful group asks: ‘Will it be “open table”?’ She explains that it means all are welcome to join in the celebration without any test of membership or judgment of their perceived worthiness.

Some of those present have come from traditions where the practice of ‘open table’ is unknown or discouraged. They agree this is exactly the experience they want to create. They have heard too many stories of LGBT+ people who fear exclusion, or have been excluded, from their church community, who feel unheard or unable to express themselves or give their talents.

So the first Open Table community was born, in June 2008. I was one of those six people. I had never heard of ‘open table’ - I was so excited I said that is what we should call our gathering so people would know they were really welcome.

By Open Table’s seventh birthday in 2015, there was still only one community, serving around 40 people monthly, from across the north-west and north Wales. There was clearly a need not being met locally, though we had no plan to do anything about it.

04 OT Nantwich launch 4th December 2022.JPG

Then the Director of Pioneer Ministry in the Church of England Diocese of Liverpool advised: ‘Don’t grow bigger, multiply’. And so it began: by summer 2016, there were four Open Table communities, and our partnership has continued to grow by around four a year. This summer we will celebrate ten years of becoming a network. In February 2025, 37 communities gather across England and Wales, with more to come, hosted by churches in five traditions (Baptist, Church of England, Church in Wales, Methodist and URC). More than 200 other churches have contacted us to explore how to welcome, affirm, include, and empower LGBT+ people more fully.

Beyond the surprise of the abundant growth of this ministry, to the point where it became my full-time job in 2020 and a charity in 2021, was the surprise of my call to ministry in the Methodist Church. As I completed one year of working full-time for OTN, I went on retreat to review where I, and OTN, were going. In a guided meditation on the story of the road to Emmaus, when I prayed ‘How can I know You in the breaking of bread?’, I heard ‘Try the Methodist Church!’ I felt strongly that presbyteral ministry might yet be open to me, having grieved that it was closed to me in the Catholic and Anglican traditions, as a married gay man. (My husband Warren and I made history in 2012 as the first couple to register a civil partnership in a place of worship in the UK. Then in 2015 we converted our civil partnership to marriage and the church where Open Table began celebrated a service of thanksgiving with and for us).

01 Warren & Kieran CP May 2012

That challenge to 'Try the Methodist Church' was almost three and a half years ago. It felt like a call to come home, after years of working across several Christian traditions but not really belonging anywhere. It felt like a call to renew the unfinished business of ordination training which I had begun as a Catholic in my twenties but left in crisis as I came to terms with my sexuality. More importantly, it felt like a call to bring home the ministry of ‘open table’ which, I did not know back in 2008, takes its name from

"The present and almost universal Methodist custom of inviting to the Lord’s Table 'all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ…' The primary motive behind this practice is the belief that none should be prevented from finding and receiving the love and nourishment which Christ offers at his table." (1)

The Connexion is now supporting me to train as a presbyter potentially to serve in the specific context of ministering to Open Table communities across the country, for at least my first appointment after completing ordination training.

Currently two Methodist churches host Open Table communities, in Chester and Nantwich, though as Open Table is an ecumenical partnership many more Methodists are involved, like the pioneering presbyter in Plymouth! I’d love to hear from more Methodist colleagues curious about exploring this ministry.

As the Open Table Network has grown from one community in Liverpool to 37 across England and Wales, with more to come, I have begun to share a prayer for all Open Table communities, inspired by Ephesians 3:20. It’s a reminder that it’s not our own kingdom we’re building, and that those six people who met in Liverpool in June 2008 to create a safer sacred space for LGBTQIA+ Christians had no idea we were starting a movement that would ‘do far beyond all that we could ask or imagine.’

OTN made a three-minute film in 2017 called ‘Will it be open table?’ including the voices of members of the first Open Table community. WATCH HERE.

To find out more about the Open Table Network visit www.opentable.lgbt

(1) ‘His presence makes the feast’ - Holy Communion in the Methodist Church, Conference report 2003 p.20.