At MPBC our mission is to cultivate an inclusive community for spirituality and social justice, and we envision a new world where absolutely everyone lives in God’s liberation and peace. Our mission is summarized by our four words inclusivity, community, spirituality, justice, which animate and inform everything we do as a church.
Our founders were visionaries committed to the ancient Baptist principles of soul freedom, liberty of conscience, and progressive revelation. Their dedication to freedom of the pulpit and belief for all people opened our church up to become a beacon of love and inclusivity that was uniquely positioned to make a meaningful impact in the work of social justice of our city and the world.
In our nearly 80 years as a community of faith, we have been champions of open membership, racial justice and inclusivity, peace and non-violence, women’s empowerment and leadership, interfaith engagement, LGBTQ+ affirmation, environmental justice, and hospitality toward our immigrant neighbors. Yet, our understanding of God and the world is always open to new light, ever-evolving and, like the Spirit of Jesus, our solidarity with the poor, marginalized, and oppressed is always unfolding in new ways.
The trailblazers who started MPBC were passionate that a new church would give them the opportunity to construct a religious educational curriculum of their own, free from the religious barbarism that characterized religion in the South. They called progressive clergy, developed cutting-edge programming, and organized a church that offered a great deal of freedom to its members with the full spectrum of political and religious philosophies, where people were encouraged to think for themselves, and each individual was given freedom to work out their own beliefs.
Love and community have always been more important at MPBC than denomination, doctrine, or dogma, because we are an ecumenical and interfaith congregation made up of various religious backgrounds: Jewish, Roman Catholic, Atheist, Baptists, and varying Protestant denominations. We are also a free congregation without a hierarchy. In our worship and community life, we seek to stand with one foot in history and the other in the contemporary world, striving to hold to our Christian roots while serving today’s people. We are a people on a journey of faith, and we would love for you to join us on that journey.
