Belonging vs. Leading: Navigating LGBTQ+ Conversations in the Local Church

00:00:01
Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm doctor James Spencer and through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now onto today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian on doctor James Spencer and I am welcoming back today Peter valk And. He is the director of EQUIP as well as a licensed clinical counselor, and today we're going to be talking about what it means to belong to the Christian community. So welcome back man, thanks for coming back on the show. I'm excited about this conversation.

00:00:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, Sam, glad to be here and yeah, curious to hear you know, did you get any interesting comments from audience members from our last conversation or anything stick out for you?

00:01:09
Speaker 1: So, I think our last conversation I got good feedback on it. I think anytime you address that topic and what we what we really discussed was sort of celibacy within the church period, and then also how that related to celibacy within the sort of the homosexual Christian community.

00:01:33
Speaker 3: Right, So how celibacy functioned there.

00:01:36
Speaker 1: And I think that people number one were a little surprised by the celibacy period. It's not a conversation that you usually have in sort of Protestant circles, right, usually reserve that for the Catholics.

00:01:50
Speaker 3: But then there were also pretty compelled.

00:01:53
Speaker 1: The folks that I got feedback from were pretty compelled by your approach to this. They thought it was actually somewhat novel, and these weren't people who hadn't necessarily known much and so they were really interested.

00:02:08
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:02:08
Speaker 3: So yeah, good feedback.

00:02:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I'm kind of hoping we can have something very similar today. I think these these topics are really challenging. You know, I've been at churches where and I haven't been involved in those conversations. I'm an elder at my church now, so I anticipate being involved in these kind of conversations, I guess going forward.

00:02:31
Speaker 3: But you know, I've been at churches in the past where you have.

00:02:38
Speaker 1: Members who are you know, come to the church already married same sex couples who are already married who come to the church and they're already transitioning. And so then these awkward questions of, hey, what do we do if you know, these folks want to serve in the church, what does it look like for us to engage these people in the church. And I don't gather that it's a question. At least my experience hasn't been that it's a question that's asked in order to exclude, right, But it is a question of how do we do this. It's just a new question that doesn't seem like it should have a default answer, like and so that's a really difficult sort of practical wrestling that I've seen go on at churches. So I'm kind of interested to see where we go with this.

00:03:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So it's it's it's a concern that kind of churches that we partner with at EQUIP often bring to us. So a lot of what I do in my day job through EQUIP is consulting and coaching with churches, and some of that is around some of the standard operating procedure, around policies, around these tricky situations that can end up blowing up if if you handle them poorly. And so there's a couple of things kind of top line that we recommend for these churches. One is clarity is the most important thing to begin with. And so you would not want an LGBT plus person to visit a church, get plugged in, be a part of a small group, and it take years for them to discover that there are certain fences around serving publicly in certain ways right and be surprised by that and feel like a bait and switch experience. So the first thing is I encouraged to figure out what kind of their policies are in terms of what are ways people can serve as leaders and where they're submitting themselves to mutual accountability, and what are ways that people can serve that doesn't require a submission to mutual accountability and then make that clear, you know. And then a key around that is also consistency. If there are roles that we're saying it's only for people who are saying yes to being lay leaders or members where they accept mutual accountability from each other and from the church membership. Are we holding people accountable to other ways that people might be falling short of God's wisdom and is that clear to an LGBT plus person who visits. So that's a couple of things. And then yeah, there's the treaty part of distinguishing what are the ways someone could serve in our churches that that don't Well, there's two ways that some terms go about it. For some churches, it's just fear that any saying yes to an LGBT plus person who is in unrepentant sin and let's let's talk about that category first. Any way of letting them serve that can be seen by others is an endorsement and therefore we cannot do it right. Yeah, and that's kind of a fear we navigate with churches. Often what those churches where the searchers get to after some discernment around that is distinguishing between some roles that are serving but not leading or representing the body of Christ, okay, versus roles where you are serving, where you are leading, or you are representing. And then that's kind of where we make make that distinction. So and then it's kind of I think some different questions about kind of LGBT plus Christians who perhaps are transparent with their journey, but have repented of their sins of kind of any same sex sexual activity they've participated in. And a whole other conversation about people who maybe have medically transitioned have become convinced that that wasn't God's best for them, but for a variety of reasons haven't medically de transitioned. So I'll just I'll pose it there. I'll let you jump in.

