A Third Way to engage LGBTQ people (both inside and outside the Church)

The biggest theological and ethical issue that the 21^st century Church in America has faced and will continue to face is the issue of how we respond to the LGBTQ community at large and to those within our churches who “come out” specifically.

First off…I will likely piss off and rile up a bunch of people with this post. For some I will be too conservative. For others too liberal. Many may think I am compromising one way or another. I am not perfect, and neither are my views on anything. However, I simply wish to direct this conversation a bit as a Pastor. This is the hot button of all hot button issues. However, I hate when people talk generally about “the homosexual issue”. Let us rather talk about how to engage with LGBTQ people whom God loves and died for.

It is increasingly less taboo in American culture to be openly gay. Culture has shifted considerably in this area. Some see it as as a good thing, others remain fearful of the changes. Nevertheless, we followers of Jesus must better learn what it means to missionally contextualize ourselves in our current culture. In the past the choice for those in our churches with same-sex attraction was to either “stay in the closet” in secrecy and shame or to “come out” and potentially be ostracized and kicked out. Many good Christian kids tried unsuccessfully to “pray the gay away” and were constantly in fear that their parents would find out and excommunicate them from their families and churches. Many of these kids left their church and escaped to the embracing arms of the secular LGBTQ community and have never returned. The traditionalist conservative evangelical side has not had a great track record with graciously engaging those who come out with the love of Jesus. Although we try to take seriously the Biblical passages addressing homosexuality, we have often done so in a Pharisaical self-righteous way that singles out gay people as “the worst of sinners”.

Tim Keller says that more liberal or so called “progressive” churches have responded to this dilemma by ignoring or laying aside those parts of the Bible that talk about homosexuality in the effort to better love, accept, and embrace their gay neighbors and fellow church members. Many of the people in these left leaning congregations are indeed very humble, kind, generous, and hospitable people. The problem is that often once certain Biblical passages are overlooked or reinterpreted, other vital passages and accompanying doctrines seem to follow. The real question evangelical Christians must ask ourselves is whether we can hold on to our orthodox interpretations of these Biblical passages while at the same time repenting of the ways in which we have failed to respond to gay people as Jesus would.

I am new to the Anabaptist Christian tradition. I am convinced we must lead the way in helping chart a “third way” in this area going forward. BIC (Brethren In Christ) Pastor Bruxy Cavy says that we need not change our theology, but our hearts toward LGBTQ people. We must realize that we have many brothers and sisters in Jesus who identify as “gay Christians”. We may agree or disagree with the ways they have decided to live their lives to various degrees. But we can no longer say that they are not Christians or are automatically going to hell simply because of being gay. Many have embraced the gospel, accepted their own sinfulness and need for a savior, chosen to follow Jesus daily as the Lord of their lives, and exhibit considerable spiritual fruit. This looks different for each individual. Some have chosen to marry someone of the opposite sex anyway. Many have gotten married or desire to be married to a same-sex partner within the bounds of the Church. Some have felt God call them to a life of singleness or celibacy in the service of God’s kingdom (ala the Apostle Paul). Still others have entered into celibate life partnerships or unions.

God loves all people. The Father sent Jesus to die a sacrificial and atoning death for all people. This includes LGBTQ people. Neo-Anabaptist Pastor Greg Boyd says that we as the Church of Jesus Christ can no longer live as a “holy club that minimizes the sins of those inside the club while maximizing the sins of those outside the club”. We need to repent of the way we have made homosexuality to be “the sin above all other sins”. We must repent of being more known as judgmental condemning accusers than the radically humble and gracious lovers of all people in the way of Jesus Christ. We must embrace the Biblical call to be ministers of reconciliation who see ourselves as the “worst of sinners”, considering the sins of others as merely specks of sawdust compared to the logs sticking out of our own eyes. We are all “sinners” Biblically speaking. We all have “missed the mark” and “fallen short” of God’s ideal. We are all broken in one way or another. We all need Jesus Christ.

