Pastor Heidi delivered this speech on July 25, 2026 in University Heights

Good afternoon. My name is Rev. Heidi Welch, and I serve as the Senior Pastor of Brecksville United Methodist Church.

At Brecksville United Methodist Church, our mission is simple: to create safe spaces to grow with God and one another. We strive to be a community where every person is treated with dignity, where people who have been hurt or pushed to the margins can experience belonging, and where our faith is lived—not just believed.

That mission is why we are here today.

When members of our congregation give financially to our church, they are entrusting us with resources that have been dedicated to God’s work. And as a church, we have a sacred responsibility to ensure that those resources are stewarded in ways that reflect our Christian values. Our money is never morally neutral—it is an expression of what we believe and who we choose to become.

This truth is woven into our United Methodist DNA. One of the foundational convictions of the Methodist movement is that there is no holiness apart from social holiness. Faith is never just personal—it shapes how we treat our neighbor and the systems we support.

Just two weeks ago, clergy and lay members from across the East Ohio Conference reaffirmed this belief by overwhelmingly adopting a resolution that opposes the cruel treatment of immigrants. The resolution reminds us that our opposition is “grounded not in partisanship but in our allegiance to Jesus Christ, our obedience to Scripture, and our commitment to the Social Principles of The United Methodist Church.”

So when our church learned that CoreCivic and GEO Group profit from the private—often inhumane—detention of immigrants, and that our bank is helping finance those corporations, we could not simply look the other way. Silence would make us complicit in something that stands in conflict with our understanding of the Gospel.

Through the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus teaches us that our neighbor isn’t defined by nationality, ethnicity, or legal status. Our neighbor is everyone—particularly those in need. Because every person bears the image of God.

Brecksville United Methodist Church has been a customer of Citizens Bank for 12 years, and together with Greater Cleveland Congregations, we have pledged to use our financial voice to advocate for change. If our mission is to create safe spaces for people to grow with God and one another, then we cannot remain silent when our own money helps sustain systems that make people less safe.

Today we join Greater Cleveland Congregations in calling on Citizens Bank to end all future financial relationships with CoreCivic and GEO Group. We do so not out of anger, but out of hope—hope that our institutions can better reflect the values of justice, compassion, and human dignity.

Every institution has a choice—it can profit from fear, or it can invest in human dignity. As followers of Jesus, our choice is clear. Citizens Bank now has a choice to make as well.