Trans Affirming Churches Cohort
Dear Spirit Garage,
Before Easter, I started participating in a learning cohort called “Trans-Affirming Churches Cohort.” The cohort is organized by the Transmission Ministry Collective https://transmissionministry.com to help churches “cultivate the full spectrum of trans flourishing.”
For several months before this cohort, Pastor Holly and I had been on the lookout for this kind of group and learning space. Many of the offerings we looked into were of the “how to theologically understand/justify LGBTQIA+ acceptance, rather than the “we already accept, celebrate, and include folx who are LGBTQIA+, and we need to learn more!” variety. Pastor Holly and I wanted to find this kind of learning space to help us as leaders learn and pay attention, and to continue leading Spirit Garage in the kind of intentional learning we did in the Reconciling in Christ (RIC) work that Spirit Garage did in 2023.
This cohort is led by the co-excutive directors at Transmission Ministry Collective, both of whom are transgender Christians, committed to cultivating spaces for trans flourishing. The other members of the cohort include transgender, cisgender, gay, straight, and folx who have all kinds of reasons to be in the cohort.
The learning from the cohort is intended to help all of us in our church communities cultivate spaces for trans flourishing, so I will write several blog posts this summer to share learnings, resources, and questions that I hope will keep all of us learning and leaning into cultivating Spirit Garage as a place of trans flourishing, because when we are attentive to holding space for transgender folx to flourish everyone can flourish.
For our trans-siblings at Spirit Garage, we see you and what you are doing in your lives. Thank you for sharing your lives with us, our experience of God’s love in the world is more whole because we are more whole as a community because you are a part of our community.
For our trans-siblings at Spirit Garage, we see you and what you are doing in your lives. Thank you for sharing your lives with us, our experience of God’s love in the world is more whole because we are more whole as a community because you are a part of our community.
Our continued learning at Spirit Garage is a movement of proactive support for our trans-siblings. For those of us who are not transgender, we can take on the work of learning about the trans experience and do our own work to intentionally include and cultivate space for folx who are transgender. As we have learned from Jesus’ actions on the cross, and about dismantling racism, those of us who have privilege and power have the responsibility to learn and use our privilege and power on behalf of those who do not.
Next week, I will share the introductory question from the Trans 101 workshop shared in our cohort. Until then,
Peace and joy be with you,
Pastor Michelle