Homosexuality and Your Church -- Part Two

Whether you know it or not, members of your church are ministering to Christians who struggle with homosexuality.  Like the struggle itself, their ministry to those who suffer may be hidden, but it goes on, fueled by love.  They are parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, cousins, and friends of your church members – men and women -- who are drowning in the residue of the sin of unwanted homosexuality.

Those who walk with homosexuals share the solitude and isolation that afflicts Christians who struggle with unwanted same-sex attraction. Secrecy fuels this sin in the shadow of the church, the very place where the light of cleansing is harbored. Our fears and limitations quench the power of the Holy Spirit to remove the deception and division and put the family back together.  And the truth is, there is no reason to fear; no reason to limit God’s love to these sinners any more than to all the others who worship in our midst.  There are plenty of resources, but “the greatest of these is love.”

Make it Clear

Jeff Buchanan, senior director of church equipping for Exodus International, says churches need to know and hold a biblical worldview on homosexuality and present it to their members, particularly in light of recent confusing messages from some denominations, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

What is that biblical worldview?

“They (struggler and church) must agree that homosexual behavior, by definition, is a sin and that a homosexual orientation is not sinful, nor is it an individual’s choice,” said Buchanan in a recent interview with New Man Magazine.  “If the church believes this and the person struggling understands it, then he or she should be just as involved as any other member of the congregation.  That’s how I found my freedom (from homosexuality).  My church was accepting of me as a child of God, but not of my actions.  They saw the potential of what God could do in my life and what God could make me.”

Buchanan believes that “it is essential and nonnegotiable for a same-sex struggler to be involved in the local church” where members can walk with him or her in the pursuit of freedom and healing and an end to homosexual sin in their lives.

Buchanan obtained freedom from homosexual acting out, as did Mike Goeke, a pastor who helps lead a ministry to homosexual strugglers at Stonegate Fellowship, an SBC church in Midland, Texas.

“It is important to remember that homosexual desires and feelings do not mean someone is a ‘homosexual,’” said Goeke in Homosexuality: Your Questions Answered, published by the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission in 2005.  “Homosexual desires may lead one to accept a homosexual identity, but every Christian is first and foremost a child of God.  Someone who struggles with unwanted homosexual desires is not a homosexual.  Someone who practiced homosexuality in the past is not a homosexual simply because of their past struggles.  Temptation is not sin and should not be treated as such.  If the church takes each person as it finds them and holds every Christian to the same standard, then the church should have no problem finding a place for anyone in the local church.”

It is likely there is at least one struggler in every Southern Baptist Church, yet only a handful of the more than 42,000 SBC churches and not one of the 1,700 SBC churches in Oklahoma is a part of the Exodus Church Association, which equips churches to help same-sex strugglers.

The SBC has been clear, but some denominations and individual churches have compromised biblical truth, sending a confusing message.  Acknowledging the sin and offering the truth of Christ’s redemption need to work hand-in-hand.

“The Christian worldview has been undermined by pervasive curricula that teach moral relativism, reduce moral commandments to personal values, and promote homosexuality as a legitimate and attractive lifestyle option,” said Southern Seminary President Al Mohler in A Challenge of Courage & Compassion: The Church’s Response to Homosexuality.

The church can offer clarity to counteract the confusion of our culture.

Keep them near

The same-sex struggler has no shortage of places to go when temptation strikes.  For most, the church does not rank high on the list because of a history of rejection and condemnation . . . and the fear that “a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough.”  While some Christians struggle with same-sex attraction, it is not contagious.  Most Christian men and women who struggle with unwanted same-sex attraction, in fact, raise their children with the correct biblical view that homosexual behavior is a sin.

God used an experience I had about a year ago to make something more clear in my mind. In the hospital recovering from surgery, I noticed an odd attachment to my lower abdomen.  A small container was collecting the poison and fluid that accumulates after surgery to remove it from my body.  Several times a day, a nurse would empty this container.  This same nurse rushed to my side when I stood and lost my first lunch at bedside.  She cleaned it up, humming as she did so, not one bit concerned that she would be damaged by her proximity.  She saw me at my worst and it presented her at her best.

The church should nurse the wounded back to health.

The confusion of complacency

“Outside the walls of the church, homosexuals are waiting to see if the Christian church has anything more to say after we declare that homosexuality is a sin,” said Mohler.

