Reconciling in Christ (RIC)

Atonement is starting a conversation about becoming Reconciling in Christ. We hope you’ll join!

As a church, becoming a Reconciling in Christ community means we will actively take steps to include all of God’s children in our church body.

Our Existing Commitment to Welcome

Atonement has a long-standing commitment to being welcoming. In 2022, we celebrated 60 years of Atonement, and we reflected on our past welcoming community members, refugees, and immigrants. In 2008, our congregation moved to an entirely new building in order to be more accessible for those with mobility issues.

In 2022, we worked to call a new senior pastor. The decisions and conversations we had around what we want in a pastor led us to realize that our congregation is committed to being welcoming, but we had not reflected on what being welcoming concretely means.

About the RIC Process

The Reconciling in Christ (RIC) process is a way we can make our church’s welcoming and hospitality more apparent to others. This process can also be a remarkable opportunity for community and spiritual growth as a congregation.

One of the primary steps in the RIC process is to build a welcome statement that states our commitment to welcome and respect anyone who comes to our church.

This welcome statement would somehow specifically name LGBTQIA+ and racial equity.

Reconciling Works has developed the RIC process for congregations, outlining how to have constructive conversations around inclusion. By having conversations in both one-on-one and large group settings, and opportunities for education around inclusivity and mutual understanding, we hope that our congregation can build an inclusive welcome statement with integrity.

To finalize the RIC process, our congregation would vote on accepting this new welcome statement.

Why are we talking about becoming an RIC church?

Atonement has always been proud of being a welcoming and friendly church.

As part of searching for a pastor, our church’s regional body asked us if we would consider LGBTQIA+ pastors for the position. We realized in answering this question that, as a church, we haven’t had conversations around this topic in a meaningful way. We want to change that. Can we truly consider ourselves a welcoming and open congregation if there are groups of people we might be willing to exclude?

A task force was developed to begin having conversations about increased inclusion of LGBTQIA+ people at Atonement. This task force believes our synod’s Reconciling in Christ team can help us explore the option of becoming an RIC community and that this process will help us clarify the importance of stating a specific welcome to LGBTQIA+ individuals, and our greater community at large!

Read below to see more updates from our Reconciling in Christ core team and church body.