Reconciling Works

RIC Sunday 2025

ReconcilingWorks wants to celebrate with your faith community and is excited to offer these resources. Many RIC communities celebrate RIC Sunday on the last Sunday in January. This year, that lands on January 26, 2025. ReconcilingWorks encourages you to celebrate on a date that is meaningful for your community. Be sure to use this day as a time to recommit to your partnership as a RIC faith community, discern ways to live into your RIC partner commitments, and set new milestones for the year to come.

2025 RIC Sunday Resources

Click the "Resources" button below to request access to the 2025 RIC Sunday resource package. You will be directed to a Google Form to submit your faith community's information.

ReconcilingWorks is excited to announce that the Reconciling in Christ (RIC) Sunday Worship 2025, Resilient Community is here!

Resilient Community - This year’s theme allows us to celebrate how far we all have come in difficult times while also reminding us we need to keep moving toward the goal of true inclusion. It focuses our attention on how community bonds and relationships sustain the individual members of the community, building resilience in institutions and individuals. When we work together for justice, communities are stronger; when we work together, people are stronger.

While this worship service primarily uses the acronym LGBTQIA+ or uses language that specifies identities and orientations when referring to people most of the time, you will also find the word “queer” employed as a more universal identifying term. As you adapt and shape the materials to fit your context and worship styles, please feel free to use whatever language and labels are considered the norm in your community but also be mindful of those for whom the word “queer” remains harmful.

Reconciling in Christ (RIC) Sunday is an annual worship celebration created to share in the commitment our organization and partnering faith communities have in the ongoing work of welcome, inclusion, celebration, and advocacy for LGBTQIA+ people in the life of the church. While historically this day is celebrated on the final Sunday in January, many RIC partners will celebrate on their date of affirmation, or on other days meaningful to their communities rooted in this commitment to radical hospitality. We hope you enjoy Resilient Community as we join collectively with our 1,140+ partners across the United States and Canada through this celebratory service.

As special thank you to our planning team, Rev. Josh Evans, St. John’s Lutheran Church, Albany, New York; Rev. Dr. Lori Ruge-Jones, University Lutheran Church and Campus Ministry, Eau Claire, Wisconsin; and Deacon David Rask Behling, Program Coordinator

RIC Sunday 2025

Download RIC Sunday Resources

RECONCILIADOS EN CRISTO DOMINGO

Download RIC Sunday Resources

Recommended Reading and Continuing the Conversation

To continue the conversation of Reconciling in Christ Sunday, ReconcilingWorks encourages RIC Communities to learn and grow in welcome, inclusion, and celebration of LGBTQIA+ folks by lifting up the diversity in the lives of LGBTQIA+ people, that your community can read together or through individual study:

Guide to Welcome LGBTQIA+ Youth & their Families

Do you have questions about how you can best serve the young LGTBQIA+ persons in your ministry setting? We took a few of the most frequently expressed concerns and created this simple resource to help youth ministry professionals and lay leaders provide hospitality and welcome to LGBTQIA+ youth and their families.

Lutheran Guide to Advocate for LGBTQIA+ People in Church and Society

This resource is a starting point for you and your Lutheran faith community as it seeks to advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual/aromantic (LGBTQIA+) people in church and society. It is ReconcilingWorks’ hope that tools and answers in this guide will give your community the boldness to proclaim Christ’s gospel of radical inclusion and hospitality to your neighbors, our church, and our world.

Lutheran Introduction to Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, & Gender Expression

Since 1974, ReconcilingWorks: Lutherans for Full Participation has advocated for the full welcome, inclusion, and equity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual/aromantic (LGBTQIA+) Lutherans in all aspects of the life of their Church, congregations, and community. The Reconciling in Christ (RIC) Program of ReconcilingWorks is for congregations, synods, colleges, seminaries, and other Lutheran organizations that publicly welcome LGBTQIA+ people. As a way to deepen and expand that welcome, we offer this resource as a basic introduction to sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.

Raising Kids Beyond the Binary: Celebrating God's Transgender and Gender-Diverse Children

Raising Kids Beyond the Binary: Celebrating God's Transgender and Gender-Diverse Children (by Jamie Bruesehoff)

Dare to dream of a church and a world transformed by the bold celebration of transgender and gender-diverse children. The debate around transgender children rages, with some Christians being the loudest voices against loving and supporting these young people. So, now more than ever, people of faith need to be grounded in God's call to love and affirm young people in who God created them to be. Raising Kids beyond the Binary bypasses the sound bites to give readers a vivid picture of who transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive young people are and what they need to thrive.

Drawing on the author's experience as a mother walking with and learning from her own transgender child, as well as working with hundreds of families across the country doing the same, this book helps parents navigate the emotional, spiritual, and logistical landscape of raising a gender-diverse child.

Grounded in the unequivocal truth of God's deep love and limitless creativity, this book compels readers to move past "all are welcome" to loving and celebrating transgender and gender-diverse youth in the brilliance of their uniqueness, the wisdom of their self-awareness, and the joy of their authenticity. Faith leaders and adults who work with youth will also find the book a helpful tool for gaining insight and building safer and more welcoming congregations for these children.

Rich with personal stories, research, and practical steps, this book dares to dream of a church and a world transformed by the bold and joyful acceptance and celebration of transgender and gender-diverse children and youth. These children need us, and the world needs them.

Made, Known, Loved: Developing LGBTQ-Inclusive Youth Ministry

Through the debates about the inclusion of LGBTQ people in the life of the church, one overlooked community is LGBTQ youth. Made, Known, Loved: Developing LGBTQ-Inclusive Youth Ministry (by Ross Murray) builds on experience and wisdom cultivated through The Naming Project, a ministry created at the intersection of youth, faith, and LGBTQ identity. Made, Known, Loved shows congregations how to create a program that affirms LGBTQ youth in their faith and their identity, accepts and welcomes diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, and equips future leaders for the church and the LGBTQ community.

ReconcilingWorks Online Trainings

ReconcilingWorks now offers four Online Trainings, to help you continue your learning in how to welcome, include, and celebrate all of God's Beloveds. Register for a training today!

For Additional Support

If you should need additional support accessing the 2025 RIC Sunday resources, please connect with ReconcilingWorks staff at Info@ReconcilingWorks.org.