Welcoming Statement
Accepted 12-12-2010
In Christ there is no Jew or Greek, slave or citizen, male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28 (The Inclusive Bible)
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We declare ourselves to be an open and affirming congregation.
Our community affirms that there are many beautiful, holy ways of expressing gender and sexuality, and we are committed to developing sensitivity, understanding, and respect for all people.
We are a community that welcomes all people yearning for a safe place to share the expression of their faith including those who are straight, bisexual, cis-, trans-, and other gendered, gay, lesbian, queer, and those who resist choosing one of these names. We share from the springs of living water we know in our own lives and welcome others who thirst.
We seek wholeness through the full and deep participation of all members of our community in the entirety of our community life. By deep participation, we specifically include:
- Celebrating the sacraments of baptisms, confirmations, and ministration to the sick.
- Blessing significant passages in life including emergence of call, awakenings of gender identity, and other transformations.
- We cherish the truth of each person including respecting and valuing loving unions of all genders.
- Equality in our deep leadership structure such that all members participate according to gift and call in leading liturgy, teaching, serving, preaching, and contributing to the life and play of community through work groups.
We are a community that seeks to spiritually nourish rather than deplete ourselves and one another. We acknowledge that the forms of deep participation are different for each person and honor each person’s commitment.
We locate ourselves at the prophetic edge of the struggle within the Episcopal Church for full participation of all people in all sacraments. Accordingly, we commit ourselves to lovingly engage the Church in order to recreate liberating and life-supporting theologies, looking at Scripture through new lenses, and repairing the damages that these exclusions have wreaked on us all. While the Church has made meaningful progress in being open and affirming, there continue to be voices of condemnation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer persons by some members, or at least a tolerance of such exclusion through silence. We believe that this is inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus.
Furthermore, we celebrate the contributions of all individuals and groups who are committed to working with us to realize our vision of a beloved community.