• Does a LGBTQ person already in our church feel safe being honest and open about who they are?
• Would an openly gay person be truly welcomed to visit and join our church family?
• Have we continued to faithfully hold onto the foundation of the written word of God without compromise?
• Have we either entrenched ourselves in the conservative/traditionalist position or strayed to the liberal/progressive position while failing to “walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us”? (Ephesians 5:2)

AN OBVIOUS CRY FOR HELP! AN OPPORTUNITY FROM GOD

Many of us are currently struggling with a variety of things, but we wouldn’t think about writing our issues down on a cardboard sign for everyone to see. I have passed dozens of people with signs in my life (maybe hundreds). Each person had a struggle and a story. It didn’t matter whether they really needed the money; or whether they would use the money on alcohol and drugs. They were making a simple cry for help.

A few weeks ago I passed a guy on a corner with a sign because I needed to go and do seminary homework. I passed up the obvious opportunity to bless someone with the love of Jesus in order to go study about being more like Jesus. Something is wrong with that.

I have made a personal vow to see each person holding a sign as an opportunity from God to be led by the Spirit in imitating Jesus Christ. Is it biblical to help someone in need? Would Jesus stop and engage this person with love? Yes, and Yes. I had an another opportunity to do just that this afternoon with a young Latino woman and her child in a Walmart parking lot. I was gifted with the opportunity to stop, get out of my car, walk up to this woman, look into her eyes, shake her hand, see her beautiful smile, give her some money, and pray the blessing of our Abba Father over her.

“Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.”
(Ephesians 5:1-2)

Would you consider joining me?

God has PROVIDED!!!

God has provided an absolutely wonderful new local church family for the Triplett’s.

Birch Bay Bible Community Church (BBBCC) in Birch Bay, WA.

We candidated up in Birch Bay the weekend of October 9-12. The following Sunday evening BBBCC members voted unanimously to affirm our call to become the Associate Pastor of Life Groups & Adult Ministries. A big boy job 😉

Candidating Sermon (God’s Kind of Power)

Birch Bay is ~ 2 hours north of Seattle. It is only about 10 miles south of the U.S. Canadian border. It is far more rural than any place either Christina or I have ever lived. An adventure for sure. Although we suburban folks will still be within ~ 20 minutes of a Target, Costco, and Trader Joe’s. I don’t think we SF Bay Area natives would survive any farther out.

We will be moving up to the Pacific North West the week after Christmas. This 49ers fan will be headed deep into Seahawks territory. Don’t worry, #49erFaithfulForever

Our God is so GOOD! He is so FAITHFUL! We don’t deserve this new church family, but our Abba has graced us with some wonderful brothers and sisters. We feel close to so many of them already. Totally a God thing! There is total confirmation and peace about this move. Don’t get me wrong, it will not be easy to leave family, friends, and spiritual brothers and sisters down here behind. It is a huge step of faith to move nearly 1,000 miles north. However, we must put things in perspective. We will still be on the west coast. I will still be in an NFC West area where there will be at least 2 locally televised 49ers games per season. We can handle this!

We ask for your prayers as there are a LOT of details to take care of in the next two months. No one ever likes moving. We have a ton of junk to sort through. We have a bucket list of Bay Area people to see, places to visit, and favorite restaurants to eat at one more time. We knew that part of this pastoral calling would likely mean someday following His leading to a totally new place. We weren’t surprised. However, the reality is just starting to hit. We are excited, but there are a lot of emotional ties down here.

Tension between the ALREADY and NOT YET

 

I am re-posting something I wrote 2 years ago about the tension between the Already AND Not Yet dimensions of the Kingdom of God. Have been thinking a lot about being caught in this tension in recent months in light of violence, suffering, disease, and premature death.

“You made them a little lower than the angels;

you crowned them with glory and honor

and put everything under their feet.”

In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them.

 

Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them.