Sexual sin leads to isolation, which leads to a need to reach out somewhere for someone to listen.  Unfortunately, it’s easy to find a sympathetic ear ungrounded in God’s Word.  Strugglers in big cities and small towns can find easy and anonymous hook-ups via Craig’s List or personals websites.  They can dangerously cruise certain areas of larger cities and then return home, usually mired in the quicksand of self-hatred and weakness, but with hope no one will ever find out.  Young men who struggle are lured by false theology to embrace sexual attraction for men as normal through such groups as GOYS, which flaunt “a new masculine sexual identity,” which allows for men to have sex with each other within certain limits . . . because these men are not “gay,” but “goy.”  One GOY group recently advised its members to cease contributions to churches and support the GOY movement instead.

Don’t let homosexuality be someone else’s problem, or think it is not in your church.  Why would you be so fortunate as to have been spared this sin among your members? Small town . . . small church?  Big battle.  This is not an urban phenomenon.  In my struggles I met many Christian men from small towns who lived in absolute fear of discovery and expulsion.

The compassion of confession

Perhaps the biggest reason the church needs to be involved on the same-sex battlefield is because the church is the Body of Christ and the best place for confessional healing.  Hidden sins inhibit reconciliation and redemption.

Andrew Comiskey, director of Desert Streams Ministries, addresses this in his book, Strength in Weakness.

“Confession requires community – the witness of trusted brothers and sisters.  I firmly believe that without that witness our efforts to live honestly and wholeheartedly will not work.  We as the church must be reminded of the biblical call to gather as sinners in order to be cleansed.”

Too often confession in church is the end-result of being caught doing something wrong outside the church and having to ‘fess up.  It is painful and feared.  Just seeing someone else go through it often causes the sinner to bury his secret more deeply.

Imagine if the church truly were a place where a person struggling with a sin of any kind had trusted brothers or sisters in a small group situation and could confess, receive prayer and know that he is not walking alone.

“Without confession, we can remain alone, skimming the surface of God’s grace in less revealing aspects of fellowship,” said Comiskey.  The “powerful, repetitive responses of mercy” and a connection with others “rescues us from the domination of sin.”

Many Oklahoma church member-strugglers have found a place of compassion, correction and confession at First Stone Ministries, an Exodus ministry in Oklahoma City.  Ministry Director Stephen Black would prefer churches be equipped to minister to their members, even if it means someday that ministries like First Stone are no longer necessary.

“Within the church, one in five members is affected in some way.  They, a loved one or someone they know is gay.  In the past, the church has seen its role primarily as condemning,” said Black.  “Now we are under cultural assault.  Legal and political problems are leading to churches having to deal with it.  Churches are going to have to be clear.”

Black is concerned that hate crimes laws could make it punishable to express biblical views on homosexuality, another challenge for those who minister. Dealing with the same-sex issue, he believes, takes training and understanding, but churches can be equipped.  He sees three levels of the homosexual struggler:  the person wholeheartedly seeking the truth, the struggler who has become hardened and no longer seeks the truth, and the struggler deceived into thinking he or she can act out within a Christian gay identity.  In addition, you have the person who knows it is wrong, but is close to just giving up.  All must be approached with a clear-cut biblical response to the sin in their lives.

The compassion of commonality

Some approach homosexuality as today’s leprosy or, perhaps as tax collectors in Jesus time.  If so, shouldn’t we approach it as Jesus did the lepers and tax collectors?   He associated with them.  As Scripture tells us, "God does not show favoritism" (Acts 10:34). Jesus treated the tax collector and the leper in exactly the same way as he did others, with grace.

“If we don’t approach the issue of homosexuality with long-suffering and patience to help people through their sin, we set ourselves up for self-righteousness, which is also a sin,” said Black.  “We need to bear each other’s burdens.  As Christians, we should be very careful of placing limits on that.”

While willful and repetitive sin can rightfully lead to church discipline and removal, Black thinks churches should be slow to act.

“Homosexuals can walk out a process of healing,” said Black.  “When you excommunicate them, you turn them over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.  We should err on the side of mercy rather than judgment, giving weight to grace, wisdom and discernment.”

Black noted churches often deal with homosexuality in haste, whereas other sinners – divorcees, adulterers, fornicators, pornographers, gossips – rarely find themselves so quickly going through the discipline process.

“Where is the restoration committee?” asks Black.  “Discipline should lead to a restoration process . . . but it is rarely put in place.  And these are our brothers and sisters.”

The Southern Baptist Convention is hopeful that local churches will help strugglers move beyond the fear of church judgment and that churches will focus instead on the reconciliation and redemption of the Cross of Christ.

“No way,” can become “The Way Out.”

