| Click the icon on the left to download a collection of devotions and
stories. Families have come together around the dinner table, congregations have served one another in communion, couples and individuals have collected their thoughts, drawing together around Scripture and the lives we share in Christ and in community. At Christ’s table, blessings abound.
This booklet continues that gathering. In these pages, you will find daily devotions and stories written especially for this assembly. The devotions are offered by Rev. Bradley Schmeling, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church in Atlanta, Georgia. They follow the daily lectionary for the assembly week, reflecting on what the texts say about God and the world as the church meets for faithful conversation and discernment.
Mingled with the devotions you will find twelve stories and pictures from the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Each is a story of a family: of individuals within church families, of couples with and without children, of extended families of kin. Some are clergy, some laypeople. All give witness to the importance for the church to recognize and support the ways their ministries and families are called by God and are poured out in service to the neighbor. In Christ, we are one family, and our families take many shapes.
The
booklet was compiled for the ELCA 2009 Churchwide Assembly by Good Soil.org.
|
|
