Speaker: Vince Klassen

Recently we learned that there was a church that voted to exclude people from their membership because of their sexual orientation. We didn’t agree with them, but they have religious freedom in Canada so it’s their right to do this. But, we thought, “this is probably an isolated incident.”

Then we checked our podcast stats and realized that our message from 2017 on Homosexuality is our highest downloaded message… of all times. Strange we thought. I thought sexual orientation isn’t an issue anymore in the vast majority of our world.

Then we sent emails to members of Friends Church who are in same-sex relationships and asked if, in their experience, “was their sexual orientation an issue in religious groups in their lives?” And the responses came back in heartbreaking detail of hurts and ostracization, and horrible things being said to them in the name of the Christian tradition.

And so we decided we needed to take a few weeks and explore the issue of same-sex relationships through the lens of the Friends Church’s conception of the Christian Tradition. Talk about Friends Church’s completely open arms to anyone of any sexual orientation in all facets of Friends Church. Show that there are valid interpretations of the Bible that say people who are actively in same-sex relationships are as spiritual and good as people in opposite-sex relationships.

But before we deal with this, before we show you how to stand tall in supporting same-sex relationships in the Christian tradition, we need to address the elephant in the room:

Family members who already have their minds made up, people in the news, or people in the media who are saying their views are right and anyone who disagrees is a sinner. We first have to deal with this.

We call this Locked In.

And we are going to explore how we deal with this with the people in our lives, and if we are honest, how we ourselves can also be Locked in.

Come on out. The “mini-series” is going to be fun and engaging, but also thoughtful, spiritual, and chances are it will touch many of the interactions you have and interactions you see in the world around you. 

No matter where you may be Sunday morning, carve out an hour and plan to join us at the gym.