00:06:47
Speaker 1: So let me back it all the way up to the front part, because I think you said something really important there, which is there needs There needs to be clarity and consistency, and so would what I hear you saying there is. Hey, Church, even though this may be the topic in.

00:07:09
Speaker 3: LGBTQ or someone who is.

00:07:11
Speaker 1: Transitioning may be the impetus for you to begin thinking about these things, they shouldn't be the only thing that you think about with regard to this sort of service. What we need to be thinking about is not service as privilege necessarily, but how do we cultivate integrity within the body of Christ and within individual Christians? And how might serving detract from that cultivation of integrity. So, in other words, if we busy them in doing things right but allow them to then you know, continue doing whatever it is that they're doing and persistently disobey, you know, God's word or run against the doctrine commitments of the church. Is that really effectively helping them? Are we really building them up in the body of Christ? And so that's part of what I hear you saying. Am I getting that basically right?

00:08:12
Speaker 2: Yeah? I understand that, you know. I mean, and I'm a therapist. I know that serving others and gratitude are two of the best ways that we can push away at our own depression. We can learn to connect with others. I mean, if you're talking about someone who's getting to know Jesus for the first time or back in church for the first time, I mean, I think those are great ways for people to kind of reconnect and go a little deeper. But you're right, it can become a thing where that's supposed to be an on ramp to then discipleship. And if people only just kind of stick around and serve in kind of load discipleship ways, and particularly if we set up kind of a church system where we incentive advise that, Yeah, that doesn't seem like that serves kind of discipleship.

00:09:04
Speaker 1: Best, right, And then just giving that clarity around it to say, these are the roles that we view as I liked your word. I think it was what you said representational, right. These are roles that represent the church as opposed to roles that.

00:09:23
Speaker 3: Are purely service.

00:09:26
Speaker 1: And so that might for any given church extend from you know, all the way up to the elder board that are you know, truly representing the church in pretty significant ways and have sometimes a fiduciary if not a missional sort of directive from the church to shepherd the congregation, all the way down to even something like a greeter at the door, yeah, and anywhere in between there the church might say, hey, look, this person really does represent us. This is the first phase somebody is going to see when they walk in, and so we want to make sure that this reflects more of I hesitate to say an ideal, but because that there is no ideal, but more but it's more reflective of what we're shooting for.

00:10:18
Speaker 3: Maybe as a church, how would you.

00:10:20
Speaker 1: How do you help churches sort of navigate that kind of language, because it really isn't about an ideal. I don't that's a really lousy word, but I can't think of a better one.

00:10:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of So there's a lot of ways to belong and serve without like representing right everyone, what's available to everyone, worship attendance, small group participation, you know, taking meals to people in their homes when they're sick and sharing meals with other people, praying and receiving, prayer ministry, receiving pastoral care, enjoying friendship you know, within the body of Christ. And then there are meaningful ways that people can serve that is not representative. Uh, it doesn't doesn't It doesn't appear as if they are representing the church and and kind of modeling. Hey, I'm leaning into becoming more like Christ every day, set up and tear down any kind of mercy ministry that your church does, a'd and support some logistics related stuff, some of the kind of behind the scenes hospitality teams, service projects, participating in service projects. So I think all of those are ways that people can can menially be a part of the work the mission of the church. But they're not representing and but but but there is kind of yeah, a tier above that and not as in that we're trying to make people second class Christians. But you know, Historically, I think there's been something meaningful about membership and a church. And I know membership is not in vogue these days, but you can call it something else. We can say covenant partners, we can say kind of in the family, we can say bought in, we can we can but come up with some phrase that is people who are committed to praying for the mission of the church, committed to tithing, committed to serving or leading in certain ways, and committed to their own discipleship. And we really encourage churches that we work with to have some kind of deeper bought in level of of kind of membership essentially, and then have some kind of gatekeeping class that people have to go through to kind of understand what does that mean to like lean in more at this church? What are you offering? What are you what are you going to receive from us when you do that? And what are you offering to offer to give when you do that? And part of that is clarity about that mutual accountability and kind of for many churches, like a written kind of pledge uh to some of those things. And so I think that creates these opportunities to uh So, then when you're upfront, and you're talking about different ways to serve or lead. You're not saying the language people here isn't like, you know, leading a Bible study or being a greeter is only reserved for those who aren't sitting in these ways, right, Instead, you say being a small group leader, Like, if you want to be a small group leader, if you want to be a greeterer, if you want to kind of be a part of the body in some of those ways, we love for you to kind of kind of kind of lean into being a covenant partner of what we're doing at this church. And your next opportunity to lean in that way is this class next month, YadA, YadA, YadA. You know. Yeah, So yeah, that's some of the ways that some of the churches we've worked with have navigated that.

