Next Steps

Two weeks ago tonight, The Gracious Reconcilers hosted an event called “Telling Our Stories.”

Three guests joined us to share their personal experiences of what it was like to grow up in the church, loving Jesus, desiring to be Christians, but knowing that they were attracted to people of their own sex.  Mark, Kaleigh and Danny were very open with their stories that night, answering questions to help their listeners begin to understand what it was like to be them.  

Of course, as we learned, every persons story is unique and we must never assume that what we hear from one person who is gay, is the same thing that others experience.  

The point of this event was to give us at Grace UMC a different perspective on how we think and what we believe about people who are gay or lesbian.  (This night we did not touch on transgenderism)

Hopefully the 40+ people who listened to our guests, have all had time to mull over and think about the way these stories have informed their own beliefs about God’s love vs God’s judgement.

This week a group of us from the greater Grace community will embark on a study of a book by Justin Lee called TORN, Rescuing the Church from the Gay vs. Christian Debate.  It is a personal account of how one young man, who’s nickname was God Boy, came to terms with his own sexual orientation and what he learned about God, himself and the Christian community.

These are the first two steps in our journey together as we seek to answer the question, 

Will Grace UMC Wyckoff become accepting, welcoming and affirming of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities?  I know that there are those of you who do not feel you are ready to take this step and that’s understandable, given what you’ve been taught to believe for so long.  But I challenge you to put aside your long held beliefs and look instead at the people who are caught in the middle of this debate.  Many of them are young people who grew up in this church.  

I believe that we must ask ourselves some tough questions and examine the way we love the people whom God has placed in our lives.  

If you are interested in this study please email merryldietz@verizon.net for the zoom link.  It begins tonight May 4 at 7:30pm and will continue for the next five Tuesdays.  The book is available on Amazon for a reasonable price.  I hope you will take this journey with us.

In Christ

Merryl