In 2001, the SBC established the Task Force on Ministry to Homosexuals.  Bob Stith, former pastor of Carroll Baptist Church in Southlake, Texas, is now National Strategist for Gender Issues for the SBC.  Stith is a board member of Exodus International.

“While the Bible is quite clear about the sin of homosexuality, it is also clear about the promise of power to overcome this sin as well as others,” said Stith.  “The message of the Bible is a message of hope based on the love of God.  He does love each of us just as we are, but He loves us too much to leave us as we are.”

The compassion of action

      Being transparent about my years of struggling with homosexual temptation and acting out on them allows me now to speak openly about the consequences of this sin on me, my family and my church family.  I should have sought more help from Christian brothers.  My desire is to put a permanent blockade on the path I took.

      If you want to help those who struggle in your church, even if you don’t know who they are, set aside fear and condemnation and take on honesty and compassion.  Here are some ways to get started.

·        Have a speaker come to your church to share and begin the openness process.  Bob Stith can be reached at bstith@sbcthewayout.com or 817-424-9121.  Stephen Black can be reached at Stephen@firststone.org or 405-236-4673.  Thom Hunter can be reached at th2950@yahoo.com or 405-401-9693.

·        Obtain information and resources through membership in the Exodus Church Association.  Jeff Buchanan can be contacted through the website – www.exoduschurchassociation.org – or at 407-599-6872.

·        Explore the development of a ministry within your church.  CrossPower Ministries at Stonegate Fellowship has an excellent video you can view on line at http://www.crosspowerministries.com/.  

Join with your members who already minister to the same-sex strugglers in your church family . . . and let them know they don’t have to do it alone and in secret anymore.  You will help.

Thankful Even for the Pit

"At length, with a wild desperation at heart, I quickly unclosed my eyes. My worst thoughts, then, were confirmed. The blackness of eternal night encompassed me. I struggled for breath. The intensity of the darkness seemed to oppress and stifle me. The atmosphere was intolerably close. I still lay quietly, and made effort to exercise my reason. I brought to mind the inquisitorial proceedings, and attempted from that point to deduce my real condition. The sentence had passed; and it appeared to me that a very long interval of time had since elapsed. Yet not for a moment did I suppose myself actually dead. Such a supposition, notwithstanding what we read in fiction, is altogether inconsistent with real existence;—but where and in what state was I?"

--Edgar Allen Poe
The Pit and the Pendulum

When I was a little boy, Thanksgiving Day was the most definable day of the year.  It was a day with no surprises, the who, what, when and where all determined by a cookie-cutter passed from generations before.  The drive to the grandparents, the hugging aunts and uncles, the pesky cousins, the menu, the children's table, a toppled glass of tea, the games, the leaves in the yard, drawing names for Christmas, a chilly too-fast setting sun, falling asleep in the backseat on the way home.  Same old, same old.  Delicious comfort and continuity.  There was an overwhelming rightness about all of it.

Much of it is still the same, sans the "when I was a little boy" part.  The grandparents have passed on; the aunts and uncles are getting scarce, the cousins are less pesky, the sun still sets too fast and if I fall asleep on the drive home, it's all over.  I was the little boy who toppled the tea . . . and I'm the man who broke the cookie-cutter. 

This is the week we consider the things for which we are thankful. 

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. -- I Thessalonians 5:16-18

To which, sometimes, I am inclined to say . . . whatever . . in the sense of casting this verse aside as inappropriately cheerful and inordinately inappropriate for me.  Be joyful?  Always?  In all circumstances?  Pray continually and give thanks . . . no matter what?  And why?  Oh . . . because it is God's will for me because I am in Christ Jesus . . . who died so I could.

But . . .

But what about this pit?  Wouldn't it be acceptable to paint on a smile, brighten the old eyes, reconstitute the happy memories and . . . pretend?  Does the joy have to be all real and everything?  Can the thanks be canned . . . or does it have to be organic and fresh?  Can I carve off a few of the circumstances like the lesser pieces of the turkey and have them for left-overs when this rush of thankfulness is all behind me?  Do I have to unclose my eyes?

"Give thanks in all circumstances."

Why are some parts of the Bible a bit of a mystery . . . but others so stunningly clear?

Which leads me to the next question:  Is this pit really a pit at all?

Seven months ago, on a very nice April 30, around mid-day, I tottered off the edge of it and plunged into the blackness of what seemed a never-ending free fall.  It was the beginning of an "all circumstances" that stretches the veracity of God's Word . . . and yet . . . seven months later, I find myself oddly thankful.