But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” (Hebrews 2:7-9)

There is a tension between the Kingdom of God which has arrived and the kingdom of Satan which seems to be still very present and powerful in our current world. God created us to be his ambassadors, his co-workers, joining him on his mission. But we handed that authority over to Satan in the fall. However, when Jesus came he defeated Satan in principle, breaking the back of sin, hell, and death. But we are in an in-between time. If we place our faith in Jesus, trusting him as Lord, we have a new identity, we have been reconciled to the Father, and we now have taken back the authority Satan stole in, by and through Jesus Christ. But there is still evil, suffering, sickness, disease, and death.

.

This passage in Hebrews says at present “…we do not see everything subject…” to us. But we fix our eyes on Jesus, and are now empowered to be hell plunderers, manifesting the beauty, hope, and love of the kingdom of God now. We manifest the joy and peace of the Kingdom of God in the present. When Jesus returns the kingdom will come fully into blossoming, fruition, manifestation, etc.

See Greg Boyd’s Easter sermon on the resurrection called “Defiant Flower”

http://whchurch.org/blog/4354/defiant-flower

Listen to the song ‘Tension’ by my friend and sister Nina Landis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGoulvnt87k

 

Letter of Calling (Nearly 10 years later)

It is crazy to think that I received this letter nearly 10 years ago. I just came across it again yesterday while reading through some old messages I had written for our old church and papers during my first 3 years at Fuller. You may ask, ‘Do you know you actually sent it to you?’ I do not. I have never figured out who sent this to me. I remember asking everyone I knew at the time (parents, friends, professors, etc.) No one ever admitted to sending it to me. It obviously did not have a return address. It was hand delivered to my student mailbox. God knows.

It was put in a small legal envelope that only included my name and my Azusa Pacific student box number on the outside of it. Inside were included this note and I think $60 cash (3 $20 bills). This was October of 2003 (the fall of my Sophomore year at APU). I remember joking that I might be struck down dead if I spent that money too casually on the wrong thing. I ended up using that cash as a deposit to sign up and reserve my place as part of APU’s High Sierra Program at Bass Lake, CA. I went up to Bass Lake the following spring semester 2004. It was during this spring of 2004 that I fell in love with the Bible and felt specifically called to declare my major as Biblical Studies the following fall.

The scriptures listed are:

Job 27:8-12
“For what hope have the godless when they are cut off, when God takes away their life?
Does God listen to their cry when distress comes upon them?
Will they find delight in the Almighty? Will they call on God at all times?
“I will teach you about the power of God; the ways of the Almighty I will not conceal.
You have all seen this yourselves. Why then this meaningless talk?”

Psalm 27
“The Lord is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid?…
One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.
For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock…
Hear my voice when I call, Lord; be merciful to me and answer me.
My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek.
Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, God my Savior…
I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”
(vv. 1, 4-5, 7-9, 13-14)

Proverbs 27 (especially vv. 17-19)
“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. The one who guards a fig tree will eat its fruit, and whoever protects their master will be honored. As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.”

Wrestling at the intersection of evil and Jesus

I have been doing a lot of thinking, reflecting, reading and wrestling with God in the aftermath of two events that have taken place in the last 2.5 months. One was from afar, and another happened at close range. We all are well aware of the unthinkable massacre that happened in Connecticut right before Christmas. Just a month or so later our church family lost one of our own, a beautiful 5 month old baby girl.

The first event was news worldwide. The second affected only those who know the family and our congregation. The first event was the result of violent gunfire. The second event due to a very rare disorder that the little girl was born with. I have struggled with both events as a disciple of Jesus.

I believe that our God is sovereign. I believe he is GOOD. I believe he is ALL-Powerful. Then WHY didn’t he supernaturally intervene and stop that young shooter that day? WHY did those precious first graders with their whole lives ahead of them have to be horribly victimized? I believe God created those children, knew them intimately and uniquely before they were born, and delighted in them as his precious sons and daughters. They how do I explain the fact that they were ripped away suddenly and violently from the families who loved them? President Obama was quoted at the prayer vigil following the tragedy as saying that “God has called them all home“. Is this true? Was it God’s will that 20 elementary school students would be brutally shot down? Did God foreordain, plan, elect, or predestine this disgusting act from before the creation of the world?