00:13:44
Speaker 1: So we've thus far we've kind of talked a little bit more about the what we might call the boundary setting or the prohibited boundaries. Sure at this point, one of the things that I as I was thinking through what to talk about on this episode was I get the impression that a lot of this is going to trigger pressures or critiques from outside organizations, whether that's other churches, whether that's the community at large, you know, and they're going to be looking in and saying, how is this appropriate.

00:14:20
Speaker 3: That you have quote unquote these people.

00:14:23
Speaker 1: And these people could be LGBTQ, could be transitioning people, it could be you know, it could be deforce. As you know, I've even had it with my wife and I have had it where where a to Hingham family and she has a career and we had kids and it was like, what are you doing with these people at the church. You know, it can be any of those kind of things, and so how do we positively think about messaging some of this constructing a real faithful, theologically faithful way of describing what it is that we're doing at this moment.

00:15:00
Speaker 2: Are you particularly talking about from critics who might be a little bit more culturally conservative and think you're compromising too much.

00:15:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's more where I'm concerned with it coming from. I mean, that's been my experience with a lot of this stuff is that you know, at least again in my experience, what I found is that people are trying to belong aren't the problem. They're far more understanding than the people outside who are looking in on this and are concerned with things like drift right right, you know, you're drifting somewhere that you shouldn't be. And it's like, well, there is probably a blurred boundary on these on a lot of these things, like you know, and they're going to be decisions that we have to discern one.

00:15:44
Speaker 3: Way or another.

00:15:45
Speaker 1: But ultimately there has to be some sort of a constructive story that we can talk about where you know, we're emulating what it means to be the body of Christ by allowing people to belong to this ministry and in allowing them to belong to this ministry, encouraging them not to be sinful but to be conformed more closely the image of Christ.

00:16:07
Speaker 3: And that takes time.

00:16:09
Speaker 2: Right yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, the language are using, you're probably familiar slash kind of drawing from the belong belief become paradigm. And I think that really is a helpful way that we can communicate it to critics. We could say that, listen, the church is supposed to be a place where anyone can come with their mess and they can get to know Jesus for the first time, or they can get to know Jesus again, and it seems clear in the scripture is that Jesus let people, let people be among him and let people learn from him, and let people enjoy kind of companionship with kind of his circle of people, even even when they were kind of in sin and unrepentant. And it hadn't even been challenged yet by Christ. And yes, there's a moment where Jesus says, you know, leave it behind and follow me. Yeah, you do you want to be a part of this, this this big kingdom work project we're doing, and are you willing to say yes to the better things? And so you know, there there is so I think what what what we say about that is like, hey, there is a moment or an opportunity at our church for people to commit to leaning into serious being a serious disciple, to leaning into becoming more like Christ. And there are certain opportunities to lead and to represent the body of Christ that Yeah, we think it makes the most sense for that to be people who are serious about becoming more like Jesus, people who have said yes to serious discipleship. And we make that distinction. We're not afraid of making that decision. So we've got both, you know. Yeah, So hopefully that would be I think the challenging conversations can come up about, well, what about what the scriptures say about excommunication? Sure, isn't that biblical? Shouldn't we be doing that? And you know, I think in many ways the excommunication happened of people who had essentially become members of that church and had agreed to the mutual accountability of that church. And then we're refusing accountability but still claiming to represent the body and and so whereas there had to have been people even in the early Church who stood at the edges of of of of kind of services and didn't take communion when it was when it was happening, and eight with with the community. But people knew they were visiting, they were, they were, they were kind of giving this a look, those weren't the people they were excommunicating. Yeah, and so I yeah, I a full different conversation about among people who maybe commit to be those serious disciples in our church, commit to becoming more like Jesus, what does accountability look like there? But it seems like what the scriptures are talking about in terms of excommunication isn't about keeping visitors out who are in unrepentant sin.

