Today we’d like to introduce you to Serena Rice.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Abiding Peace Lutheran Church has been involved with the Pride Mount Olive organization almost since the beginning. It began small, with a flag raising during Pride Month at Turkey Brook Park and the chance to share a few words about why our church valued the chance to celebrate the diversity of all God’s creation, including the full spectrum of gender and sexuality that God has made. Then we joined in advocacy at the City Council, objecting to false and hateful comments about trans people from a Council member and asking to protect the opportunity to raise pride flags on township property. When pride flag raisings were banned, we collaborated in putting on the first ever Mount Olive Pride Party on 2025. Now, in 2026, Abiding Peace has adopted Pride Mount Olive as a new ministry commitment, giving our time and organization to keep this important voice in our community strong. Members of the church have stepped up to ensure the second Pride Party is even better, and to look for ways to organize gatherings and opportunities to connect year-round.
This commitment to celebrating and nurturing the LGBTQ+ community flows from our central mission to “make Christ known by welcoming all people to a supporting and accepting place to grow in faith and community and to serve the Lord as people created by God, saved by Christ, and nurtured by the Holy Spirit.” Through an intentional process of prayer, study, conversation, and discernment our community has recognized that we cannot effectively be messengers of a gospel of love without responding to the deep harm done by branches of the historical and current Christian church in relationship to queer people and communities. This harm results from a twisting of scripture and history, which denies the belovedness of some of God’s children who are all created in God’s image just as they are. As a community of both allies and queer people, Abiding Peace affirms that God is honored when we celebrate the fullness of God’s created design across the gender and sexuality spectrums. And we also know and experience the joy and connection that comes from building spaces where everyone can show up exactly as they are to be seen, and known, and loved. We want to be part of healing the suspicions and bigotry that are hurting our communities.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The process of embracing our public role in celebrating the LGBTQ+ community has been careful, and intentional, but not difficult. We know there is a difference between being passively affirming versus making a commitment to be vocal and visible in the community and to directly address the harm that continues to be perpetuated against gay and trans and other queer groups. Because of this, we spent and year-and-a-half studying scripture and hearing the stories of real people. We have educated ourselves on terminology and thought through potential unintended consequences of offering welcome without knowing what might cause harm. Thankfully, Abiding Peace is a community that practices faithful conversations about topics of disagreement or needed learning. We value the chance to push ourselves to learn and to lean into applying our faith to our world in new ways. We have not always started from total agreement, but we have listened and learned together and found great joy in stepping into the new ministry opportunity.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I came to Abiding Peace as a second-career pastor. Prior to professional ministry I trained and worked as a social worker, doing research and advocacy on poverty-related public policies. While working in the non-profit world, my work was always ministry to me, because it flowed from my faith. Every human being is created by God with inalienable worth. At it’s best, society exists to nurture our cooperation and to ensure that all people can thrive. Sadly, our world is broken, with powerful interests that do harm to those with less money or influence, and pressures that turn people against each other. I was deeply grateful for the chance to work on policies to move us toward a more just and equitable society, including updating the state minimum wage to better track with rising costs.
When I left policy work to become a pastor I brought with me the perspective gained from this work and it informs my preaching, my teaching, and my leadership. I am responsible to nurture faith in my congregation, but that faith is not solely about personal spiritual nurture. Of course, I care deeply about the faith and lives of all the people in my congregation and I know they feel that care. I also know that our faith is meant to send us out into the world. It is meant to shape us all into people who do our part in Jesus’s healing mission in the world. The majority of the gospel stories are about his life and ministry. They detail how he healed the sick, blessed the poor, fed the hungry, and welcomed the outsider. They also make it clear that those who follow Jesus are commanded to do likewise. So, at Abiding Peace, we practice and active faith that builds community and equips us to be sources of hope and healing in the world.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
As a faith-leader, “risk-taking” is not the framework I use for actions without a guaranteed outcome. Of course, nothing is ever guaranteed, so my commitment it to always seek to act with wisdom and to reject the control of fear. I gather information and counsel. I work with church leadership to make important decisions. We compare new opportunities or challenges to our mission as a congregation, to ensure that we are not straying from our core commitments. And if we feel clear that a given step serves our mission and we can responsibly pursue it, then we step out in faith.
Pricing:
- Our congregation is supported by the generous giving of our congregation, and we accept free-will donations for the expenses of the Pride Party, but there is never a fee associated with participation.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.abidingpeacechurch.org
- Instagram: @abidingpeace_community
- Facebook: @AbidingPeaceChurch
- Youtube: @AbidingPeaceChurch
- Soundcloud: soundcloud.com › serena-rice-720659529
