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Let’s Get it On: A Conversation about Whole-Person Sexuality


Let’s Get it On: A Conversation about Whole-Person Sexuality

Thursdays: Oct 26, Nov 2, 9, 16 & 23
1:30 - 3pm ET online

The human experience includes sexuality, so in an effort to encourage holistic wellness, we are opening up space for a positive conversation about the goodness of sexuality during our Learning Centre. The largely silent approach to sexuality is not serving this topic well. We will talk honestly about how sexuality is dysfunctional in our churches and wrestle together with better ways to engage our whole being including sexuality.

Learning Centre sessions are recorded and made available afterwards for those who sign up but cannot attend in person

 

Week 1 (Oct 26) - Let’s talk about purity culture with Val Hiebert

In this session, we will wrestle with the phenomenon of Purity Culture. Sociologist, Val Hiebert, will share the description of purity culture and the impact it is having on our churches. With the help of pop culture such as books, instructional videos, rings and event Purity Balls, purity culture has impacted the sexual understanding of a generation or more. We will open the conversation to wrestle with this influence.

Week 2 (Nov 2) - Let’s talk about porn with Val Hiebert

In this session, we wrestle with the ubiquitous presence of pornography in our culture and our churches. Taking a sociological approach to porn, Val Hiebert shares the realities of porn in society, including within the church. We will open up the conversation about the impact of porn on our whole beings.

Week 3 (Nov 9) -Let’s talk about the positive with Leah Perrault

In addition to the dysfunctions about sexuality that exist in our culture and churches, there is a significant impact from the silence about the positive experiences of sex. Author and speaker, Leah Perrault, will approach whole-person sexuality from the perspective that our sexuality is part of our spiritual formation. To say it another way, our sex lives lead us toward holiness.

Week 4 (Nov 16) - Let’s talk about patriarchy with Jared Siebert

Patriarchy’s toxic effect on the sexuality of women is well documented. Women are decades deep into this work of liberation. Sometimes overlooked is the work that men have been doing as they work to set themselves free themselves as well. In this conversation we will be taking a second look at the ways patriarchy deforms male sexuality and the good news that can be found in walking toward whole-person sexuality and holiness.

Week 5 (Nov 23) - Questions and Wrestling

After these conversations about whole-person sexuality, we want to open up the floor to the wrestling the community has been doing. Through the opportunity for anonymous questions and honest conversation, we will wrestle with real-life questions about how sexuality can be part of a healthy embodied experience.

 

Presenters

Featured
Val Peters Hiebert

Val Peters Hiebert is the assistant program coordinator for the Abuse Response and Prevention program of MCC MB. This role complements her academic work where she most recently was Assistant Professor of Sociology at Providence College. Val completed a Theatre and Sociology BA at Providence, a Sociology and Anthropology MA at the University of Manitoba, and her PhD in Social Sciences (Sociology & Anthropology) at Western Sydney University. Her academic specialties are gender, children & violence, language & culture, cultural anthropology, and marriage & family.
Living on the hobby farm near Mitchell where she and her husband enjoyed their married life (Jacob Friesen 1960-2017), she is an active member of her faith community and invests considerable energy into community education an advocacy. She is an avid gardener with a pantry annually full of organic plenty, as well as a life-long runner and now cyclist. To her delight, she has also recently become a grandma!! Whether in the garden, the classroom, or the public commons, Val feels awed by the privilege and wonder of planting and watching things grow.

Jared Siebert

Jared Siebert serves in many capacities in the Canadian Church. He founded an organization of missionary church leaders called the New Leaf Network and is one of Canada’s leading inter-denominational church planter trainers. But church planting isn’t the only kind of experience he has garnered. In his ministry roles Jared has had the opportunity to work with churches of all kinds from all over Canada. He has acted as a consultant in churches large and small, urban and rural, and new and long established. He has written a discipleship curriculum, a handbook on church planter training, and a Church Health workbook called the LifePlan. As a sought after speaker and consultant Jared is uniquely able to draw insight and inspiration from a variety of sources and bring that to the table as he helps churches move toward unity and the mission of God.

Leah Perrault

Leah Perrault is the Executive Director of Southwest Homes in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, on treaty four territory. She is a fumbling but faithful disciple of Jesus, a grateful wife, and a practicing parent with a heart for finding God in human experience. Her column, Barefoot and Preaching, is available online at www.leahperrault.com.

 

Register

There are two options to access the New Leaf Learning Centre: a monthly subscription or a one-session pass (below). For the monthly subscription, please visit here.

 
 
Earlier Event: October 12
The Table
Later Event: November 20
Integration: Christ in the Everyday