New Wine: Lutheran Episcopal Campus Ministry at Temple University

Affirmation of Welcome to All People

 

New Wine Lutheran Episcopal Campus Ministry at Temple University is a group of students, faculty, and staff at Temple University called to gather together as children of God.  We accept that God is a God of love, who loves all the children of God—even when the world can be less than loving.  New Wine takes on the responsibility to minister to anyone who seeks a relationship with God, through Christ Jesus who has died to take away all of our sins. 

New Wine is a community of believers with the added challenge of being first and foremost college students who gather in an environment that brings together peoples from all backgrounds:  race, nationality, sexual orientation, and gender identity.  We welcome all peoples to our community and recognize all as the children of God, created in love, and deserving of our love as a fellow creation of God.

 As Paul has written in Galatians, no distinction belongs among those who call themselves believers.  Paul, too, writes that “…neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[i]  (Romans 8:38-39) We take this to heart as Christians.  We know that we are called to love God’s people as God in Christ has loved us.  Therefore, nothing in all of God’s wonderful creation can stand between us as Christians.  Agape surrounds our community, and we welcome and accept all who come to us.

New Wine also understands that though many people say they accept and love all of God’s children, many still marginalize gay, lesbian, transgendered, and questioning people and their families.  We therefore wish to publicly affirm that:

 -  there is no sexual orientation or gender identity that can make a person less than a fully human, wonderful, and beautiful creation of God, and therefore worthy of dignity, respect, and love as a child of God;

-  people of all sexual orientations and gender identities are welcomed, supported, and loved by this community of believers, New Wine Lutheran Episcopal Campus Ministry at Temple University;

-  all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, are welcomed, encouraged, and expected to participate to the fullness that God calls them in our sacramental, ministerial, social, service, and otherwise general life together;

- all people, regardless or sexual orientation or gender identity, are welcomed, encouraged, and accepted at our table together as a campus ministry born of both the Lutheran and Episcopal traditions but accepting all who are called by God to participate within this community.

 May God support all those who are called to our community, and we the community to which they are called.  May we all grow together in our relationship with God in this developmentally rich time of our lives.  May the God of all creation whose love endures forever and is for all peoples, “bind us together with cords that cannot be broken”[ii] and erase from our midst all distinction of nationality, race, sexual orientation, or gender identity and recognize one another as children of God.