Celebrating your ONA covenant

The resources on this page will help your congregation

• • celebrate your ONA covenant.
• • develop a liturgy for an annual renewal of your ONA covenant.
• • develop a service of witness for marriage equality or LGBT civil rights.

A Litany of Inclusion

By Rev. Kenneth L. Pennings
Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists

This litany is especially appropriate with Holy Communion.
First Voice: We are fearfully and wonderfully made.
All: God has revealed to us that homosexuality in not a sin to be confessed…
Second Voice: Or a sickness to be cured…
First Voice: But is a natural human condition.
All: While some would restrict us from the table of the Lord…
Second Voice: From church membership…
First Voice: From church leadership…
Second Voice: From ordination…
First Voice: From professional ministry positions…
Second Voice: From jobs…
First Voice: From marriage…
All: Because of their restricted view of the Bible…
Second Voice: Their restricted view of truth…
First Voice: And their restricted view of reality…
Second Voice: We welcome all to the Table of the Lord.
All: We say to all who are excluded because of skin color, physical and mental ableness…
First Voice: Income level, marital status…
Second Voice: Gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation…
All: “Be excluded no more!”
First Voice: We are stretching out our hands to those who have been stereotyped, stigmatized, labeled, and assigned to the margins of church and society, saying…
Second Voice: In the name of Jesus, partake of the body and blood of our Lord…
First Voice: Join our churches…
Second Voice: Lead our churches…
First Voice: Retain your jobs…
Second Voice: Marry your life partners!
All: Because we are all God’s beloved children…
First Voice: We will live, laugh, love and lead…
Second Voice: With integrity, dignity, faithfulness, gratitude and joy!
All: Amen!

From
A PLACE IN GOD’S HEART, A PLACE AT CHRIST’S TABLE:
WORSHIP RESOURCES FOR THE WELCOMING CHURCH MOVEMENT
David Lohman, editor
Unless otherwise noted, permission is granted to reprint individual selections for congregational use. Published by the Institute for Welcoming Resources, a program of the National LGBTQ Task Force.
www.WelcomingResources.org