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The gospels tell us about the historically pivotal events of Jesus’ birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension. And they tell of a Jesus whose teaching is repeatedly described as astounding and authoritative (Matthew 7.28, 13.54, 22.33, Mark 1.22, 6.2, Luke 4.32). But in amongst these accounts of momentous events and transcendent wisdom, the gospel writers draw our attention to a multitude of details about Jesus’ encounters with people and the stories he tells. They reveal a Jesus who was a keen observer of human behaviour. He notices how guests behave at dinner parties (Luke 14.7), how much money they give away (Luke 21.1,2), what children do when they play (Luke 7.32), how frazzled people can get when entertaining (Luke 10.41) or how happy they are when they’ve found something they had lost (Luke 15.9). They tell of a Jesus who is instinctively compassionate when faced with the suffering of illness (Mark 6.56), of social exclusion (Luke 19.1-10), of regret (Luke 7.38-50), or of grief (John 11.33). They tell of a Jesus who asks questions: ‘What are you looking for?’ (John 1.38), ‘Why do you call me good?’ (Luke 18.19), ‘Do you want to be made well?’ (John 5.6), ‘Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?’ (Luke 6.9).

This book, too, invites us to notice the particularity of people’s lived experiences by telling their stories. Much as in the gospels, these ‘Encounters’ – clustered in between the different parts of the book – interrupt and disrupt the flow of biblical, theological, historical and scientific exploration. They are the stories of real, contemporary disciples of Christ who are seeking to live in the abundant life that Jesus offers. They are stories of people who are trying to enact their faith, to live their lives in Christ and set their hope on Christ. They are stories told as each has chosen to tell it and they are stories that raise questions that form part of our learning journey together. They are stories asking us to discern where God is active in human lives.

The stories remind us that as we explore what it means to be human, to be sexual, to belong to the people of God, we are exploring questions that have real-life consequences. Our learning is not just in our heads, but it is also in our hearts and in the living of our lives. Our discussions are not just about ideas or concepts, theories or theologies. They are not about disembodied biblical texts, but about the holy ground of people’s real lives. We do our theology and learning in one another’s company as disciples of Christ.

The stories invite us to step out of ourselves, out of our own world and concerns into those of another. They invite us to listen actively and attentively, laying down for a moment our own anxieties and fears in order to be present to another. In so doing we create a space for the work of God’s Spirit in us. We are exercising faith in the reality of Christ in each person, and in the possibility of Christ addressing us through the life of another. By paying attention to the stories of people who have different, and even opposing, understandings of abundant life, we are taking a first step towards something that we do not yet see and cannot perhaps even imagine: a community of believers whose love for one another testifies to the living Christ. The book invites readers into this act of hopeful, attentive listening as an act of holy love.

Without exception, these lived experience stories encompass both joy and pain. They tell of the joy of human love and of being made new in Christ. And they tell of wounds, sin and failure. Some wounds are inflicted by others, perhaps even by others in the Church. They may be wounds caused by rejection, prejudice, ignorance or the abuse of power. Other wounds are internal. They are harder to identify or name, but they are none the less real and are the source of confusion, pain and mental distress. All the stories are about people seeking to be transformed into the likeness of Christ (2 Corinthians 3.18). As we’ll see in chapter 10, the Bible, too, tells many stories of complexity, diversity, imperfection and messiness – and often without passing explicit judgements.

The stories remind us that we are learning together as a community of disciples in all its complexity and diversity and its imperfection and messiness. They call us to be courageously honest about the diversity that exists among the people of God in the Church of England while resisting the temptation to simplify or to control, holding back from the impulse to judge and to exclude. Instead, they call us to receive one another as gifts, gifts through whom God is at work refining and shaping those who seek to follow Christ. We look for the living Christ in the midst of the complexity, imperfection, messiness and glory of our lives and life together.

Stories are powerful and memorable. Our purpose, however, is not to use them as a basis for validating a particular way of life. They are not by themselves the means by which the church will arrive at a Christian ethic of sexuality or of gender identity. Rather they are testimonies of how people have understood their lives in relation to God – understandings that have been honed in the course of a life, but which are, of course, always incomplete and in need of fuller truth. We are invited to attend to them seriously and to allow the Holy Spirit to question our assumptions and raise possibilities for what faithfulness can look like: possibilities that we will need to reflect on and test in our hearts and minds.

Attending to the stories – both in this book and in the films that form part of the resources – has the potential to transform us. They can help us to follow the way of Christ, in being truly human in our deliberations and learning and discernment as we engage with these resources. These ‘Encounters’ are there to drive us deeper into Christ, to make us hungrier for the living bread and thirstier for the living water that Christ offers. They are there to deepen our desire to be more Christlike in our life together as individuals and as a church.

‘If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love’ (John 15.10). By listening to lived experiences we acknowledge that theology that isn’t lived isn’t theology, for ‘the Word became flesh and lived among us’ (John 1.14). The authenticity of our faith is in our lived obedience together as followers of Christ.

Stories of people’s lived experience are introduced on here and can be found at the end of each Part of the book. Questions about how experience, conscience, prayer and guidance relate to the way we approach these subjects can be found in Chapters 17 and 18 (here–here).

In these opening chapters we began with God. We were reminded that all of creation, and all of life, are gifts from God. All of creation is made by God’s love, and it is made for the purposes of God’s love. As creatures of a loving God, we are called into relationship – with one another, with the created order, and with God. In Part Three we will explore further how this gift of relationship fits within the Christian story.

We saw how the particular relationship called marriage is also a gift from God. We traced the origins of the Church of England’s received teaching on marriage as a lifelong union between a man and a woman. We saw that marriage is a gift that is rooted in creation and in the history of the relationship between God and the people of God both before and after Jesus’ life on earth. We saw that its hallmarks are mutuality and fruitfulness – and that they both unite marriage with, and distinguish it from, other kinds of relationship. We saw how it is a sign that enlarges and deepens our understanding of God’s love in Jesus Christ for us, the people of God, the church. We noticed its modulations in response to context and human weakness. We will look much more closely at some of this material later in the book – exploring Jesus’ teaching on marriage in Part Three and other biblical teaching about marriage in Part Four.

We also began to see some of the ways the Bible, theology, the sciences and experience support and equip us, as we seek to learn about all these topics. We will delve into these questions more deeply in Part Four.

Part One has provided, therefore, the backdrop for our explorations about identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage.

In Part Two, we will continue that journey by paying attention to developments in the world around us.