00:19:21
Speaker 1: It's almost our own lack of clarity that has created part of the problem here, right, Because to your point, there used to be a much more robust membership process. I grew up a Lutheran and so I went through confirmation, right. Confirmation was that moment where you're confirming your commitment to the Lutheran Church and you go through a process and there's catechism and there's you know, there's understanding built in, and it was a long process. It wasn't like, you know, five minutes after a service and okay, you're in.

00:19:50
Speaker 3: You know, it was a process to go through. And even getting stepping.

00:19:55
Speaker 1: Away from membership in the Lutheran Church, you actually have to go in and like asked to be taken off. Yeah, you know, And so it's it's it's not just clerical. It was much more formative than that. But I think without that I resonate with what you're saying, because I think without that process, we never really get a commitment from people that they're going to be here right, and that they're going to sit under this you know, local body of authority which in turn sits under God, and that they are going to be subject to the accountability of that group. What we normally get is sort of a mixed multitude of folks, some of whom are like, yeah, I'm not going to commit, but I'm here. I'll listen, you know, But ultimately I can go wherever I want, right, Like much more of a voluntary society than a real committed, hey we're here, we're going to do this together, local level kind of stuff, because I think what you're saying resonates me.

00:20:56
Speaker 3: I did a piece on the.

00:21:00
Speaker 1: He gets a campaign, and people were really frustrated about that.

00:21:05
Speaker 3: And I kind of made the same point you did.

00:21:07
Speaker 1: You run into John six and Jesus has all these people following him, and then all of a sudden, he says, you need to eat my flesh and drink my blood, and it says and many of his disciples left him that day. And I just think that there's a time where people really like Jesus. He was popular and interesting and people were drawn to him, and then there's a point where things get hard enough where you say this guy's a little too crazy for me. I'm going to step away, or this guy's my kind of crazy. Now I'm going to jump right.

00:21:37
Speaker 3: In, you know.

00:21:39
Speaker 1: And so I think there's something too that that initial Let's provide clarity, Let's you know, let's give people really deep understandings, be clear, be consistent, and help people understand how what it means to belong to the church as opposed to just attend the church, right right, Yeah, yeah, really interesting.

00:22:04
Speaker 2: And I understand the impulse to move away from membership, and I understand in more non denominational contemporary worship spaces the ick that people have or it's kind of the whole membership thing. So those ways we can i mean essentially brand it a little differently, you know, or we can just or we could just not have a membership category, but we could have a leadership category and we just have a kind of a leadership onboarding and leadership kind of commitment uh space, which is what a lot of churches do, and then just call certain kinds of representing the church even as a greater leadership leadership. That's one way of also doing that.

00:22:44
Speaker 1: So the idea would be that there's a there's a point where if you're going to do this, you have to jump in and and that that seems reasonable to me. Yeah, And it does make a distinction that I think is actually really important, and it avoids the bait and switch you were talking about. But it also allows people who maybe are just trying to figure things out, maybe they're not at a point in their life where they really even understand what it looks like to follow Christ, can still be around this and experience the love and generosity of that community belong to it before they ever have to make their choice, right, yeah.

00:23:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it also avoids, or hopefully avoids circumstances where people feel like they're being held accountable when they never agreed to it and trace it that and tell damaging stories about the church afterwards. If there is a clear like this, there's opt in, and part of the opting in is you are agreeing to mutual accountability. Some people will still later when they receive the accountability, dislike it and tell certain stories about it, but hopefully it at least reduces it is some of the kind of chafing at that.

00:24:02
Speaker 1: So yeah, So, aside from more of these formal structural aspects, what in your mind is helpful to create more of that informal belonging for folks And again I'm not just thinking of like lgbt t Q transgender folks, I'm even thinking maybe even younger generations or people who have been you know, sort of shunned in other ways by Christian communities, Like what needs to happen, What sort of ethos needs to be created within a church to actually be welcoming to folks?

