As is often the case, the idea for “Got Inclusion?” began with a conversation between friends. Actually between an aging Quaker man (Walt Marston) and his young evangelical Masters swim coach (Becky Olszewski). In early 2006, Walt wrote an essay about how people in the churches see gay issues and gay persons. Upon learning that his swim coach, Becky, went to Mars Hill Bible Church, he decided to see what her reaction would be to his essay. She liked it, so they decided to talk about what they could do to encourage greater understanding and inclusion of gay persons in the churches, especially the more evangelical churches.

This led to a series of coffee house chats. Soon afterwards, Jim Lucas of GIFT (Gays in Faith Together) joined in, followed by Greg Gough of The Marin Foundation (who also led a young adult gay support group at Mars Hill). We began meeting about once a month on Saturday afternoons at a coffee house in Grand Rapids. It was Greg Gough who suggested the name “Got Inclusion?”

One of the most essential ideas coming out of these early meetings was the importance of “listening” to each other, and that one of the best ways to do this was to listen to the stories of individuals’ personal experiences – encouraging true dialogue rather than debate and argumentation.

Another important point seemed to be that we should not try to be just another organizational entity, but rather to be an ongoing campaign or movement, collaborating with existing organizations such as GIFT, The Marin Foundation and the emergent churches. This is consistent with the idea of not being a rigid organization but rather a network of individuals and communities that come together in the spirit of God’s love to do God’s work.

It was decided to plan a series of sessions in a variety of churches (some mainline, some evangelical) focused on individuals, particularly gay Christians, telling their stories in the context of their faith journeys, followed by small group dialogue.

The format that evolved was that of a two hour session, consisting of a 12 minute video, followed by three 10 minute “stories” of individuals or couples telling of their experience being gay or having gay friends in a Christian church. And this was to be followed by about 45 minutes of small group dialogue.

A pilot session was held at Mars Hill Bible Church on a Monday evening, May 7, 2007. This went very well and generated much interest in doing a full series later in the year.

The group was planning to have a series of “Got Inclusion?” sessions in several churches in the fall of 2007, but this got pushed back when we realized it conflicted with the play “Seven Passages: The Stories of Gay Christians,” which was to be performed at Spectrum Theatre the last week of September and the first week of October, 2007. Several members of the team became involved with the play, especially organizing a pastoral leadership conference on opening day of the play, and facilitating small group dialogue.

The plan for “Got Inclusion?” shifted to building on the impetus provided by the play, which was very well-received by church leaders across the theological spectrum, and promoting “Got Inclusion?” as “continuing the conversation.”

The first of these sessions in 2008 is to be held at the Catholic Information Center in downtown Grand Rapids on February 11, 2008 (a Monday evening) at 7 pm. http://www.catholicinformationcenter.org/education.html

Beyond that, the planning group hopes to hold sessions periodically (or in series) in various churches that are eager to have dialogue on this important issue.

Whatever form it takes, the “Got Inclusion?” team is determined to keep this important dialogue going in West Michigan and beyond. We appreciate your support and involvement. Please contact us to be notified of upcoming events, to be part of the planning or to be a facilitator of dialogue groups.