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Spirit of Hope’s Public ‘Yes’: How One Congregation Became Reconciling in Christ

August 13, 2026

Spirit of Hope Lutheran in Lincoln has long been known as a servant-hearted, community-focused congregation. In recent years, that commitment to welcome led them into a deep, deliberate journey toward becoming a Reconciling in Christ (RIC) congregation, publicly and explicitly affirming LGBTQIA+ people as beloved members of the body of Christ.

Why RIC, and Why Now?

The conversation at Spirit of Hope began before Pr. Day Hefner was called as their pastor. During her time as a transitional pastor there, some members were already asking what it would look like for their “everyone is welcome” culture to be named clearly and specifically for LGBTQIA+ people.

For several families, this was not theoretical. They had beloved children and grandchildren under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella, young men who had grown up in the church but no longer felt fully at home. No one had been openly cruel or overtly homophobic. The problem was subtler, and in some ways harder to name. Queer identities were not part of the visible culture of the church, and these young adults eventually stepped away from congregational life.

As one of the families helped articulate, “Welcome” that is assumed but never spoken aloud rarely reaches the people who most need to hear it.

Pr. Day notes that this is not unique to Spirit of Hope. In the wider Christian landscape, anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric is so common that most queer people expect churches to be unsafe unless told otherwise.

“Unless you specify, ‘Yes, we welcome you here,’” she says, “people are going to assume that you don’t, and they will never feel truly comfortable unless you explicitly offer that welcome.”

For Spirit of Hope, a congregation already deeply invested in serving neighbors and centering hospitality, naming that welcome out loud became a natural extension of who they already were.

Listening Before Voting

After Pr. Day returned to Spirit of Hope under a full-time call, the council revisited the RIC process outlined by ReconcilingWorks. They could sense strong support in the congregation, but they did not want to rely only on impressions.

They formed an RIC team made up of LGBTQIA+ members, straight and cisgender members, and a couple of council representatives to reflect a mix of voices. The team’s first step was a brief congregational survey:

  • How welcoming do you believe Spirit of Hope is to LGBTQIA+ people?
  • How comfortable would you be hosting a same-gender wedding here?
  • How comfortable would you be worshiping alongside someone who is visibly LGBTQIA+ (for example, a couple, a trans or gender non-conforming person)?
  • What questions or concerns do you have about becoming an RIC congregation?

The responses were revealing. The majority were strongly supportive, “of course” this is who we are. A few were firmly opposed. Many others were somewhere in between, not hostile but unsure why a formal RIC designation was necessary if “everyone is already welcome.”

In other words, Spirit of Hope was exactly where many congregations find themselves, a mostly affirming body with honest questions and real anxieties about change.

Putting Faces and Stories with the Question: “Why RIC?”

To move deeper than theory, the RIC team chose to share personal stories, what they called the “Why RIC?” series. Members of the committee wrote about their own experiences:

  • Parents and grandparents of LGBTQIA+ children
  • People in the congregation who identify as LGBTQIA+
  • Members who do not identify as queer but know what it feels like to be “on the outside” in other ways

These reflections were printed as bulletin inserts and shared in the congregation’s e-news. Week after week, people read things they had never known about the folks they had been sitting next to in the pews for years.

Those stories did several important things at once:

  • They answered the “why is this important?” question from within the community’s own life.
  • They made the conversation about real people rather than abstract issues.
  • They quietly but clearly expanded the congregation’s imagination of who “we” are.

The series sparked hallway conversations, questions over coffee, and slowly, steadily, greater buy‑in.

What RIC Actually Requires

As Spirit of Hope moved closer to a vote, the congregation spent time with the four core commitments required by ReconcilingWorks for RIC designation:

  1. An explicit welcome statement that names LGBTQIA+ people and includes a commitment to anti-racism.
    Spirit of Hope worked together to write and adopt a new welcome statement, approved by the congregation, that names this welcome clearly.
  2. A willingness to call a pastor who identifies as LGBTQIA+.
    This does not mandate a particular future call, but it insists that sexual orientation or gender identity would not be a barrier to serving as pastor.
  3. A willingness to host same-gender weddings.
    Not just hypothetically supporting them, but genuinely being ready to celebrate those marriages in the sanctuary.
  4. A meaningful annual financial contribution to ReconcilingWorks.

Pr. Day describes these as “actually pretty low stakes” in light of the Gospel’s call to hospitality and justice. As the council and RIC team walked through each point, the congregation increasingly realized that in practice, they were already living most of these commitments. Naming them publicly was the next faithful step.

The Vote: A Quiet but Historic Moment

At the annual meeting, about 45 to 50 members gathered. After months of study, story-sharing, and conversation, Spirit of Hope was ready to decide.

