Living in Love and Faith – or LLF – is a national Church project about human identity, relationships, marriage, and sexuality. Within the Church of England there is a huge diversity of understandings, views, experiences, and traditions about these issues. Unfortunately, over recent years the conversations have become quite polarised towards some of the more strongly held opposing viewpoints, and many of the more ‘middle ground’ and gentler voices have sadly been side-lined, which has at times felt divisive and hurtful. So the idea of LLF is to offer a fresh start. A range of resources have been published to enable people from across the breath of traditions, experience and understandings to come together again – in love and faith – to listen and learn as communities over the course of the rest of 2021 and early 2022. The hope is that the project will create a framework for people to organise local ways of exploring the issues together without judgement and in an environment where all voices can be heard, respected and listened to. Local churches and communities are being encouraged to take part as much as they can. Toward the end of this year and early next year, we will be looking at how we might engage with LLF as a benefice, and we may run a local course ourselves or partner with other parishes. Meanwhile, I would highly recommend exploring some of the LLF resources yourself. • The easiest first step might be to watch the introductory video on the Church of England website www.churchofengland.org/resources/living-love-and-faith. The video shows people from diverse backgrounds and lifestyles who have shared their stories about how they are ‘Living in Love and Faith’. 21
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