In Part 1 I introduced the shift that Generous Space has made from a rules-based approach to sexual ethics to a values-centered perspective. Now I want to unpack more specifics about how that takes shape in our community. Our first retreat six years ago was where I encountered the reality of polyamory in the context…
[image description: a cartoon chalkboard that reads “Let’s Talk Sex”] For anyone who denies that God has a sense of humour, I wish they could be privy to the dialogue I have with the divine about the increasing opportunities I have to speak on the topic of sexual ethics. While I protest in Moses-esque questioning…
Becca Sawyer is our Events Manager (you can read more about her here!). Becca delivered a sermon entitled “All Things Hold Together” at the 2018 West Coast Generous Space Retreat. You can watch the full sermon below as a part of our Queer Sermon Series. “He is before all things, and in him all things hold…
Generous Space community member Robbie Walker brings us the second sermon in our Queer Sermon Series. We launched our first East Coast Generous Space Retreat in July 2018 and Robbie blessed us with his sermon, “We Are The Beloved,” during our Sunday morning Communion Service. You can watch the full sermon below:
Sunday mornings at the Generous Space retreat are a rich time of connection and community through worship, preaching, and celebrating Communion. Without fail, God shows up and strengthens us as those who are Beloved and those who Belong. We’re excited to share with you this collection of sermons from these special retreat services and look…
The theme for our 2018 spring retreat in Ontario was friendship. In a world of online connection with hundreds of “friends”, many of us are searching for deeper meaning and experience in our relationships. LGBTQ+ folks, often out of necessity, have both challenged assumptions and reimagined the potential of friendship and/or chosen family. This may…
I have known Karen Keen a long time and she is someone I have always appreciated as thoughtful and respectful in dialogue. I was thrilled to hear she was releasing a book called, “Scripture, Ethics, and the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships.” Karen is a biblical scholar who has navigated many different facets of the integration…
The Generous Space Community is committed to the value of hospitality. The animating question for that value is, “Whose voices are missing?” As an extension of this value, at our retreats we make space for those whose experience and stories are needed for the larger community to be able to listen, learn, and love. In…
In the last few weeks the ministry has been approached by several documentary projects looking for people to share their stories of surviving conversion therapy. This traumatic phenomenon is in the spotlight as Hollywood weighs in with feature films like Boy Erased and The Miseducation of Cameron Post. Campaigns like Born Perfect are hard at…
This week I really wanted to throw in the towel. Embracing tension, searching for nuance, thinking the best of, treating with respect, choosing kindness. These are things I deeply value. And yet this week, I seriously wondered whether embodying these attributes actually just made me complicit with injustice and oppression. I wanted to yell and…