00:24:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure. So a couple things come to mind. One is that you know, what we have noticed in the kind of work we're we are doing at EQUIP and the churches is that the enemy is very cleverly these days using LGBT plus topics kind of the me too movement and church or general related to that stuff, racial injustice, as as wedges to kind of push people away from Jesus, embarrassed people about Christianity, about Christians, about the church, and push them away from Jesus. And so I do think a big part of the belonging is being in a space where people can belong, as being a space where people feel less embarrassed of Jesus and by our churches engaging in these topics not because they're more important than the Gospel, but if they're becoming wedge issues that the enemy is using to push people away from the Gospel, then it's like of gospel importance that we address them winsomely and with humility, also with clarity. So I think that may not be the first people to think of as like how to create belonging talk about the most controversial topics, but it is one of the reasons why people are like particularly like the gen z in Jenafa, yearning for authenticity and for clarity even if they disagree, and for like sturdiness and substance, even if they disagree. I think that that's going to draw people. I also, I was just talking to somebody at my church about this the other day, and then church talking about the church partner of Equipse that is in a little bit more rural space, and they still do Wednesday night classes at the church every Wednesday, Sunday night classes at the church every Sunday. There's pot luck dinners before the Wednesday and Sunday night gatherings and things. There's a lot of community that they have because they actually physically gather together at the church. And you know, okay, if you're a church of like ten thousand people or even a thousand people, that's not very doable. But there's a lot of churches with three hundred people who are only gathering in small groups and separate homes outside of Sunday morning. And I think there's some ways in which that is more intimate. And I understand the move to like small groups and homes and spending less time in our churches over the past decade, but I think there's some ways that, like everyone knows, small groups can become kind of cliquy, and small groups can be a little scary to like enter into in a new way. So I just I don't know. I wonder if like more big group stuff all together at church over meals, you know, is lower some barriers to entry there.

00:27:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's hard to believe that it wouldn't.

00:27:41
Speaker 1: I I was just had a conversation with this economist. She and a couple other people had written an article called Deaths of Despair, and it is based on their research into what they call blue laws. There were these laws that had kept retail closed on Sundays, and they started to be released, you know, they started to get rid of the laws state by state over a period of several years. And what they saw was a correlation between the elimination of these blue laws, where retail could then be open and an increase in what they call deaths of despair, which was liver or promise from alcohol, drug deaths, and suicides. And I found it so compelling because and it wasn't like, hey, this is what caused it, right, but the decoupling of religion as one of the social arenas where people could actually connect one with another and potentially cope with the loneliness that they otherwise felt to derive some sort of symbolic.

00:28:54
Speaker 3: Meaning about life was really well correlated.

00:28:59
Speaker 1: I mean, could show in the state that released these blue laws the deaths went up.

00:29:06
Speaker 3: Well before a state that didn't.

00:29:08
Speaker 1: Sure, you know, it's just sort of fascinating to watch, and so I think, you know, you're really hitting on something there, because it's there has to be a sense of community developed.

00:29:21
Speaker 3: And I do agree that.

00:29:22
Speaker 1: I think, you know, small groups tend to be what people point to when they talk about community in a church. Worship on Sundays doesn't usually do that, can but it doesn't usually it's sort of you're in, you're out. It's gotten a little transactional, right, And so having service events, having dinners, having these other things that you can do alongside where more people can participate seems intuitive to me.

00:29:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, if like Wendell Berry or somebody like that was in this conversation, they talk about the importance of place right and like particularly prioritize if it's not gathering in your church, gathering in the closest coffee shop, or serving your neighborhood the closest physically closest service opportunity. I mean, really like investing in the place of your church and or what's around it, encouraging people, like not in a culty way, but like in a what if you could walk to these what if you could walk to church? What if you could walk to these events way? Encourage people to move closer to the church, particularly if they're young adults and and they're living in apartments and they kind of have some mobility in those ways. Yeah, I just I think that could be pretty cool.

00:30:32
Speaker 1: Sort of an odd, an adjacent question, a tangential question. I guess you mentioned, you know, gen Z sort of yearning for some sort of depth and substance within a church. We're starting to talk about doing a series on this sort of evangelical the conversion of evangelicals to Catholic and or Eastern Orthodox in greater numbers. And part of what that conversation entails is just this question of has have evangelical churches so decoupled themselves from ritual, from tradition, from history and leaned so heavily on sort of the personal application and the individual relationship with Christ, which obviously you don't want to get rid of, But there's there's a matter of emphasis. Have we tipped too far this other way so that now what we're essentially giving people is an independent relationship with Christ that no longer needs to be tied in to a community of belonging and it's leaving a real whole. Does that bear out in your kind of experience and consulting with equipment, It does?

