Becoming an Affirming Church

Opening Hearts: The United Church Affirming Process

Have you ever wondered or experienced what it is like:  

  to be born into a body, whose gender you can’t identify with? to be rejected by your family because of your sexual orientation? to experience racism? to be excluded because of poverty? to live life as a person with physical or mental challenges?  

Browsing the website and talking with congregants suggested forward thinking members and this attracted me to St. David’s United. Accepting a position here, I was somewhat taken aback when I learned that this wonderful community had not engaged the “affirming process.”  Many members reassured me that there was an interest in becoming an Affirming congregation. My life encounters with the other, people different from myself, have convinced me that God desires diversity not sameness.   On September 20 we will be launching the Affirming process. This will be the start of a year of exciting and thought provoking events meant to challenge us by wrestling with and expanding our knowledge, understanding and acceptance of a diversity of human experiences with the goal of becoming more loving.   Since 1992 the United Church has joined with Affirm United to engage a formal process of education, awareness, support and justice-making, towards becoming “a worshipping, pastoral and prophetic community celebrating God’s call to liberation. It declares that all people are created in God’s image and are unconditionally loved by God.”   “The Affirming Ministry Program acknowledges the hurt and injustice the church has caused to many social groups—not just to LGBT people but also to First Nations and Aboriginal people, in our racism and fear of those who are different from the [majority], and through our silencing or exclusion of people because of their class and economic background, their age, ability, culture, gender, or ethnicity, or their physical or mental health.”  

We invite all of you at St. David’s to join us on this journey intended to grow our hearts   September 20 Affirm Launch 10:00 am guest speakers unwrapping, what, why and how?   October 18 Invitation to the Banquet 11:30-1:00  re-enactment and discussion on who we invite or do not to the table and why? Intergenenerational!   November 15 So the Bible Tells Me So 11:30-1:00 – movie, popcorn and dem...