We believe we are called at Awaken to be a place where everyone has an opportunity to explore what it means to follow Jesus as his disciple and join us in our mission as a Parish Church in Bowness. We steadfastly pursue radical welcome, radical generosity, and radical reverence to Christ and one another. This includes our LGBTQ siblings. Whether this is you or someone in your family, we want to do our best to create a safe and generous space for you to commune with us. You won’t be the first LGBTQ person at Awaken and we hope you won’t be the last.

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At Awaken we don’t just want you to show up on a Sunday and sit through the service with us (although we’ll thoroughly enjoy having you when you do), but we hope that Awaken will feel like home and a safe place for you to authentically join into all aspects of our community as you grow in
understanding of what it means to follow Jesus.

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Whether you are aiming for faithful celibacy or lifelong marriage, we realize there are unique challenges in both of these choices in our current social context, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation. As such, we want to support you wherever you are at along this journey.

For all our good intentions, sometimes we will get this wrong. We are a community full of messy, broken folks who are coming at this from all different perspectives. To be successful at relationships in an inclusive space we will need to be committed to being people of grace. That requires that we give ourselves and each other the room to learn and grow. It also means we won’t always get things perfect the first time. We’re new at this. Things may come up that we’re not sure how to handle the first time. When that happens we hope that we can wrestle together for our next right steps. We commit to love over fear. To faith in the midst of doubt. And to a mutual process of transformation through intentional community.

 

We understand that there will be those who have questions about our stance on these issues, and that’s okay. The leadership at Awaken welcomes your questions and looks forward to journeying with you!