00:31:46
Speaker 2: And I wouldn't I would encourage churches not to be too hard on themselves when it comes to this, you know, I guess I think in some ways there there were things about mainline Christianity in the seventies and eighties and nine that felt lacking and felt and there's a reason why kind of non denominational churches grew in the ways they did is that they reacted to a need. They met a need right, They they innovated right, and and then it's the but the pendulum always keeps swinging right, and so it just happens to be that some spaces that have can kind of continued to be the same way for a long time. Now they're in vogue. And but listen, I go to a an Anglican church that is pretty liturgical, and I am a very Catholic leaning Anglican even in that way. And if I could go to a very high church Anglo Catholic church in Naturville, I would, to believe you, I love that stuff, but in some ways like it's what's in right now and then may not be in in a decade. So I would encourage like non denominational spaces and contemporary more contemporary worship spaces and like less saturgical spaces not to overreact. But there has been some neat ways where a lot of non de andam Baptist kind of used to be lower church Presbyterians that that I know of are doing a lot of bringing those elements back into their churches. They're doing corporate prayer and confession, They're saying the Nicing Creed as a whole body of believers. They're doing communion more often, They're incorporating more older hymns and kind of and and kind of doing the music, alternating with more contemporary sets and more traditional sets in terms of the music and mixing it together. So right, I think that's great.

00:33:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I tend to agree with you. I mean, like I said, I grew up Lutheran and so but I wasn't. I wouldn't have said I accepted Christ until I was in college through campus crusade. And so while I still and even back then appreciated the liturgy and of what of it I understood, but I mean I can still recite the Nicing Creed.

00:33:58
Speaker 3: I you know, I know a lot of those things.

00:34:00
Speaker 1: When I go back to a Lutheran church now, I can basically just fall right back into that liturgy, and I find that to be really great. Like I loved it, but at the same time I needed something different. And so yeah, I agree with you. I don't think it's a question of hey, let's swing the pendulum all the way back the other way, right, But there is a sense in which there needs to be a response, not a reaction, but a response. And you sort of step back and say, if we want people to feel as if they belong here. Part of what we need to attend to is this depth that they feel like we're lacking. And so how do we bring some of that back?

00:34:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, without you know, without air, without overcorrecting, you know, without correcting, yes, and knowing that different places will fit best for different people. Also that like, we'll see how much And again, as a very Catholic leaning Anglican, I'm not hating on that stuff, but I'm curious to see in a couple years even how much is this a fad in some ways? How much of this is like some gen Z and jen alpha folk who it's like cool to go to the space that seems to care least about trying to get you to like them, and that's fun for a season, and then that's like not fun anymore. I don't know, we'll see, Like what I'm just there's a lot of mixed motivations. Some of the motivations are really genuine, will lead to long term rooted faith in those traditions. That's going to beautiful. Some of it's maybe something different, and we'll see what happens with that, you know, And there may be ways that more like non denominous national spaces are better positioned to then meet those people in what they're for next.

00:35:49
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I just think it's important.

00:35:52
Speaker 1: I think it's anytime we see these trends. Really, anytime we see I think, any conflict within the Christian community, any sort of tension within the Christian community, it's a good time just to step back and reflect on what we can or can't do to serve that, you know, what we can or can't do to resolve those tensions. And I don't really begrudge any church, you know, they if they step back and say there's nothing we're going to change, it's like more power to you, right.

00:36:22
Speaker 2: You know.

00:36:23
Speaker 1: I I am from a relatively rural area, and so it's getting to that point where a lot of the churches in the area are aging out. And so I just talked to actually my father in law here a few weeks ago, and he was talking about his church and it's you know, dwindling in size, and you know, they're not exactly sure what they're going to do, and and I just told him, I'm like, there's nothing wrong with the church ending, Like that's okay. I mean, it served its community for a very very long time. And as that community shrinks, Like, it's okay that the church shrinks, right, it really is okay, it can end, Like there can be an end of watch here, right, not for every church, but for specific churches, there can be an end of watch and that's okay, Like there shouldn't be any necessary impetus to sit back and go, we've got to grow this thing and to start doing things that are really going to, you know, not really fit with who the church is now. If that ethos is there, great, But if it's not, end to watch, isn't a bad thing? Yeah, Like if we kind of make it a bad thing but it's not really a bad thing.