Seven months ago, on a very nice April 30, around mid-day, I was arrested in a city park while having lunch, while running an errand, while conversing with an undercover police officer, car-to-car, across the windows, words drifting slowly away from the innocence of the beautiful day to an unguarded expression of temptation.  From tuna to handcuffs in a minute's time.  From running an errand to rearranging life.  From meetings with executives to sitting on a steel bench in a cinder-block holding cell with others who had been rounded up on a beautiful day because their sexual brokenness had broken them down and thrown them into a pit.  If remorse and regret and disgust and despair were marketable, a fortune could be made in that dingy space of circumstance.

Within two weeks I was out of my job as an executive at AT&T. Shortly, I was removed from my church in an act of discipline, enacted in front of my already-estranged children who had been invited to watch, and in front of my Christian brothers and sisters who were told the church would prosper by removing me.  The story of my arrest was page one news in the state's largest newspaper and on-line . . . accompanied by slanderous comments, untrue but unchallenged.  People I had known for many years no longer knew me.  There were places I could not, would not go.  The bleak was upon me.

You were wearied by all your ways, but you would not say, 'It is hopeless.' You found renewal of your strength, and so you did not faint. -- Isaiah 57:10

It is my ways that wearied me.  It is His hope that renews me.

I did find myself for awhile there much in the position of Eve, the devil taunting me with that small word "all" as he did Eve with the small word "any." 

"Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"  "Did God really say, "Give thanks in all circumstances?"  Ahhh ... the devil and his three-letter trip-ups.  He loves doubt . . . as in really?  Did God really say that?  And, where God, through Christ, would give me hope and help, the devil would stir within me bent righteousness towards bitterness and anger, seeds of vengeance and justification, danger signs of refused repentance, roadblocks to block any path out of any pit, blinders to any speck of light.

What has happened in seven months?  For one, I learned that churchianity is not always Christianity . . . but that we don't always know until we're outside what is missing on the inside, so I learned also not to judge too harshly, to be thankful for the peek and to seek a way to open other eyes, thus to encourage others to extend greater mercy to the fallen.  I have learned that compassion provides the spark of energy for the fallen's foot to find the first rung on the ladder to freedom. I have learned that while those who truly do love like the Lord are in the minority . . . . there truly are some who truly love like the Lord.  And I have learned that many who don't, can't . . . because they need to be and aren't.  I have learned of sticks and stones and specks and logs . . . and I have learned we all have cluttered eyes and sometimes we clench our fists around stones to keep from hugging.

I have longed long enough for a life without longing.  A perfect life with no pain and no pain-giving.  A life where I had not tasted of every tree in the garden.  But longing is not thanking.

My days now are different.  No staff meetings.  No PowerPoints.  No schemes and defenses.  No spin or talking points.  No white papers.  No business lunches . . . conferences . . . trips to plan.  No annual raise, benefit package, stock option or bonus.  No boss.  There is less certainty in what the world has to offer and therefore more dependence on Him. My wife is my staff, my power lunch,  my conferee.  God is the only boss.  He provides my bonus.

God has blessed me with the absence of these things, disastrous as the world measures, the cost of my brokenness in a world that fully embraces only wholeness . . . or at least the representation of such.  Don't let it show . . . . let no one know. 

I am thankful.  I am even thankful for the April 30 plunge into the pit.  Now I know.  I know the darkness.  Had I not, I would not know for certain the way out.  And that, indeed, is something to be thankful for.  And something to share with others who dwell there, thinking perhaps their plight is to reside there among the rats until their bones form the floor onto which others fall.  Now I know.  I know that God's grace is even in that place.  No matter how deep the pit . . . grace overflows from above and penetrates to the very depth.

But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! -- Romans 5:15

I still pray -- every day -- that God will take away all these temptations and distractions and distortions that come from who knows where and who knows why.  Just take away "who."  I pray that my children will come back into my life, old friendships will be restored, bitterness and anger will subside.  But I pray that as He does answer these prayers, He leaves the memories, even of the pain and sorrow and confusion, out of which arose my compassion for other strugglers and into which He poured His grace for me.  I am so thankful.

Our sadder memories are perhaps the fertile plots from whence our mercy grows.  Mercy we can pour out into the lives of those around us who may be skirting the edge . . . or exploring in tears the bottom . . . of a pit we cannot see but from which they cannot seem to escape.  Mercy and grace are necessary rations for the climb.

"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. -- Luke 6:36-38

Unclose your eyes . . . and be thankful.  I am.  The blackness of eternal night has been dispelled.

