In Placer County, one church is healing the community through radical acceptance
Follow the winding path of rainbow footsteps to get to the sanctuary at the Loomis Basin Congregational United Church of Christ. There, in a bright, white-walled room filled with colorful artwork and vivid stained glass, you will find one of the most diverse groups of people gathered anywhere in Placer County.
On any Sunday, as long as COVID infection rates are low enough to permit meeting in person, dozens of worshippers — varied in race, age, sexual orientation, gender expression, and income — gather at Loomis UCC to worship. Throughout Placer County, hundreds of families are doing the exact same thing: Attending Sunday church. But worship at Loomis UCC is different.
In this conservative county, some of the largest, most powerful churches and megachurches in the region still preach the archaic, hateful notion that members of the LGBTQ community are going to hell. So Loomis UCC — with its LGBTQ support groups, rainbow decor, and words of loving affirmation — stands out. Here, the church is not only reimagining being Christian in Placer, but it has also garnered a reputation as one of the most fiercely progressive religious institutions in the region, if not the entire state.
“In Placer County, there are lots of ways to be Christian, and we know that some of them are dangerous and harmful,” said Loomis UCC Pastor Casey Tinnin. “We choose to be another version.”
Placer County, which is predicted to undergo major development, expansion, and population growth in the next five years, currently has 412,000 residents, 82% of whom are white.
Just a 15-minute drive from Loomis UCC is Destiny, Rocklin’s infamous megachurch which grabbed headlines during the pandemic for ignoring public health and safety guidelines by holding indoor services; offering religious exemptions for COVID vaccine requirements to anyone who wanted one; violating its tax-exempt status by advocating for the recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom; and consistently preaching bigoted, homophobic and transphobic beliefs.
Loomis UCC’s pastor doesn’t mince words when talking about Destiny. Tinnin, who is openly gay and has led the Loomis church for almost six years, believes Destiny is an active danger to the community.
“(They) are killing our children and robbing them of the good news of God’s love for them,” Tinnin said. Tinnin has visited Placer County’s queer youth in the emergency room following failed suicide attempts and self-harm situations made after religious leaders told them they were going to hell. And just this year, Tinnin and his church have worked to find housing for three young adults who were kicked out of their home for being gay.
Loomis UCC — the town’s oldest church, founded in 1895 — is doing everything in its power to heal the wounds inflicted upon Placer’s LGBTQ community. The church hosts the Landing Spot, a non-religious support group for LGBTQ youth and their parents. Recently, the church raised funds to send Landing Spot members to Camp Fruit Loop, a three-day summer camp for queer and trans youth.
The United Church of Christ is one of the most progressive Christian denominations in the country. In 1957, the union of four Protestant denominations resulted in the version of the UCC that exists today. The early years of the modern UCC were largely shaped by the peace and human rights movements of the ’60s and ’70s.
“At the grassroots, many people worked for Black and other minority justice rights, for the elevation of women to equal regard and opportunity with men in society, for just treatment and consideration of all persons of whatever sexual affectional preference, for a more humane criminal justice system and for the enablement of people with handicaps to lead a full life,” the UCC’s website states.
In 1969, the church’s governing body voted to require that at least 20% of church delegates and national board members be under the age of 30. Since then, these young delegates have greatly influenced decisions made by the church. It was decided soon after that 50% of delegates and board members be women. The church has supported the individual right to one’s sexual preference since 1975.
Loomis UCC is a non-creedal church, meaning congregants are not asked to accept one specific religious truth or set of beliefs. By contrast, St. Mark’s Anglican Church, right around the corner from Loomis UCC, believes “that the Old and New Testament are the inspired Word of God, containing all things necessary for salvation,” and that “the Bible is the unchangeable standard for Christian faith and life.”
Although the UCC is a progressive denomination, some UCC congregations are conservative, including in the Sacramento area, said the Rev. Davena Jones, the UCC’s associate conference minister for the Northern California Nevada conference. “That’s why it’s such a blessing to have Loomis Basin,” she said.
“The impact is really life and death,” Jones said. “Because this church steps out of the building and into the community, that allows an individual to know there’s hope. It’s a home away from home for some, and it’s a home for those who don’t have one.”
Many congregants, especially newer and younger congregants at Loomis UCC, have left more conservative, traditionalist denominations for the progressive, liberal-mindedness of the UCC. The Loomis church, for example, is actively healing religious trauma within the community, partnering with Sacramento’s Parkside Community Church to run Intersections, a recovery group for ex-evangelicals and ex-fundamentalists.
