This Sunday at retreat will be the final week of our worship
series on our (Membership) Commitment statement.  Which means it’s time to start a new worship
series.

That theme, for the month of October, will be Healthy
Sexuality.  I guess that means we could
either have full or very empty pews for those four weeks.      

There are any number of ways of doing this poorly.  The Church, for its part, has done a lousy
job historically of guiding us into healthy sexuality.  The Church has largely seen sex as a
necessary evil for pro-creation, perpetuated heterosexual male power dominance,
and had little to say about the goodness of our embodied selves. 

Our starting point will be linked with the Christian ideas
of incarnation and creation in the image of God.  We are relational beings, which is to say that
we are sexual beings, which is to say that connection and intimacy are at the
heart of our humanity.  Physical intimacy
is one important way we express this, but sexuality extends well beyond what we
do with our genitals.  Healthy sexuality
draws us into a generative relationship with ourselves and our partners, our
friendships and the material world. 

Human sexuality has tremendous power for meaning and healing
– and is a major source of pain and trauma.

This is all deeply personal, and we each bring our own
varied experiences.

As pastors and worship leaders, we are committed to creating
a grace-filled space that recognizes all this. 
Our hope is that a focus on healthy sexuality in worship enables us to
hold all this in the Light – whether that be through internal processing, or
whether that might lead to more open conversation in our circles of trust.

I am hopeful we can do this well and, in doing so, that it
can bear good fruit beyond October, 2019.

Joel