Steps to becoming an Affirming Ministry

(Click here for a short PDF overview of the Affirming process.)

Becoming Affirming isn’t a quick journey, because it’s a process of love, discernment, and transformation. The stories we hear from Affirming ministries often use the words “transformation” and “unexpected”. Expect the unexpected in your process, but always expect it to change you.

Staff and supporters celebrate The Ashbourne becoming Canada’s first Affirming assisted living in spring 2017– and make it on to video themselves. Photo: Admire Studios.

In order to become an Affirming Ministry, your ministry will work with an educational/discernment process. It’s designed to help you reflect on what it means to be inclusive; it evaluates your ministry’s openness to the ongoing work of being intentional about how it includes others within the life and work of your ministry.

We expect that you will look at a variety of areas that may be barriers to those coming to your community – age, gender, race, ability, class, economic status and, in particular to the Affirming ministry, gender identity and expression, and sexualities.  The advice we have received from many Affirming Ministries is that this discussion should include as many groups within your ministry as possible, from your governing body to you staff, choir, adult groups, spirituality groups, youth, children, outreach, and more.

We could go on and on! Have a look at this two page summary and feel free to share this in your ministry. Our core resource, Open Hearts, is a much more comprehensive resource designed to support your journey.