Acts 9 tells the dramatic story of Saul’s conversion, but tucked inside it is a second, quieter transformation—one just as essential for an Open and Affirming church.
Saul’s conversion is obvious. He is stopped in his tracks, confronted by the Christ he has been persecuting, and led into a new way of seeing. His blindness becomes a doorway into humility, vulnerability, and change. Saul reminds us that God can upend even our most certain convictions and lead us toward a wider, more generous truth.
But Ananias undergoes a conversion too. When God sends him to welcome Saul, he resists—naming the harm Saul has done. Still, he goes. He lays hands on the man he fears and calls him “Brother.” Ananias models the courage every ONA church needs: the willingness to trust that God is already at work in those we misunderstand, fear, or have been taught to exclude.
An Open and Affirming church lives at the intersection of these two conversions—Saul’s openness to being changed, and Ananias’s openness to welcoming the one who is changing. Together they form the heart of our calling: to be transformed, and to be transforming, in love.
Pastor Greg
