From LGB to LGBTQQIAA+: Helping Open and Affirming Churches Continue to Offer Extravagant Welcome! Público
Wells-Bean, Angela (Spring 2025)
Abstract
Open and Affirming (ONA) Churches commit to offering extravagant welcome to all of God’s people, specifically those who are LGBTQ+. Churches often go through an extensive discernment process before voting to become Open and Affirming, thus ensuring that they are ready as a community to make this commitment. After taking the vote, many churches neglect to stay informed about changes within the various LGBTQ+ communities as they relate to identity, vocabulary, and belonging. Churches thus unintentionally become obsolete in their welcome and are not able to fully embody their commitment to being Open and Affirming.
This paper explores the process by which churches can engage with LGBTQ+ members of their congregation and the wider community, thus learning directly from them what they need in a church to experience God’s extravagant hospitality.
A local congregation was used as the context for this research, but the process can be replicated in any ONA church. The ways in which churches change their ministries to be more welcoming of LGBTQ+ people will vary depending upon the needs expressed by the LGBTQ+ people in their local church and wider community.
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From LGB to LGBTQQIAA+: Helping Open and Affirming Churches Continue to Offer Extravagant Welcome! () | 2025-04-27 15:38:12 -0400 |
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