God Bless,

Thom

People Never Crumble in a Day

In the dark of night, I awoke.  Framed in the moonlit, lace-curtained window, I saw my child and his mother, sharing a rocker at midnight, only the moon and I to spy. My intrusion was silent, but it fulfilled my need for joy.

She kissed her baby's fingers first, then opened the tiny hands and kissed the palms.  Then she took her own graceful fingers and traced gently across the tiny eyelids, down the soft cheeks, and around the bottom of his wrinkled, dimpled chin.  She gently kissed his nose, smoothed his hair, and then just held him to her, an external closeness that reminded them both of the nine months they spent together alone.

They looked into each other's eyes and smiled.  His tiny hands reached out for her face. She bent towards him in response to the reach, giving an unbreakable promise of permanent, powerful love, sealed with a soft kiss on a newborn's tiny nose at midnight. . . punctuated with her soft wet eyes.  Love.  Need.  Love meets need.

Three of my children weighed in at 7 pounds, 13 ounces.  One of the others was a little smaller and the last one was a little bigger . . . but only by ounces.  Little ones, complete with hearts and minds and smiles and souls, emerging searching, so easily satisfied.  As once was I.  The average newborn weighs 7.5 pounds, is 20 inches long and wants to be held often and fed about six times a day.  While the newborn's body is usually about 5% of how big he or she will be when fully grown, the baby's brain is already 25% of its eventual size.  We're all in such a hurry to know . . . so we can have.

For a while, we don't really care if it is dark or light or day or night.  We don't know good or bad or who or what is which.  We don't yearn for peace because we don't know its absence.  We make no choices.  But then, that 25% size brain muscles its way out in front of that 5% heart and we start to choose and fuss and refuse and reject and insist and push and want and . . . suddenly the need that was met with a simple midnight kiss on a tiny nose becomes a need that motivates and manipulates and demands and hurts and seeks to be soothed in ways that smiles and waving squeaky toys can't satisfy.  We're all in such a hurry to know . . . so we can have.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. -- Proverbs 22:6

We toddle out of the nursery and tumble headlong into life.  We learn all too well the difference between the day and night and the dark and light . . . and we don't always choose well.  Our soft blankets cast aside, we cling to other things.

We Press on.

I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you; however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.  Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.  For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.  For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;
who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself. -- Philippians 3:14-21

Talk about a loaded passage. This passage is filled with the missed markers that have made up so much of my life, all positive words that can also characterize undoing when we miss the mark of their meaning.

Goal . . . for the upward call of God?  Why have I so often let so many other things drown it out?
Prize . . . traded away so often for things that tarnish and decay.
Upward . . . seems an unfamiliar direction, so often I am on the other course.
Call . . . requires listening, and so often I allow the call to fold beneath the want.
Attitude . . . of Christ?   So often not.
Standard . . . something to reach for; so often I stray from.
Following . . . where He leads; so often I want to go my own way.
Example . . . what I always said I needed, but so often haven't recognized.
Attained . . . but a glimpse of what it should be, so often in the shadows of what is.
Observe . . . those who walk?  Of course, but so often I am on a distant course.
Pattern . . . the one He has provided so often is set aside for the one I have crafted on my own.
Weeping . . . this one I know, but not as a willing enemy, so often instead as a remorseful wanderer.
Enemies . . . so often entertained in mind and heart.
Destruction . . . at my own hands and so often feared.
Appetite . . . needing to be curbed; so often satisfied.
Glory . . . in His name?  So often in my shame.
Shame . . . so often.
Wait . . . yearning for wings of eagles; so often in the quicksand by my own two feet.
Transform . . . occasionally resisting, so often clamoring.
Humble . . . but what about me? so often was my plea.
Conformity . . . searching and so often conforming . . . wrongly.
Exertion . . . striving for survival; so often using all my strength and too little of His.

So often.

If I look again at those words and set aside the so-oftens of my life and grasp instead the other words in that passage:  God . . . Savior . . . Power . . . then the sadness of the so-often becomes the joy of once-and-for all:

The goal becomes the prize, moving upward at the call with an attitude that reaches the standard by following His example and the ones who have attained as I observe the pattern, weeping at my past, resisting the enemies I once embraced, dodging destruction with a renewed appetite for God, living in His glory, climbing out of my shame, waiting for His will, thus willingly transformed, humbly conformed, joyful in exertion.  Restored.

Those of us who struggle against the desire to satisfy some form of sexual brokenness today were once satisfied with soft blankets and soothing sounds, warm milk and midnight kisses on the nose.  Somewhere, something went wrong.

