As has been mentioned earlier, today’s service is presented by the Affirm Study Group. My name is Kathy Burns and I am a member of this group. Our purpose is to look at the idea of Yellowknife United Church officially becoming an Affirming church. An Affirming church is one that is openly supportive of GLBT people and seeks to create a worship space that feels safe and welcoming for all who come. GLBT stands for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered.

Now you may be slightly surprised to learn that we aren’t one already, an Affirming Church, that there is an official process that must be carried out in order for us to claim this affiliation. Why would we want to that?

Let’s go back a little bit here. Incase you are new to Yellowknife United Church or the United Church in general, you may not know that The United Church of Canada has been studying issues surrounding human sexuality and sexual orientation for over thirty years. Since 1985 the United Church has been advocating for justice for gay and lesbian persons and in 1988 issued the statement entitled Membership, Ministry and Human Sexuality saying that gay and lesbian persons could become ministers (this is a simplification of that) also includes the sanctioning of same sex marriages. This vote in 1988 was of course hugely controversial and difficult. My mother was a participant for her congregation in this study, voting yes, to my astonishment! I had always thought of her as the straightest person I knew, as in straightlaced, old….. so funny that I would have seen her in this light………. I thought this was an extremely liberal stance for her to take. What I didn’t get at the time was that she had gone through a process much like the one we are involved in now. She had studied and learned and prayed and talked about what it would mean for the United Church to take that step. At that time I wasn’t attending church and she had been an active in the United Church as long as I could remember. I must have been living up here, but I remember her telling me about it. About how she had learned that being gay was not a lifestyle choice but an orientation and how she felt that she had to do the right thing even though it would be difficult. Today I feel that, I am called to carrying on the work that she was a part of at that time. And believe me, she had the more difficult task.

So for our church this is one more step along the way, as we draw the circle wider we open up our arms, stretch our minds and our hearts to see further - the big picture of the kind of church we can become.

What is the difference between being an affirming church and being a welcoming church? First of all the church is not a private club so anyone can come and has the right to come. Just I am welcome to come, so is everyone else. However painful it is for us to admit, it is mainly religious teachings and practices that have shaped our society’s attitude toward the GLBT community. I was reminded of this when I was looking up some information on the vote that the Lutherans held this summer. The same kind of vote that we passed 20 some years. In my research I inadvertently stumbled in some kind of Christian website that condemned everyone who voted in favour of it, and had some pretty nasty things to say.

Wikipedia defines Homophobia as a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes toward GLBT people and behaviour. The homo part comes from the Greek word for same and the phobia is Greek for irrational fear. I think Coretta Scott King the civil rights leader said it well when she stated “Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry, in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood.“

Homophobic voices from the within the wider Christian church can be exceedingly loud and threatening. For people from the GLBT community these voices may be the only church ones they have heard. If we were to become an Affirming Church we would voice a different message - one of support and love, just like the one we receive and give to one another today. It is important to say it out loud, I know that many people believe in equality for GLBT people, the Affirming Ministry encourages us to Believe Out Loud. One of the differences between being welcoming and being an Affirming church would be that we would say out loud and in our written material and with signs that we support and celebrate the richness and diversity of the GLBT community.

Some of you are familiar with the It Gets Better Campaign. It is a website that offers support to GLBT teens to hang in there and tough it out through high school with the assurance that it will get better. Like many of you, I was sadden by the recent death of Jamie Hubley, an Ottawa teen. Even though he had the support of his family and friends, just couldn’t hang in there and he committed suicide. According to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, it’s not their sexuality that leads these kids down a suicidal path – it’s the stigma and discrimination they face in a heterosexual world. Stigma, discrimination and rejection can be both soul-destroying and life threatening. I believe that as a church if we openly come out in support of GLBT young people, we will be one more resource for them and be a part of the change that needs to happen in our communities and our society.

One of the questions often asked about becoming an Affirming church is does this mean we would become a Gay church or a one issue church community? I want to borrow the example from the Open Hearts Resource from the Affirm United. When we seek justice for one oppressed or marginalized group of people it leads other opportunities, for example if we were to have a ramp for our church which would make it more accessible for people with limited mobility. But having a ramp would also make it easier to wheel supplies and equipment into the church and would also make it easier for people with strollers to get in. This kind of change creates a different atmosphere. When we seek justice for one marginalized community we create a forum for others. We change the way others see us in the community. This I in turn creates opportunity for us to see things differently. So although the focus is on supporting the GLBT community, we become more a part of the wider Yellowknife community. When we work through the process of becoming an Affirming Church, we will hold congregational meeting and vote on this question. We are planning to hold this vote in the spring.

This is a spiritual matter of great importance to our church. In congregational meetings before the voting on various items takes place, we often agree to allow adherents and those present to vote along with members of Yellowknife United Church in matters of a temporal nature. However, in matters of a spiritual nature, which the affirming vote is, only members of Yellowknife United Church will be able to vote. What does it mean to be a member? If you are not sure, see our minister Peter Chynoweth. Before we have the vote there will be opportunities to talk and ask questions and discuss things with the Affirm Study Group. We will be holding more D3 events the dine, discuss and dash events that usually take place right after church.

Maybe the idea of our congregation “coming out” as an Affirming Ministry seems risky and challenging to you, I ask you to imagine the courage it takes for GLBT people to come out to their families, their friends and their churches

The information on this is literally endless, I encourage to look at the Affirm United website and the Welcoming Churches website. I strongly recommend that you look at the resource Open Hearts on the Affirm website. Much study and thoughtful writing has gone into these sites.

This a spiritual matter and I think there is where we will find our answer. In the scripture readings today and through our hymns and prayers, I hope you can feel the spirit behind Affirming Ministries. The spirit that tells us that beyond the proclamations, the statements, the labels, beyond the facts and figures that we, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and heterosexual people are God’s people, loved and cherish by God and in all our uniqueness and diversity we are one in Christ.

In conclusion and this is taken from the Affirm Ministry Network in Calgary: Affirming Congregations give voice and offer support to people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. We draw our strength and hope from biblical stories of liberation and inclusion; from the prophetic call to live justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with God.