When I began to view LGBT+ related questions as not just about issues but about people, it changed things. My views of what behaviors the Bible condones and condemns did not change, but my views of how I ought to approach people who were created in the image of God were significantly changed.
We’d been married for about four years. We had two kids and had moved to Santiago, Chile to serve as missionaries. We were – or so we thought – mature Christian laborers striving to advance the gospel. But, under the surface of our seemingly healthy marriage, Mary and I were wrestling with deep issues that we were hardly aware of.
Could it be that Peter, in all his spontaneity and impulsiveness and filterless outbursts, was made this way for a reason? Perhaps God specifically chose him, in concert with Paul, to announce the most radical religious idea since Jesus was declared Son of God. And perhaps those of use who relate with Peter were made with a purpose too.
When we struggle to get along at this table that Jesus has created for us the watching world concludes: “Your Jesus must be too small – because he doesn’t even seem to be big enough for you all to stay together and love each other.” To be the church means we have to honor the fact that God created us differently.
My journey over the past nine months has been one of brokenness. I realize that I had been broken alone — and now what I really wanted was to be broken but with others. I believe Thomas. I think he will welcome the “outlier” with open arms. The true question, I think, is – will we follow that example?
Do you remember when you were a kid and summer days stretched endlessly before you, with little to do besides hang out with friends? This summer we want to offer you a chance to stop adulting. To enjoy the season, to be fully present. To sit and relax with a few friends. We hereby invite you to The Dinner Table.
Church has not always been a safe place for me, or those I know and love. That’s why I have been silent—for years. Silent as I have questioned everything I once felt so sure about. But the cost of silence is great.
One of the things I think about often as a mom is who my kids are looking up to. My kids are at the age where they are extremely susceptible to influences surrounding them. But the thing that seems to speak the loudest is what they observe in kids a few years older than them.
It’s April, so the essays are pouring in. There are exams to write, grades to enter, emails and phone calls to make, and all of that is coming from a job I love but one that’s currently drowning me. In the midst of the storm, the Good Friday service created space for me to breathe and be.
The symphony of gospel is so much bigger and more beautiful than the one note that gets most often talked about. Discover the truth of the whole gospel, believe the good news and find the shalom you’ve long been looking for.
Although giving up my sense of self to teach, serve, and shape precious little people is the hardest thing I have ever done physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, I recognize God is filling that emptiness with his strength; sustaining me and giving me glimpses of who He is creating me to be. But I don’t want to do it alone.
We “do” the basketball camp, youth gatherings, and painting knowing we’re doing it for Jesus. Under the stars the last night, I looked at Juan, sitting in the glow of that fire, and realized that maybe in the midst of us thinking we’re doing something for them, for “the least of these,” they’re actually doing something for us.