Rejection . . . rebellion . . . anger . . . bitterness . . . fear . . . emptiness . . . woven into a struggle replete with knots and fibers combined into a blanket that wraps around everything we know . . . and it's not soft and warm.

We need to be patient.  Patient with ourselves . . . patient with other strugglers . . . even patient with those who reject us as beyond restoration and redemption . . . who see a fall as a statement.

It doesn't look much like patience when a baby learns to walk, falling headfirst into coffee tables, cutting his lip, bruising his head, yelling and screaming to be picked up . . . so he can be set down and stumble on, hands outreached, feet awkwardly working against each other . . . until, one day he walks and then he runs. We don't see the patience that little brain expended waiting for that little body to catch up . . . unless we remember it began with a crawl.

People never crumble in a day.  It can take a little time to put the pieces back together.

God Bless,

Thom

Homosexuality and Your Church

What do the gay people in your church look like? Do you spot them by their flamboyant clothing . . . their mannerisms . . . their declarations?

When a brother or sister in your church came to you to ask you for your help and support in their personal struggle against homosexuality . . . what did you do to walk with them? How did you respond the last time this happened to you?

“Oh . . . we don’t have that problem in our church,” you say?

Statistics show that one out of every five church members has a family member or close friend who struggles with homosexuality. We all know someone who is “gay.” If not at church, then at work. If not at work, then where we shop or bank or eat.

So, again . . . what do the same-sex attracted people in your church look like? Could they sit there looking like you, dressed like you, acting like you, worshiping in the pew with their spouses and children, or moms and dads, Bibles open, faces forward, smiles on, handshakes offered, singing alongside you in quiet despair? Are they hiding their pain and confusion behind their Sunday smiles?

Like me.

(Note: I wrote this story as part of a two-part series for The Baptist Messenger. To read the rest of the story, please click here: http://baptistmessenger.com/homosexuality-and-your-church/

Would You Like Some Grace with That?

"I have gone to find myself.  If I return before I get back, please ask me to wait. -- one of Bill Dillard's favorite sayings.

My father-in-law was a man of principle.  There may have been a little gray here and there, but it was just a wisp between the black-and-white. If anything was fuzzy, it was only because he hadn't gotten out the tools to trim it up and make it right . . . but he would soon get to it.  Maybe that's why when I first met him some 33 or so years ago, I was a bit uncomfortable.  Fuzzy was just all-right with me and gray came in all kinds of shades.

I think I thought that black and white was unwelcoming, demanding conformation, withholding approval, unbending, unyielding and unattainable, thus leaving the straight-and-narrow person in a persistent bent, themselves unresolved and yearning. He scared me.  He always seemed to know where he wanted to go and had mapped out a way to attain that place in life.  I always seemed to be where I didn't want to be and didn't need a map to get there.

"There's no way this man will ever like me," I thought.  I would be good for his prayer life, no doubt.

I guess I'm thinking about Bill today because my wife and her mother will be going in a few days to see the stone in the Texas he loved that marks his resting place.  He died of Alzheimer's, which, if you are a very black-and-white person, must be especially hard as you drift slowly into fuzziness, forgetting where you put those well-worn mental tools you so often used to clear it up and make life right.

I guess I'm also thinking about Bill today because I woke up thinking about grace -- a free and undeserved gift of love.  God's grace is both unimaginable and the very essence of reality for those of us who have experienced it when we thought we were well beyond it.  Hence, "undeserved."  And we should imitate it and extend, as best we can, grace to those around us.  Bill understood that.  That's why I was still his son-in-law when he died.  Still a gray and fuzzy son-in-law; still loved.

Bill never knew of my homosexual sin.  He never knew that I allowed temptations to triumph over my vows.  Were he alive today, he would know, as everyone does.  Would I appear totally gray to him now?  Or would he take the tools of his careful life and help me trim away the shadows?  My children thought it wrong that we never told their grandfather of all my sins, as if we had somehow tricked him by allowing him, as he faded away, to continue to love me.  Perhaps I deserved the pain of his rejection to add to that of others . . . but I think the motivational aspect of pain is seriously overrated.

Sometimes in our haste to make the pain of sin intense, we make that pain contagious, as if the more who feel it and the deeper the level, the greater the satisfaction of the shared repentance.  But, repentance is not truly shared . . . it is intensely and internally personal, between the fallen and the Risen.  Others are viewers, perhaps with hands clasped or clapping, partaking in hope of the celebration of change . . . but the sinner bows alone beneath the healing weight of grace.  An undeserved blessing freely bestowed on man by God, it is why we can stand again after we have trampled ourselves beneath our own wandering feet.

