Building Bridges

One of the main parameters of the Bridging the Gap Synchroblog  was to come up with positive ways for the gay community and Christian community to connect and understand one another. I hope that my thoughts will not be viewed as negative. I preface this post with that because I do have some thoughts as to what a few of the problems are. Often pointing out problems can be understood as negative. However, I'm hoping to offer constructive criticism. Constructive criticism is positive in that that goal of offering it is to grow or become better, healthier, and more balanced. 

 I'd also like to give you a brief summary of my own experience with faith and sexuality so that my thoughts can be understood in the context of my own journey. When I was 14, I realized that the almighty God desired to know me personally and was able to be near to me because of the blood sacrifice of His son Jesus Christ. I accepted the free gift of God's grace and forgiveness and told Him that I wanted to follow Him for the rest of my life. Simultaneously, I was able to recognize that I was experiencing attractions for other guys. In that moment of prayer before the Lord, I was gently and lovingly convicted that God did not intend for me to live my life according to my same sex attractions. The best way I can describe it is that I felt the Lord was saying to me "I have something else for you". This was only the beginning of what has now been a 13 year journey. It has not been an easy journey by any means. The point of this blog is not to detail my personal journey so I won't. I just want to end this section by telling you where I'm at today. Today, I'm married to my amazing, beautiful, Hand-picked-by-God, wonderful wife. We've also been recently  blessed with the birth of our incredible baby girl.

 I'm sure my journey gives you some insight in to my theological understanding of homosexuality.  However conservative, traditional, or typical of evangelical Christianity that understanding may be, I have also realized major short comings in the Church's ability to understand, accept, love, and serve gay and lesbian people.  

One of the first things I think evangelical christians need to understand is that they don't understand. In my experience, it seems like the "straight christian" (keep in mind how much I hate labels, but this post would be way to long if I had to keep typing out 'Christian people who have only ever been heterosexually attracted') approaches the subject of homosexuality as if they know everything they need to know about it.  The idea seems to be, "I know homosexuality is sin and that's all I need to know." The problem with this thinking lies in the focus. The focus being homosexuality and not the person. Furthermore,  our conclusions about the wrong focus shape our attitudes and behaviors toward the person. In order to build bridges with the gay and lesbian community ,and also to better minister to people in our own congregations dealing with same sex attractions, we need to be willing to listen and to learn from the individual. Not every individual that identifies as gay is the same as another individual who also identifies as gay. Each person has their own journey, their own experiences, and their own understanding of their sexuality.  The measure of our compassion and our ability to love the gay or lesbian person will be the same as our ability to understand them. We are told in scripture that our saviour understands us. Scripture even tells us that Christ was tempted in EVERY way that we are. I can indeed testify that reading this scripture brought me great comfort and encouragement as I struggled to understand my own struggles with sexuality.  To summarize this point, if you've never been attracted to the same sex, understand that you don't understand and commit to listening and learning from the gay, lesbian, or same-sex attracted person.