Our church Council is taking January 2021 to work on unpacking the CRC Report on Human Sexuality. This is work that Council does not take lightly. Council is using the following questions to help frame their time of sharing and listening:

  1. What about the report do you affirm? What did you appreciate?
  2. What resistance do you feel? Where do you feel disappointment, anger, or anxiety?
  3. Who is affected? In what ways?
  4. What are the main issues for us as a congregation?
  5. What needs to be done to move forward? What are you prepared to do to help move things forward?

The report is dense and long—175 pages worth—but we are all invited to create personal space to explore the report if we are able. There is a shorter twelve page executive summary that you might find helpful. We can also support our Council by affirming their explorations and praying for their and our conversations.

One of our deacons, Eric Wright, crafted this prayer and offered it at the close of one of the early sessions. Our Council asks all of us, as members of the body to Christ, to pray this prayer along with them throughout the month of January as they seek God’s will.

A prayer for wisdom and understanding

Ever living, ever loving God:

You know us, you know our thoughts, our actions, the depths of our souls, and we come before you without shame this evening because we stand in the redemptive love of your Son, Jesus the Christ, our Savior.

Today we thank you for the opportunity and responsibility to respond with our minds and hearts to our church report about human sexuality. We ask you for wisdom to guide us. We recognize that human sexuality is a profound and wonderful gift from you, but that in a world awaiting the fullness of your restoration, there remains sexual suffering and brokenness.

Help us fashion an understanding of gender, homosexuality, transgender issues and other aspects of human sexuality that are based on the assurance of Biblical revelation and, possibly too, new and surprising revelations that we have yet to put into words. Above all, Lord, we ask for a spirit of humility and patience, with ourselves and with each other, as we stretch to understand and love all the people we talk about in the abstract. Forgive us our prejudices and embolden us to embrace those we judge. Help us to be the salt and the light you have been to this temporarily broken world. 

In the name of your Son, Jesus, the “yes” to our “no,” we pray. Amen!