00:37:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it makes sense that people would be sad about it, but it doesn't mean that the big CE church is dying. It makes it the big C church is adapting. So yeah, And I think that's an interesting way that that comes up even in kind of the ministry that that we do at EQUIP because there's certainly years when pastors would come to me in private and they would say, Okay, be honest with me, do you think every church is just going to have a gay affirming theology in five years? And this is just the beginning of the end dot right. And what I told them then was, well why And I think if we look at the church in Europe, for example, the church that persisted is smaller, but the church is persisted there as a church that you know, teaches the historic Christian sexual ethic among other things for the most part. Also, America is not Europe there, so they may go a different way. But I I, you know, what this would have been five years ago, you know, said, what I see is that like a lot of kind of younger people who leave historic Christian sexual ethic churches and go to kind of a revisionist sexual ethic churches. They only go there for like a year or two and then they just kind of leave church altogether. And so the kind of like gay affirming churches, the kind of more progressive mainline spaces when I visit them. When I when I visited them, they seem mostly filled with older, straight people who find a revision of sexual ethic to be nicer. But it's not like it's drawn tons of young people who stick around. And then we've seen over the past five years the kind of numbers for these kind of more progressive mainline Protestant denominations just plummeting. Yeah, and and and and there's not like there's these large revision of sexual ethic you know, non denom evangelical churches popping up either. So I guess I just say, like, and not that numbers, not that not that there has to be growth in order to believe that the Holy Spirit has power. But even someone who does this work in LGBT plus topics, I see that the places that are that are leaning into God's wisdom even at times when it feels culturally unpopular, and doing it with compassion, doing it winsomely. They're persisting, you know, like long term, God's truth wins out and even within generations. So yeah, yeah, I don't think we have to worry too much about the micro trends or don't overreact to the micro trends.

00:40:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think your point's well taken.

00:40:23
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that the worry that I see in people is that drift, right, But I think it's actually really encouraging to hear the pastors would even come to you and talk about it. Right, because you don't affirm, you know, you don't you don't advocate for a gay affirming position. What you're trying to get churches to do is recognize that this is just part of the texture of ministry right now. Yeah, it's part of what we deal with, and so you need to have more than a position on it, you know, a biblical affirmation and you know that you can point to. You've actually got to think this through because it is going to hit you in practical areas. And probably the bigger concern I would argue is not that we're going to see this explosion of gay affirming churches, but that the churches that hold to a historic Christian ethic have become so marginalized and uncompelling that there's no real alternative. And I think that's part of what I picked it up in our last conversation. You know, you've done a good job expressing you here too, Like what you're trying to do is help churches be that alternative and think it through in a smart and effective way that is faithful to the Gospel, but also recognizing, like what I'm calling the texture of what you're doing in ministry, these things are going to come up.

00:41:51
Speaker 3: You need to think it through. How are you going to deal with them?

00:41:56
Speaker 1: And if you haven't, you're probably going to be caught, you know, on your back foot, right right.

00:42:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I don't think our churches should abandon a biblical sexual ethic or a historic Christian sexual ethic. But on the other stream, I don't think we should go back to sticking our heads in the sand or flirt with a prey. The gay away theology again that we know did not work and led to loss of life and loss of faith, and I think both of those are risks that we need to watch out for, and I think instead, right, the solution is continue to hold a historic Christian sexual ethic, teach it. But it's but just believing it is not enough. Just having it written down on your website is not enough. What's much more important is how are we doing discipleship around that? How are we making sure that everyone in our churches has the support they need to thrive according to God's wisdom for their gender and sexuality. And I think our churches can do more when it comes to that, and not because it's like a problem to be solved, because it'll lead to more health and thriving and kingdom work and transformation in our cities. So like it's good, it's good work to be doing.

00:43:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think of it.

00:43:07
Speaker 1: You know, Jesus doesn't ignore the prostitutes. You know, he's not ignoring the tax collectors. He's not ignoring you know, he's not ignoring the sinners.

00:43:15
Speaker 3: He's going to them.