I think Bill -- based on his sayings and the whole of a lived-life -- would have loved me anyway.  He knew grace.  He had accepted it.  He would have paid it forward.

A businessman, a devoted Christian who prayed and taught the Word, a man who could sing Silent Night in German because he thought it more beautiful, a deacon and a leader in his town and family, Bill knew the value of everything he owned.  He would search Consumer Reports and talk laboriously with technicians before buying a radio.  He drove to Detroit to buy his cars off the assembly line.  He bought furniture that will outlive us all due to the required quality.  He would not have devalued grace.

When others did so, he even responded in grace.  Only one time stands out for me because I learned from it.  Bill had been a wholesale oil distributor and had some gas stations in the days before self-serve.  He followed the winds of change and opened a convenience store to compete.  And compete he did . . . though for a long time he would not offer one thing the other stores had:  beer.  He didn't drink; he was a Baptist deacon.  He didn't want to make money selling beer.  It was black-and-white.

Under the pressures of the economy and after much prayer, Bill finally allowed the distributors to put beer in the cooler.  He didn't promote it, but it was there.  You would have thought Bill taken the cross down from over the baptistry.  Years of service . . . loyalty to his friends and brothers . . . devotion to the Word . . . hands that had upheld so many . . . a heart that had rarely wavered . . . counted little.  Bill was in the gray, and it cost him.  Those who might have been wandering themselves in a gray place here and there -- unseen -- were applying the strictness of the black-and-white in large measure.  You're going down, my friend.

Maybe for awhile Bill's heart was broken and his hands weakened . . . but God's grace was sufficient . . . and Bill paid it forward.  He continued to serve and to love and to forgive and to give . . . in grace.

He mocks proud mockers
       but gives grace to the humble. -- Proverbs 3:34

I'm glad I had a father-in-law.  When families dissolve, members are denied the relationships designed by God to make us whole.  After all, God had to have known when he designed creation to be carried on by a man and a woman that there would be a multitude of in-laws.

Grace truly is amazing and essential if we are to break the chains that bind us to the sins that blind us.  Limitless grace?  Thank God.  Grace is pretty black-and white.

A few years back, feeling challenged as I always did around Bill and his hands-on ability, I stood before a pile of wood with an axe.  He stood on the other side, instructing this city boy on how to split a log for the fireplace.  I listened . . . sort of . . . and took a swing.

"Well," he said. "I guess a person could do it that way."

That was another favorite Bill saying:  "A person could."  He saw the gray, but acknowledged that we learn by plowing right through it sometimes because we're too proud to just trim it out.  He knew that it doesn't always mean we won't make it.  "A person could."

I am so thankful to those who have extended grace to me to temper the confusion that so often invaded my soul.

Only God could have created grace.  Man would have put shades in here and there and it would have become gray and lifeless and something to be earned.  We would have wanted to share as much in the glory of grace as we do in the pain of sin that calls it forth.  We would have wanted praise for it . . . and only God deserves it.

I'm very thankful that grace is unlimited.  That there was enough for me.

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.  -- 2 Corinthians 12:9

 Amazing.

"I have gone to find myself.  If I return before I get back, please ask me to wait."

God Bless,

Thom

Are We There Yet?

Can any four words be more generational than "Are we there yet?"  The rambunctious and rowdy Mayflower mini-Pilgrims in the 1600s . . . Laura in the wagon headed to the Little House on the Prairie . . . the littlest Israelite wandering in the wilderness . . . Tom Joad heading to California to pick grapes . . . the huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . . anyone headed to Colorado.

Sometimes the words are said in eager anticipation.  Sometimes they're whispered almost like a dying gasp.

I remember the trips between my hometown of Denton and my birthplace of Bridgeport where the crazies lived, traveling on a two-lane "highway," up and down hills with no passing lanes, around curves and into the night, me spread out in the expansive back window of an old '50s road warrior, counting the stars and asking "Are we there yet?"  Threats from both parents would bring me down to just a whisper . . . but never to silence.

Once, when our five children were all still youngsters, Lisa and I took them on a trip to Dallas for an overnight stay.  The next morning, we tricked them by heading out on a different highway and continuing southeast towards Galveston, where we'd scheduled a week's vacation without ever so much as giving a single one of them a clue.  It ranks as one of the best surprises I ever pulled.  Still, once they realized we were not on our way back to Oklahoma and the destination was revealed, it was soon a chorus of "Are we there yet?"  A week later on the way home it was the same song, second verse.