The vote to become a Reconciling in Christ congregation passed unanimously, with five abstentions.

Some of those abstentions came from people who were uncertain or quietly opposed, but chose not to stand in the way. As a pastor, Pr. Day carries mixed feelings about silent resistance. She longs for honest conversation and wants every member to feel safe voicing their concerns. At the same time, she recognizes that trust takes time, and the congregation is still growing into these deeper conversations.

What the vote made clear, however, is that Spirit of Hope understands this decision as a matter of community, not ideology. In Pr. Day’s preaching and teaching, she often returns to Paul’s letters, especially 1 Corinthians and the debates in the early church about food sacrificed to idols.

Paul cares less about the rules themselves than about what they do to the community. If exercising my freedom harms or drives away another, Paul writes, he will set that freedom aside. Hospitality and belonging come first.

For Spirit of Hope, RIC is about precisely that, choosing practices that protect and nurture the most vulnerable in the body of Christ.

Living Into the Promise

Becoming an RIC congregation was not the end of the process. It was a threshold. Since the vote, Spirit of Hope has been intentional about living into what this public welcome means.

Some of the practices taking shape:

  • Showing up in queer spaces.
    The congregation has begun participating in local Pride events and hosting gatherings that center LGBTQIA+ voices.
  • Hosting learning events.
    Spirit of Hope welcomed Ellie Krug, a prominent trans author and speaker, for a presentation on “gray area thinking,” a framework for understanding complexity and difference with compassion.
  • Building an LGBTQIA+ resource library.
    The congregation is curating a collection of books and materials that members can check out, no matter where they are on their journey. The library includes

    • Introductory resources on sexuality and gender identity
    • Books for youth and young adults
    • Resources for parents, grandparents, and other family members learning how to support loved ones
    • Works by authors like Ellie Krug
    • Materials from ReconcilingWorks, including guides for ministry in rural contexts

These resources are not only for LGBTQIA+ members themselves. They are deliberately crafted for the whole congregation, so that Spirit of Hope can grow together in its understanding and practice of welcome.

The Impact, Seen and Unseen

Already, Spirit of Hope has seen tangible fruit from this public witness.

At least a few individuals from the wider community have started attending precisely because they saw that Spirit of Hope is an RIC congregation. They came, in their own words, because they were looking for a church where they could trust that “yes, we welcome you” really includes them.

For Pr. Day, that matters on multiple levels. Even though she does not personally identify as LGBTQIA+, she has known what it feels like to be an outsider. If she were looking for a church as someone who often feels on the margins, she says, an RIC designation would be one of the first things she would look for, not only because of what it says about LGBTQIA+ welcome, but because it signals something broader:

“It is a welcome that speaks much more broadly of people who are open to the other, open to people who are a little bit different.”

That welcome also has ripple effects beyond sexuality and gender. In a previous congregation where she served, the work of cultivating a culture of explicit welcome prepared the community for a very different kind of ministry, hospitality to refugees and asylum seekers at the border. Because they had already practiced asking who is on the margins and how to adjust space, language, and habits so that others can truly belong, they could respond more quickly and intuitively to this new call.

Pr. Day sees the same potential at Spirit of Hope. “One great thing about RIC is that it opens you up in a lot of really great ways to ministries you might not have even considered before.”

For Congregations Who Are Unsure

Spirit of Hope’s story is not one of unanimous enthusiasm at every step. There were, and still are, members who struggle with the change, who abstained from the vote or keep their discomfort quiet.

To congregations who worry they will be split by such a process, Pr. Day offers honest encouragement:

  • Your people are already talking about this.
    Whether leaders name it or not, conversations about LGBTQIA+ inclusion are happening in your pews, youth groups, and parking lots. Avoiding the topic does not protect unity. It just pushes pain and questions underground.
  • The Gospel invites hard conversations.
    The early church wrestled openly with divisive questions, what laws to keep, who belonged at the table, how Jews and Gentiles could share one community. Scripture models a church that does not shy away from conflict, but walks through it for the sake of deeper communion.
  • RIC is about community, not winning an argument.
    At its best, the process is not an echo chamber. It is a space where people can bring their stories, fears, and hopes, and trust that they are still loved even when they disagree.

Above all, Spirit of Hope’s journey underscores a simple but profound truth. In a world where many assume churches will not welcome them, explicit words and visible signs of welcome are acts of courage and care.

A rainbow flag outside a building, a clear sentence in a welcome statement, an RIC designation on a website, these are not mere symbols. For some, they are lifelines.

And for Spirit of Hope, they are one more way of living into the name they bear, a community where the Spirit is at work, and where hope is made visible in the lives of those who once wondered if there was a place for them at all.