But the church’s commitment to healing extends even further. Loomis UCC has taken seriously its individual mission statement, which dates back to the ’90s: “A church called by Jesus to commit to eliminating injustice, bigotry, and racism, and to work for human rights and equality for all people.”
Loomis UCC congregants have rallied on the corner of Galleria Boulevard and Roseville Parkway to support Black Lives Matter and protest the overturning of Roe v. Wade; the church sent Northern California’s largest cohort of attendees to Washington, D.C.’s Poor People’s Campaign this past June; and congregants have voluntarily signed pledges to only vote for political candidates dedicated to fighting climate change. The church has partnered with local organizations to host “know your rights” training for undocumented individuals and has donated to local schools and refugees.
Alma Jackie Caravarin, a community organizer for Placer People of Faith Together, said the Loomis church’s positive influences have been profound. In 2018, 20 different groups around Placer and Sacramento Counties, including Loomis UCC, organized a banner drop, displaying signs off of freeway overpasses and bridges in the region protesting family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border with messages such as “families belong together” and “immigrants welcome.”
Caravarin, who grew up in Placer County as an undocumented immigrant, choked up recalling the effect these messages had on one immigrant mother whose daughter had dealt with suicidal ideations following the deportation of a close family member.
“She read these messages posted (on) the Loomis bridge … and she started sobbing,” Caravarin said.
Seventeen churches and congregations are involved in Placer People of Faith Together, but Loomis UCC is “the model for what people of faith can do,” she said.
The church also embraces modern science. In January of 2017, Loomis UCC installed solar panels on its church campus. It is now one of only three churches in the nation to be considered carbon neutral. The church has also worked to reduce its water usage and increase recycling efforts.
It has served as a COVID testing site; congregants can receive COVID tests 15 minutes before service begins to check if they’re infected, and the church handed out 180 free testing kits to community members during the omicron surge.
As Tinnin likes to say, Loomis UCC is “rooted in justice, formed in faith and focused on community.”
Sunday morning at Loomis UCC
On the morning of Sunday, May 22, congregants slowly streamed into Loomis UCC’s brightly lit sanctuary, gabbing, laughing, and embracing. The mood was cheerful and easygoing. As services began, more congregants trickled in — some holding coffee cups, one carrying a motorcycle helmet, and another walking in with their dog. Everyone greeted each other with warm smiles.
Some worshippers wore skirts and dresses, while others wore T-shirts and shorts. Tattoos, piercings, buzzcuts, and colorfully dyed hair were visible. A handful of congregants had traveled from South Sacramento and El Camino to attend in person. Others, who watched services via Zoom, streamed in from as far as the Midwest, and one viewer even watched from Sweden.
It was the day after Placer County’s first ever Pride celebration, and many congregants wore rainbow shirts, earrings, and masks. Tinnin said later that rainbow clothing can be spotted throughout the year.
Services began with a welcome message recited by the entire congregation: “No matter who you are, or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.”
Here, God is not judgmental, cruel or an entity to be feared. God is love, acceptance, and community.
As Tinnin led the congregation in prayer, several young children played noisily in the back of the sanctuary. No one shushed, and no one was bothered. Every seat in the sanctuary included a laminated welcome note which read, in part: “Our congregation enjoys the ‘worshiping family.’ That’s why children who act up are never viewed as a bother to our worship service.”
Tinnin recited a prayer for the community and then opened the floor for congregants to speak the names of those they were praying for that morning. Answers included “victims of the Buffalo mass shooting,” “trans youth” and “people suffering through climate disasters.”
The pastor’s Sunday sermon challenged the practice of tithing, in which congregants give frequent monetary contributions to their church. At Loomis UCC, Tinnin later told me, “tithing is about your time, your talents and your treasures,” meaning congregants can choose to give money, but they can also choose to volunteer or give back in other meaningful ways.
Elsewhere in the county, however, sizable contributions from congregants have allowed small religious institutions to expand into department store-sized megachurches.
“We hear our monetary goods are examples of our faith, so our pastor drives a Maserati and you’re driving a 1990 Corolla,” Tinnin said during his sermon. “Honey, you must question what’s going on here. You must ask yourself: Is this God?”
After services, Tinnin explained to me why he chose this sermon topic.
“Newer, younger people in my church come from the religious trauma of churches that use what we call prosperity gospel, the idea that if you have enough faith, you will inherit (wealth),” Tinnin said. “That’s not true for most of us, so you constantly live in the shadow of some egomaniac who has all this wealth and power and is stealing money from you. They live in million-dollar homes in Placer County, and you’re still struggling to get by. That’s contrary to everything we actually know about who Jesus was.”
