Reading over my sermons from the past year, I can see a trend: in the wake of challenges around race, politics, violence and social change, we hold it to be true that the church is called to continue her mission. At White Memorial we understand that mission to be worshipping, embracing and serving in the manner of Christ. No matter what has been or what may come, we are resolved as a church family to offer our best to God and neighbors.
Over the past 11 months, our church has been engaged in a slow, methodical, honest and deliberate conversation about marriage because our attitudes, as Americans, about marriage are shifting. Conversations about marriage and our changing understandings of marriage are complex. Marriage has always been a very personal part of our common faith. That couples should offer their best to one another in covenantal promise is evident to anyone who studies God’s Word. That families benefit from the stability that a healthy marriage produces is beyond question. Given these truths, the question before us is this: who should be able to marry—only some, or everyone?
This conversation began last August, when I preached a sermon entitled A Pastor’s Prayer During Days of Division. It continued as a small group of elders from our Session (our governing body) met to discuss and pray about the place of marriage and the possibility of same-gender marriage in the Presbyterian Church and at White Memorial. As outgrowths of that working group, we have held a congregation-wide forum, offered a five-week class on marriage, written newsletter articles, distributed packets of resources about marriage, visited and talked with Church School classes and had hundreds and hundreds of conversations about marriage, same-gender marriage and the pastoral and biblical claims which frame the issue. In all of these efforts, we have tried to employ a pastoral priority— we have listened to all perspectives because White Memorial as a church body has all viewpoints. We have cried tears with those who hope that same-gender marriage will not happen in our church, those who hope it will happen at White Memorial very soon and those who wish the pain surrounding the issue would just go away.
I am committed to placing all of my energy into holding our church family together in light of the dynamic and quickly changing conversations around marriage in our culture, in our homes and in our church. This is my pastoral priority.
Last fall your Session voted to suspend any decisions about same-gender marriage at White Memorial Presbyterian Church until the will of the national church was known and the laws of North Carolina and our nation were fully understood. With the passage of new language in our Presbyterian Church Book of Order allowing for same-gender marriages and the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, our Session will once again take up the topic as to whether or not same-gender wedding services will be allowed on White Memorial’s campus. At its stated meeting on August 9, our Session will be engaged in prayer and discussion around the issue. This is to prepare for a decision at its September 13 meeting. Our priority as a church family is pastoral integrity as it fuels an ethos of kindness and compassion. It strikes me that the mark of a healthy family is its ability to love beyond its disagreements and uncertainties. The priority will be pastoral as we care for one another and work side-by-side with one another in our common ministry.
In light of these upcoming Session meetings, I invite you, our church family, to write the Session as you feel called to do so. All signed letters received in our church office by September 1 will be shared with the Session. Letters need to be written and mailed or emailed to me and/or my assistant, Rebecca Turner (our email addresses are available on the website). Should you need to write in pastoral privacy to share your feelings without the Session being copied, simply state that desire in your letter. You know that you may schedule a meeting with any of our pastors to discuss or pray about this very personal and complicated matter. My hope is that this invitation to communicate will be part of our larger conversation—honest, deliberate, methodical conversation—about marriage.
Whether you write or not, please pray for our church. There are many concerned folks in our congregation, on all sides of the question. Families pray for one another in times of stress and confusion. Let us do nothing less, and let us give our best energies to the commitment to embrace one another through patience and compassion.
May grace abound,
Christopher Edmonston
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