One More Thing (Affirming Sermons)

We don't normally send two emails per week but these are not normal times, and we thought this was important enough to warrant its own message. Here's a "heads up" from Pastor Joel regarding our next two Sunday services at the Foster Theater.

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Hello Access:

November 8 and November 15 will be groundbreaking days for our church. On Nov. 8, Pastor Joel will preach a sermon titled, “Why I am an Affirming Pastor.” On Nov. 15, Josh Chen of our leadership team will preach a sermon on “Inclusive Theology.” While we have demonstrated some inclusive theology and practice in the life of our church in recent years, we have never explicitly used the pulpit to make this plain:

***Our leadership believes that Jesus is leading us to include and affirm our LGBTQTS+** siblings in every aspect of the life of this church.**

It seems to the leadership of our church, that this is an important step towards the Healing of All God’s Children—knowing Jesus, seeking Justice, loving Southeast Portland.

Why these sermons? And why now? Aren’t we dealing with enough change already?

This is not actually a new topic for our church. During the Lent season of 2023 we invited the whole church to participate in 5 weeks of discussion on affirming theology with a desire to help our church become healthier and safer for LGBTQTS+ folks. It was a small but important cultural change in our church that affected how we spoke about God, gender, and sexuality. The most notable outward sign was sharing our pronouns up front and on our website, a small but significant bellwether in our community.

Later that year we struggled through conflict with our denomination after I – with blessing from our leadership – helped facilitate the distribution of a letter in our denomination protesting the removal of churches that performed same sex weddings, and calling for our denomination to be more inclusive. The fallout of that letter colors my interactions with the denomination to this day. Which is all to say, these conversations have been brewing throughout our community for years.

We have moved slowly–dealing with many different challenges beyond this one, and managing to have many good conversations along the way–and God has graciously grown our community and nurtured our ministry in Her timing. However, this fall it seemed clear that it is past time to address these things from the pulpit.

Many of you have been waiting for this moment. We appreciate your patience and support as the Spirit has patiently developed these ideas within our community and our leadership. Some of you might feel uneasy, or flat out disagree, with this direction. We welcome you into ongoing conversation with the leadership of this church and desire for God to lead us in community.

For our LGBTQTS+ folks: these sermons will not sacrifice your well-being or dignity for the sake of theology.

For those of you have been affirming for a long time: thank you for your patience. We are learning as we go.

For those of us who are not ready to fully affirm that LGBTQTS+ identity is God-given: You will hear Biblical teaching and personal testimony in favor of affirmation. However we will not belittle your perspective nor attempt to manipulate you into changing your mind. We will draw on scripture, theology, and personal testimony to share our perspective, not to change yours. Never in our history as a church have we enforced doctrinal conformity as a standard of belonging, and we will not do so now.

For parents who are concerned about exposing their adolescents to controversial topics: schools are already talking about issues of gender and sexuality. Hopefully you as parents are, too. You will ultimately be the strongest influence in your children's lives. Hopefully these sermons provide an example of how to consider these things spiritually, biblically and theologically and not just socially. We will avoid stories that are overly distressing or language that is inappropriate for young people.

For All of Us: Access Church exists for the healing of all God's children. This is why we desire to know Christ, to seek justice, and to love our neighbors in SE PDX. Sharing these sermons is an effort to do just that. Wherever you are in this conversation, let's follow Jesus together.

With love, Access Staff: Pastor Joel Sommer, Pastor Jelani Greenidge, Julie McBee, Avery Rosnick Access Lead Team: Luke Bonham, Josh Chen, James Lopez Ericksen

*TS at the end stands for "two spirit"