Finding community
After services, congregants lingered to chat. Outside of the sanctuary, Beverly O’Brien stood next to her son, Liam, 17. She wore a shirt with an adult Tyrannosaurus rex protecting a baby T-rex wearing a transgender pride flag. “That’s me, angry, if someone messes with my son,” Beverly told me, pointing at the adult T-rex. “And that’s my son,” she said, pointing to the baby T-rex.
Beverly has been attending Loomis UCC on and off since 1982. She was married at the church but stopped attending services for several years. One day, Liam asked if she would take him to a kid’s night at the Landing Spot, the church’s LGBTQ Youth Group. Since then, Liam has become a regular attendee.
“Not everyone is open and welcoming (in Placer),” Beverly said. “Coming here, it doesn’t matter who you are. They love you.”
In 2021, when the city of Roseville voted against flying the Pride flag on government property, then Woodcreek High School student Alex Houston, also a member of The Landing Spot, addressed Roseville’s City Council to talk about what it means to be queer in Placer County, having “suffered violence at the hands of many” in the area.
“When I was much younger, I was in desperate need of community,” Houston said. “I found exactly one space, … created by Pastor Casey Tinnin: The Landing Spot. This is the only space I could find in all of Placer County. The Landing Spot is a truly essential place — it has consistently provided queer youth in the area with a community, and there has never been a meeting without food, just in case any of us are going hungry at home.”
Liam O’Brien, who just graduated from Del Oro High School with plans to attend Sierra College said about Landing Spot staff: “I’m here because of them.”
Fearless leader
Since Tinnin joined Loomis UCC, the congregation has tripled in size. With a total of 150 members, anywhere from 50 to 100 congregants attend church services each week.
Wendy Black, who has only been attending Loomis UCC for a few months since moving to Auburn during the pandemic, has found community through a support group for parents of queer kids led by the church.
“When my son came out 30 years ago, he begged us not to ever tell anyone in our community about him,” Black said. “We didn’t have any way to exchange information with other parents. So when I walked into (Loomis UCC), I just thought, ‘This is where I need to be.’”
Growing up in Manteca, Casey Tinnin only wanted to be one thing: A pastor. He knew he was gay from an early age, “so I spent most of my early life being told that if I were a homosexual I would never have the opportunity to be in the church,” he said.
He received his bachelor’s degree from Trinity Lutheran College in Everett, Washington, becoming the first student to come out as gay and graduate.
“A lot of students prior to me would come out and leave or come out after they left because it was unsafe,” Tinnin said.
After earning two master’s degrees in divinity and queer theology from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Tinnin moved to Modesto where he met his now husband, Jose. Tinnin couldn’t be ordained until he received an “ordainable call,” an official request for ministerial services. The call he finally received led him to Placer County. There, in early interactions with young queer and trans kids, Tinnin realized he was the first and only openly queer Christian these kids had ever met.
“Being in Placer County reminds me so much of my childhood,” Tinnin said. “I speak in schools regularly, and almost every time I have a young person who pulls me aside after and says something like, ‘Is it true that I can be Christian and be gay at the same? Tell me the truth, Pastor Casey, am I going to hell or not?’”
“I want to be an example to all of those young people,” he said. “They can be both gay and Christian and live happy whole lives.”
It hasn’t always been easy working in Placer. Tinnin said he has received death threats nearly every year since he moved to the county, and was once physically cornered at the grocery store.
“The kind of toxicity in terms of religion and politics in this community is something I’ve never experienced,” Tinnin said. “I’m always fascinated by a county that has so much money and touts itself as so religious but is so cold-hearted to those who God loves most.”
Tinnin has attempted conversations with some of the county’s most conservative leaders — repeatedly showing up at Rep. Tom McClintock’s office, and even meeting with William Jessup University President Dr. John Jackson, whose college allegedly expelled a student for being gay.
“I’m trying to get them to understand that God’s people suffer under their leadership,” Tinnin said. “As a pastor, it’s my obligation to tend to the least, the lost and the lonely. And it’s not just about the queer kid, it’s about the culture in this community that says things like, ‘there is no racism.’ It’s a blind eye to anything that does not adhere to white, cis, straight privilege.”
Despite the uphill battle of the last half a decade, Tinnin has hope for Placer County. He believes that the hearts and minds of folks in the community are changing for the better.
“There are a lot of people who say a lot of things about who they are as churches in this community, but this is who we actually are,” Tinnin said. “We’re a carbon neutral church, we support Black Lives Matter, we’re all about women’s rights, and when we welcome queer folks, we welcome them with a red carpet. All are welcome — we haven’t met a limit yet.”
This story was originally published August 21, 2022 at 5:00 AM.