Wherever "there" is, we want to be . . . and right now would be nice, thank you very much.

Those of us who struggle with unwanted same-sex attraction temptations or any form of sexual brokenness -- like pornography or heterosexual sex addiction or other sexual problems -- tell ourselves we are on a journey. We've usually already fallen for the promise of the Star Trek experience, trying to pray for our physical and mental molecules to reorganize on some Father Knows Best holodeck. Of course, with a holodeck being a simulated reality in a fictional futuristic science fiction serial, it's not so hopeful.  We've tried the "Beam me up, Scotty," approach and realized God has that in His hands and is keeping mum at the moment.  We can't time shift; we have to live in the here and now.  We want the right reality and we want it real and right now.

We're painfully "here," but we still want to be "there" -- with "there" being somewhere where "this" -- with "this" being the sexual brokenness that is impairing our lives --  is not.  I'm not completely "there," and "this" is still a little bit here, sometimes, though not like "this" once was, when I was at that "there," instead of this "there."  Whatsamatter?  Did I slow down your reading speed?

So, how about you?  How's your journey going?  And who's traveling with you?  Who's perched in the back window stargazing?  Who's sharing the grapes?  Who's alongside pulling for you as you yearn to breathe free?

A little help please?

I'm going to do something a little different in this week's blog post.  I'm asking for you to take a minute and give me some real feedback from your heart and your experience, a travelogue.  Partly it's because I think we're on a journey together and I'm wondering if we're anywhere near "there" yet.  And partly it's because I'm working on a project and I could use some good input.  More specifically, I'm looking for some input regarding your experience on this issue -- or lack thereof -- with churches or other Christians.  "Other" being applicable if you happen to be one yourself.

Will you help me out by using the comment section of the blog to answer a couple or three questions?  Okay . . . three or four.  Also . . . if you happen to not be one who struggles with same-sex attraction or some other form of sexual brokenness, but are, instead, one who loves and cares about a struggler, you can answer from your perspective.  That too would be very helpful for my project and to those who read this blog.  You can adapt these questions to your personal situation . . . and feel free to leave your comments anonymously if you choose. 

1.  If you once struggled in solitude, but for one reason or another your struggle was revealed to people in your church, how did they respond?  Did you reveal your sexual struggle willingly or did something happen to bring it into the light?  What has it been like for you since church members found out?  What has been your experience within the church?

2.  If you have wanted to be open about your same-sex attraction or other sexual struggle within your church, but haven't taken that step, on what is your hesitancy based?  How do you honestly think church members and church leaders will respond if you tell them about you and your struggle?  Has your struggle with homosexuality limited your ability to be a serving church member?

3.  Based on your understanding of the Bible, how do you think the church should respond to homosexuals in general and especially to fellow Christians who are revealed to be still struggling with homosexual temptations and may even have a history of acting out on those temptations . . . but consider them unwanted?  Do you think Christians can, within Scripture, offer meaningful support to those who struggle with homosexuality and yet not compromise their beliefs regarding the "homosexual agenda?"  Why or why not?

4.  What would you advise a Christian who struggles with homosexuality and wants good and healthy same-sex relationships?  Is the church a safe place to find support and encouragement in the desire to manage the temptation?

Hopefully we can think through these questions together and edge a door open just a little bit further.  Cultural change and the acceptance and even glamorization of the homosexual lifestyle is testing the church's resolve to be relevant and right regarding one of the most gripping and draining pulls some men and women will ever face.  No one chooses this struggle.  Those who choose to fight against it often engage in a silent battle, sorely lacking in reinforcements.  Sadly . . . they can usually not ask "Are we there yet," because they are traveling alone.

We should not be on this journey alone.

"Then he (Jesus) said to them, Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.'

"Then the one inside answers, 'Don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs." --  Luke 11:5-8"

For those who struggle, it is vital that the church come to the right conclusion based on a clear interpretation of scripture.  If not, then the sin will be allowed to take an even greater toll and the church will bear responsibility.  This is not a time to fold cards and yield to culture . . . nor a time to reject a specific group of Christians, set apart by a specific sin. This problem is not greater than the God we serve.

This journey will be longer and sadder, more costly and more tiring if it continues to be the elephant in the church.  We are not there yet.  We need to get there together.

God Bless,

Thom

NOTE:  In a couple of weeks, I will answer the questions above and share my church experiences. Thank you to those of you who will take the time to share now.