Across the Church:
July 8, 2026
Office of Public Affairs
At the 65th General Convention in 1976 in Minneapolis, The Episcopal Church adopted a resolution affirming that homosexual people are children of God with a full and equal claim upon the church’s love, acceptance, and pastoral concern and care.
Fifty years later, Episcopalians are invited to return to Minneapolis Sept. 3–5 for “Full & Equal: 50 Years in Pursuit of a Promise,” a gathering marking that milestone and reflecting on the church’s ongoing journey toward LGBTQ+ inclusion.
Register here for the three-day event will include worship, workshops, and storytelling celebrating the progress of the last 50 years while renewing the church’s commitment to the work that remains.
The gathering is part of the work of the Task Force on LGBTQ Inclusion, the interim body charged by General Convention with beginning the process of archiving the history of LGBTQ+ inclusion in the church.
“Our hope is that by marking this anniversary moment with a churchwide gathering, we not only archive and share the stories of some of our elders and stakeholders in the movement for LGBTQ+ equity, but also equip diocesan and parish leaders to go back and capture their own stories in their own contexts—preserving our history in order to inform our work moving forward into God’s future,” said the Rev. Susan Russell, task force chair and canon for engagement across difference in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.
The event will include storytelling workshops with The Moth, a global storytelling nonprofit. Workshops and additional plenary sessions will explore the following:
The Story of Then
The Story of Now
The Story of Next
The Friday evening program will include a multimedia look back at 50 years of struggle and success, written and produced by award-winning documentarian Katie Sherrod, and first-person stories from representative voices of different generations along the journey.
The event will conclude on Saturday with a festival Eucharist during which Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe will preside and Bishop Gene Robinson will preach. In 2003, Robinson became the first openly gay bishop elected in The Episcopal Church.
In addition to Russell, other participants include the Rt. Rev. Bonnie Perry, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan; the Very Rev. Winnie Varghese, dean, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York; the Rev. Michael Hopkins, rector, Church of the Redeemer in Addison, New York; the Rev. Miguel Escobar, vicar, Iglesia Episcopal de San Andrés/Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Brooklyn, New York; and the Rev. Cameron Partridge, rector, St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco, California.