In July and August, we will be exploring how the Bible bears witness to love in a rich variety of expressions. We will work to re-discover and celebrate lesser-known texts that witness to diverse gender expressions and sexual orientations, and we will also wrestle with some of the more difficult passages that have been weaponized as instruments of hate toward LGBTQIA+ people. We will be hearing from queer and transgender theologians and thinkers about their struggle with sacred texts and how they’ve found avenues of liberation and hope through their faith. We will think more deeply together about what it means to be the church today, a church that has from its birth at Pentecost, been a church of many cultures, of many languages and many kinds of people.

We are excited to welcome the following guest preachers for our sermon series:

• July 29th: Rev. Jean Erb, retired UCC minister who cares deeply about many justice issues including LGBTQIA and immigrant rights.

• August 5th: Chris Paige, Director of Operations for Transfaith. Chris is an OtherWise-identified writer, educator, organizer, and coach (https://chrispaige.wordpress.com/) and co-founder of Transfaith (http://www.TransfaithOnline.org), a multi-tradition, multi-racial, multi-gender advocacy organization now based in Mt Airy. Chris generally uses they/them pronouns, but you can also call them “Zey” if you, like their 12-year-old child, are still haunted by the rules taught in fifth-grade language arts.

• Lewis Mitchell, Co-Founder and Ex Dir of Transfaith will also be joining us and will co-lead a discussion following the service.

• August 12th: Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart, UCC Minister and Faith Work Director at National LGBTQ Task Force