Resources on Church Unity Available

The Covenant Network of Presbyterians, from its founding, has had a twofold mission. We have worked for both the full inclusion of LGBTQ people in the life and leadership of the church and the real and manifest unity of that church. Sometimes these two goals seem in tension, but the value of either depends on the other. For either to matter, the church must be whole.Even as the church has seen substantial progress in removing barriers to ordination based on sexual orientation, we continue to be in a season where the church faces many threats—real and perceived—to its unity. Some sow seeds of division while others (across the theological spectrum) try to find a way forward where we can stay together even with our differences.Today, we post a collection of resources that we hope will assist those working for unity in their presbyteries. These are mostly not ours; they are publicly available resources from a variety of sources. They include legal and polity materials that will help presbyteries set appropriate boundaries on efforts to compromise the PCUSA’s inclusive witness; reflections on the meaning of church unity from various perspectives in the PCUSA family; and accurate statements of PCUSA positions that have sometimes been misrepresented. We post the collection not as an effort to prevent any dialogues that might lead to the proper dismissal of congregations, but rather to help ensure that such dialogues are filled with accuracy, open discernment, and right procedure to ensure a fair and beneficial outcome for the church and its mission.The resources can be found here.