00:43:16
Speaker 1: And so that is not something that I picture Jesus going, you know, it's really great that we have all these sinners around. I don't think he would say that, but I think he recognizes within his historical context that they're there, and he doesn't shy away from them. And that's a very different approach than than as you're saying, stick your head in the sand, you know, or you know, sort of you know, isolate yourself from it. I mean, Jesus just seemed like he was in this historic situation and this is what I have to deal with. This is where I'm doing ministry. I'm going to accept it and be faithful within it.

00:43:52
Speaker 2: YEA, well, and I'll hop back on my my favorite soapbox here one little last time. But that LGBT plus people aren't just out there outside of our churches, right. Most importantly, we've got kids in our pews who, by no fault of their own and no fault of their parents, as they go through puberty, some of them are going to notice that the ways that the brokenness of the world has impacted them is that they develop same sex attractions or gender incongruence. Have our churches what they've heard the years before that has it set them up to be afraid of what God has for them and afraid of what their parents might say, and to hide for five plus years and make sense of these important questions, important discipleship questions all by themselves or with TikTok or with the lives of the enemy, or has what they've heard before going through puberty reassured them that they can tell their parents, They can tell their pastors that God is not surprised, that God has good wisdom for them, that their parents don't want them to do it, make sense of this alone, that they can share and that they can embrace God's wisdom and thrive for a lifetime. That's I think the most important LGBTs plus ministry we can do is the kids in our pews.

00:45:20
Speaker 3: So really good reminder, bro.

00:45:23
Speaker 1: I mean, I've had a few people on lately about how to talk about kids and sex, and one of the ladies, Lori Kreeg, had her on and she just has such an amazing perspective on this. It's like, you know, don't you know she ties it all in with what does it mean to be in the image of God? And what is our mission here? It's you know, sex is certainly a part of God's good creation that we can enjoy within the limitations of it. But her advocacy was keep them on purpose, like give them something to live for. That's compelling an interesting and so I hear you echoing that and really appreciate that reminder that they're not just these people are all centers, are not just out there, they're also with us. And you know, our role as church is to build up the Body of Christ, and we do that numerically by bringing in new members, but we also do that in a spiritually formative way by growing people up into maturity.

00:46:26
Speaker 2: And so amen to that.

00:46:29
Speaker 3: Very good man.

00:46:30
Speaker 1: Well, tell us a little bit about I mean, where can people talk talk a little bit about where they can connect with you, where they can find your ministry, all that kind of good fun stuff.

00:46:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, particularly because we've talked a little bit of shop today in terms of some of the challenges that pastors face. I'll just say right. My day job is with a ministry called EQUIP and we've worked with over forty thousand Christian leaders and parents over the past decade or so to help to make LGBT plus topics a win for the gospel according to a biblical sexual ethic. So feel free to reach out to me at equip your community dot org and would love to hop on a zoom with any pastor and just you know, for free, you know, no expectations, no commitments, just talk for an hour about the challenge that you're facing in your church and if there's any way I can be I can be helpful. And then yeah, I get to post about a lot of this stuff and write about it and so on socials you know, Instagram, X whatnot. You can find me at Peter l vulk And that's all spelled funny. My first name is spelled p I E T e R an extra i in there Ella's and lyon v as in Victor A l K at Peter l vulk. And that's also where I'm at on substack. So there's a lot of these kind of questions we've gotten into today that I'm that I'm kind of rating out on stack. If that's where pastors and parents are learning these days. So would love to connect. Love to answer people's questions and me a resource. However, I can.

00:48:08
Speaker 1: Be well, if you didn't have a pen and we're writing all that down while you're listening to this in the car, don't worry. You can check out the episode description. All the links will be there. I just encourage you if you're somebody who's leading a church or involved in your church and you're struggling with these issues. I've found Peter to be a great source of wisdom on this and I think it's needed. So if you're a church that's struggling with this, please feel free reach out to him. As he said, take his invitation as genuine and get some help to meet the needs of your community and your church. I think you won't be disappointed that you do it. So Peter, thanks man for being here. It's always it's always interesting to talk with you. I think you just bring a whole different perspective on these matters and it's always refreshing and I so appreciate it.

00:48:57
Speaker 3: So thanks very much for being on the show again.

00:48:59
Speaker 2: Well, you're welcome them. I appreciate the opportunity very cool.

00:49:03
Speaker 1: Well, we will catch everybody on the next episode of Thinking Christian.

00:49:07
Speaker 3: Take care bye.

00:49:09
Speaker 1: I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you'll find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.