LGBTQ Hot Button Evening #2

So many conversations are happening right now – so many questions are being asked – this is great. Let’s keep it moving forward in a positive direction. To that end, we want to have another evening specifically dedicated to doing GYVE with the LGBTQ topic. This time we will have Debbie Chan (traditional) and Cornelius Buller (affirming) share. We encourage you to come out and participate in this evening. There will likely be opportunity to share more.

>>Sunday, March 18, 7 – 9pm

Also, in the spirit of moving forward in a positive direction, we’ve compiled a list of questions to grapple with regarding LGBTQ for both the traditional and the affirming perspectives to deal with.

>>Read more about these questions here.

How Good are Your Answers? (Questions to grapple with re LGBTQ)

In the spirit of graciousness, understanding and respect, we have been posturing ourselves to hear multiple perspectives on the issues surrounding human sexuality and gender. We’ve learned that “listening is love” and that we don’t have to agree with someone in order to listen to them. We’ve also said that “every voice matters” but also, “not every voice has equal weight.” In other words, we are attempting to be a community under the direction of the Holy Spirit, that listens and loves deeply while not always agreeing with each other. We have genuine differences but we’re still part of one body. Unity is not uniformity.

At times we are able to hold a simple position on an issue because we have not faced the tough questions that other perspectives ask. This applies to both sides in this dialogue! The only credible positions, postures, or biblical interpretations are ones that have heard and answered the most powerful critiques from the other side.

We’ve compiled a list of questions that the two primary perspectives we’ve been dialoguing with regarding LGBTQ must deal with. These hard questions are intended to help you deal with scripture faithfully and others kindly. In other words, they’re both theological and practical. We know the greatest commandment is love (God and each other). However, the test comes in how we treat those with whom we disagree. These questions will foster a “love your adversary” mentality as well as drive you deeper in understanding other people’s perspectives as well as your own. If you find that you are able to answer these quickly, it may be that you have oversimplified these issues. May God give us grace to take the time and care we need to wrestle with ourselves, each other, and the scriptures to find good and beautiful answers to our questions.

>>If you’d like to access these questions, please contact the office or pick one up from the Info Wall.

 

Hot Button Evening Recording on LGBTQ

For those people who are part of WCV and who were not able to attend our Hot Button evening on Feb 11, we want you to know you missed a beautiful thing. People deeply listening to each other from opposing perspectives is a sacred thing. If you missed, no problem – you can still listen in. However, due to the sensitive nature of the material, and to protect those who shared, we won’t be posting the audio in a public forum (like this website). If you would like to access the recording, please contact Vanessa and request a link to the audio file. We only ask that you use this for your own personal use and do not share or post it anywhere else. If you’re not part of WCV we’re sure you’ll understand that this is part of a long process we’ve been on as a community – this was kind of like very personal family business that we’re only sharing with other WCVers. Thanks for understanding!

Join the Conversation – Hot Button Evenings

We’d like to remind you – and invite you – to join the conversations around the Hot Button topics. We know that many of you are having conversations among yourselves. This is great! Please keep having them.

Also, please make sure you participate in our two Hot Button evenings. We’ve intentionally tried to keep the next two months free of any major community events in the evenings (postponed the Outer Circle for example) in order to make it as easy as possible for as many people as possible to participate in these. It would be best if you came to both. One of the primary purposes of these evenings is to model how to do GYVE well. You’ll recall that GYVE is a tool for how to love well in diversity – it’s about listening deeply to someone from another position and uncovering some of the underlying values and stories that formed their values, which has led to their position. It’s a wonderful model, and often amazing things happen as people submit to the Holy Spirit in this process.

>>Jan 21, 7pm – Creationism & Evolution (Our origins)

>>Feb 11, 7pm – Affirming & Traditional (Human sexuality & gender)

P.S. We may schedule more Hot Button evenings at a later date. Let us know what you think!

 

>>Listen to the sermons here.

>>Read the articles here.

>>Read about GYVE here (or download it as a booklet).

Here’s the complete schedule our our series:

  • January 14: Introduction & Call to Prayer
  • January 21: Creationism & Evolution
  • January 21 Evening: Doing GYVE with Creationism & Evolution.
  • January 28: Nailed it, Failed it
  • February 4: Affirming & Traditional
  • February 11: Nailed it, Failed it
  • February 11 Evening: Doing GYVE with Affirming & Traditional
  • February 18: Celebration Service
  • February 25: Poverty & Prosperity

Fixed On Jesus Part 3: In Non-essentials, Liberty. What are the Hot Buttons?

This winter marks the return to our “Fixed on Jesus” series. We’re going to be exploring three Hot Button topics that you think the church should be talking about (thanks for participating in the survey).

The point is to hear each other –  to listen deeply – to love well, especially those we may disagree with

As mentioned previously, the point of this series is not to nail down where we stand (as a church or as individuals) on these nor any other hot button issues we may encounter. For this series, the point is to hear each other –  to listen deeply – to love well, especially those we may disagree with. Our model for this is Jesus, and our tool is GYVE. We explored this in November and have provided a resource booklet for your use.

The Hot Button topics we’ll be addressing (and we may address more as time goes on… there are many) are:

  1. Creationism & Evolution (our origins and how we came to be)
  2. Affirming & Traditional (human sexuality / LGBT2SQ+)
  3. Poverty & Prosperity (our relationship with money)

There are a few other topics that were also high on the list, and some of your suggestions didn’t really fit into a neat and tidy category. We tried our best to accurately categorize the various topics. We are going to tackle them in a very systematic manner.

Each of the topics will have a Sunday morning devoted to sharing the various perspectives of the issue, zoning in on how each perspective is represented or interpreted in scripture. We will then have two Sunday evenings devoted to hearing two people do GYVE together for the first two Hot Button Topics. We encourage you to come to both evenings (Jan 21 & Feb 11) – they will be special and it will be helpful to have a witnessed the model in action before we get to the hottest button (Affirming & Traditional / LGBT2SQ+)!

In between these Sundays, we will be exploring how the church has either nailed or failed dealing with diversity in the past. There are many examples, some quite humorous to our sensibilities. Of course we will also be digging into scripture, as is our habit. All along we will be engaging in ways to “double down on our centre” – we also have a Celebration Service scheduled which will help keep us focussed on Jesus as we tackle some of these “non-essentials.”

Here’s the schedule:

  • January 14: Introduction & Call to Prayer
  • January 21: Creationism & Evolution
  • January 21 Evening: Doing GYVE with Creationism & Evolution.
  • January 28: Nailed it, Failed it
  • February 4: Affirming & Traditional
  • February 11: Nailed it, Failed it
  • February 11 Evening: Doing GYVE with Affirming & Traditional
  • February 18: Celebration Service
  • February 25: Poverty & Prosperity

 

>>Listen to the sermons here.

>>Read the articles here.

>>Download the GYVE booklet here.