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C’mon—you can smile, too!
Pre-order your copy of ‘Sanctuary’ now:

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As thousands of congregations nationwide seek to become welcoming, we all can learn  from these brave souls in Iowa.

By DAVID CRUMM
Editor of ReadTheSpirit magazine

On Sunday morning, hundreds of people packed the Iowa City church called Sanctuary to celebrate the congregation’s 25-year journey toward inclusion—a dramatic story the world now is learning about through the soon-to-be-released book, Sanctuary: Queering a Church in the Heartland.

Last week, as they talked about their plans for this special Sunday-morning worship service, Senior Pastor Adey Wassink talked about this journey with her husband Dr. Tom Wassink and their friend and lay leader Dr. Katie Imborek—all three of whom are co-authors of the new book.

“Let’s put it this way,” Adey said, “So many people are coming to this anniversary service from all over the place that we might get questions from the fire marshal!”

“I doubt it,” Tom said. “If there are questions, you know, we’ve got the mayor of Iowa City singing in our choir! So, I think we’ll be OK with the crowd size.”

Kidding aside, that’s true about Iowa City’s mayor. Because this congregation has become such a powerful beacon of Christian hope for minority individuals and families, it also became a natural church home for Iowa City’s Mayor Bruce Teague. He’s nationally known as one of the first Black and openly gay mayors. In his family life, Teague feels right at home with this congregation’s high-spirited music-prayer-and-praise style of worship—enough that he joined the choir.

“He’s become an important part of our church,” said Tom. “When Bruce and Colton, his husband, got married—I mean, that was like the wedding of the year in Iowa City!”

On Sunday morning as the anniversary service began, Teague took his place in the choir loft. Then, after the opening praise music, Teague stepped down from the choir’s risers into the pulpit and led the congregation in a unison reading of the church’s official mission statement:

“We are a community that makes space for every race, ethnicity, age, orientation, and gender identity. We welcome belief and doubt, devotion and exploration, while hoping to connect with God, one another, and our world as we do life together.”

‘Giving people hope about what’s possible for Christians’

In our conversation before that service, Tom said, “The mayor is just one example of why so many people want to be here for our 25th anniversary. Lots of people are thrilled to celebrate just the existence of a church like this. Just the fact we’re here and we’ve survived this long gives people hope about what’s possible for Christians—and what’s possible for churches.”

“Oh, yeah, we have lots of people from other places and communities supporting us,” said Adey. “For example, we definitely have a lot of Methodists supporting us.” The Sanctuary staff is well aware that their new book is launching at exactly the time that more than 20,000 United Methodist congregations across America officially are moving toward inclusion—in most cases, without many resources to help them figure out the challenges that lay ahead.

“I mention the Methodists,” Adey said, “because, of course, we hope Methodists can find something in our story that may help them, now.”

“They’ve got quite a journey ahead of them. This is not an easy journey,” said Tom. “That’s something we tried to capture in this book—all the struggles we had, all the anxieties, all the questions.”

“And, all the mistakes we made,” Adey said. “All the things we learned.”

This is, indeed, a valuable story says the Rev. Dr. Sherry Parker-Lewis, a United Methodist Elder from the Michigan Conference. In endorsing this new book, she writes, “Set aside the ‘How To’ guides and experience an authentic narrative from those who led their church to thrive in full inclusion. … In this story of celebration, readers will find a model to lead a congregation to lovingly welcome all people.”

Among the other nationally known Christian leaders encouraging readers to learn from this book is bestselling author Brian McLaren, who writes: “I am so grateful for churches like Sanctuary and for pastors like Adey and Tom Wassink, and for sincere and insightful people like Katie Imborek. They’re telling us honestly about the intimate pain that has been and is still being inflicted on people whose only crime is being sexual. And thank God, Adey, Tom, and Katie also are telling stories of healing that pain, because they are living those stories. They’re modeling what religion should have always been good at, but too seldom is: repenting, which means rethinking or changing our minds.”

Nudging people gracefully to take the next step

This book, Sanctuary, is especially powerful—and helpful to readers—because it has three co-authors who labored for a number of years in drafting and perfecting their story so that it was ready to launch with the church’s 25th anniversary. Those perspectives include the voices of LGBTQ+ members of the church.

Katie Imborek’s story of trying to find a welcoming Christian congregation for her family is one of those LGBGTQ+ voices that runs through the new book.

“The perspective I share is different than Tom’s and Adey’s, because they were there leading the church from the beginning—and I came into this story as a congregant who was part of this incremental process toward inclusion over many years,” said Katie, who is co-director of the University of Iowa Carver School of Medicine’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Questioning (LGBTQ) Clinic.

“This is a difficult choice for queer people if they are looking for a church and they choose to be part of a process like this,” Katie said. “I mean, when we put skin in the game, we are risking getting further hurt and we need to know that people like Adey and Tom and others are aware of the need to protect people from things that can happen along the way. I came into this particular story back when this church did not look like what we all hoped it would look like someday, so the need for protection from harmful things that can happen was very real. That’s a very important perspective for readers—anyone who wants to try doing this.

“I do hope that someone else out there will reads our book and have an inkling, or an inspiration, that their church really should become more welcoming,” Katie said. “If that’s the case, I hope readers will come away with insight about the challenges of doing this—and will have more empathy for the impact this journey can have in people’s lives—and that our story will give them more hope about what’s possible in the end.

“I hope that reading our stories will humanize the experience for folks—including the queer folks whose lives are impacted in a big way by all of this,” Katie said. “And, I hope that by putting this book out there for readers—we may give people in other congregations the nudge they need to risk taking those first steps toward welcoming others.”

A “nudge.”

That’s the gracious tone of this congregation in the heartland. Among the many high-spirited songs the congregation sang to celebrate their 25th anniversary service on Sunday was:

Lord we need Your grace
Lord we need Your grace
Your grace brings forgiveness.
Your grace brings acceptance.
Your grace—it is the answer
To the hunger in our hearts, oh Lord,
The hunger in our hearts, oh Lord.

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Care to read more?

Please visit the book’s Amazon page and order your copy of the book right now in hardcover, paperback or Kindle. And, consider ordering more copies so you can spark a small-group discussion in your community. Those books will arrive on the official release date of October 8, 2024, a launch date chosen to coincide with the annual observance of the historic National Coming Out Day, first observed in 1988.

If you are a writer, journalist, media professional—or a community leader hoping to see an advance copy of this book, contact our staff at [email protected]

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