Sermon Series - Fall 2023
Our world is filled with deeply-held and wildly divergent convictions about matters that touch the deepest parts of our lives as individuals and communities: identity, gender, sexuality, marriage and singleness, abortion, and others.
In this series, we want to listen to how the Bible speaks to these crucial issues. We hope to gain clarity about the core concepts and questions that provide the foundation for these conversations. And we especially seek to incorporate one of the most important - though often undervalued - aspects of these questions: the reality that we are embodied beings.
How does our embodied nature impact the most intimate and vulnerable areas of our lives? In this series, we want to slow down the conversation and go deeper into the questions.
Schedule
August 27: The Inescapability of Faith
September 3: The Body
September 10: What is Identity?
September 17: Guest speaker Aimee Byrd
September 24: The Meaning of Sex
October 1: Same-Sex Sexuality
October 8: Transgender Identities Pt. 1
October 15: Transgender Identities Pt. 2
October 22: Marriage
October 29: Singleness
November 5: Friendship
November 12: Abortion
November 19: Technology
November 26: Having Healthy Conversations
Resources for Further Study
If you wish to go even deeper, we hope you find this list of resources helpful. The resources here reflect a diversity of views (mostly) within Christianity. We believe this kind of diversity helps us all come to a clearer understanding of what we believe and why.
Please continue to check back on this page as we hope to add more resources.
Books
Allberry, Sam. What God Has To Say About Our Bodies.
Beilby, James K., and Eddy, Paul Rhodes (editors). Understanding Transgender Identities: Four Views.
Burton, Tara Isabella. Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians.
Byrd, Aimee. The Sexual Reformation.
Collins, Nate. All But Invisible: Exploring Identity Questions at the Intersection of Faith, Gender, and Sexuality.
Crouch, Andy. The Life We Are Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World.
Danylak, Barry. Redeeming Singleness: How the Storyline of Scripture Affirms the Single Life.
Emba, Christine. Rethinking Sex.
Harper, Kyle. From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity.
Hill, Wesley. Spiritual Friendship: Finding Love in the Church as a Celibate Gay Christian.
Johnson, Greg. Still Time To Care: What We Can Learn from the Church’s Failed Attempt to Cure Homosexuality.
Keller, Tim and Kathy. The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God.
McLaughlin, Rebecca. The Secular Creed.
Perry, Jackie Hill. Gay Girl, Good God: The Story of Who I Was, and Who God Has Always Been.
Reinke, Tony. God, Technology, and the Christian Life.
Sprinkle, Preston (editor). Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible, and the Church.
Sprinkle, Preston. Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church, and What the Bible Has to Say.
Sprinkle, Preston. People to Be Loved: Why Homosexuality Is Not Just an Issue.
Treweek, Danielle. The Meaning of Singleness: Retrieving an Eschatological Vision for the Contemporary Church.
Vines, Matthew. God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships.
West, Christopher. Fill These Hearts: God, Sex, and the Universal Longing.
West, Christopher. Theology of the Body for Beginners: Rediscovering the Meaning of Life, Love, Sex, and Gender.
Yarhouse, Mark, and Sandusky, Julia. Emerging Gender Identities: Understanding the Diverse Experiences of Today's Youth.
Counseling centers
If you are looking for support to process any of these subjects with trained professionals, we hope this list of local counseling centers will be a helpful place for you to start.