WHY did God create the little girl from our church family with a rare disorder which would lead to her premature passing? WHY didn’t God answer the countless prayers yearning for him to intervene miraculously to bring healing and restoration to her little body? Did God predestine this little girl to die at 5 months of age? Does God have a greater bigger plan we finite humans can understand that includes allowing a young couple who love, honor, and serve him to go through such heart-wrenching pain and misery?

How can this be the same God who was revealed most fully in Jesus Christ laying down his life and suffering a violent death on behalf of sinners?

My new Anabaptist blogger brother Kurt Willems says, “For those of us who recognize YHWH as fully revealed in Jesus Christ as one who meets humanity in their suffering, who experiences the full wrath of the powers of evil with us; his anguish reminds us of our coming deliverance. Rather than claiming, this was God’s will or God knows best or God has a plan for everything…we must remember that Evil always occurs outside of the will of God.”

God is FOR us. God is WITH us. God is not the author of evil. He did NOT plan for a deranged and extremely troubled 20 year old (who God also created and loved) to assassinate 20 little children military style. God did NOT bring that young couple the joy of having their first child only to rip their gift away months later to serve some greater grander purpose.

The link below is a sermon from Pastor Greg Boyd which helps us to re-imagine how we might respond to suffering in the light of the resurrection hope of Jesus. We know what the will of God is. We see it lived out in Jesus Christ. We know the perfect character of God. We see it lived out in the crucified messiah praying forgiveness over his enemies with his dying breath. Re-imagine with me brothers and sisters. God mourns with us. God understands. God suffers with us. God is bringing his Kingdom forth even now. His Kingdom where there will be no more evil, no more violence, no more children dying. Come, Lord Jesus.

http://whchurch.org/sermons-media/sermon/a-letter-to-henry

 

Freedom from the Idolatry of Politics

 

I am disheartened by the displays of heartache, anxiety, and passionate frustration exhibited by fellow Jesus followers over the defeat of their Presidential candidate of choice last night. It seems they truly believed that electing Mitt Romney would be the last great hope for the United States of America, and that re-electing Barack Obama is a sure sign of our demise as a nation. These kinds of statements reek of IDOLATRY.

This fall our church has been doing a teaching series from the book ‘Gospel in Life’ by Tim Keller. Session 3 of that series is Idolatry: The Sin Beneath the Sin. We talked a lot about the different things that control our lives, the things that we run to and place our trust in instead of God. The things that get us riled up. The things we worry about. The things that bring us comfort when times get difficult. The things that take our time, energy, and focus.

‘As soon as our loyalty to anything leads us to disobey God, we are in danger of making it an idol…        An idol can be a physical object, a property, a person, an activity, a role, an institution,                           a hope, an image, a pleasure, a hero…’ [p. 41]

Early on in this election season I made the blanket personal decision not to vote at all. The primary reason for this was the inordinate amount of time, energy, focus, and hope I put in Barack Obama as a candidate in 2008. I read article after article. I listened to speech after speech. I closely dissected each of the debates. I read both of Obama’s books. I was taken in hook, line, and sinker by his campaign slogan, ‘Change We Can Believe In’. I put hope and faith in the belief that this man could bring real change to the polarized political landscape in America. I watched the polls like a hawk from the Democratic Primary to the General Election. I was glued to my computer and TV on Election Day watching the results come in. I celebrated with the masses as we elected our first African-American President. Obama became an Idol for me.

The final decision I came to the last few weeks before the 2012 Election Day was to vote only on the CaliforniaState propositions and the non-partisan city council positions where I live in Fremont. I chose to write in JESUS CHRIST as my ‘Other’ Candidate for President. I am not preaching this as a pastor. I am not representing my church. I am not saying my decision is the only or best way for followers of Jesus to vote. This is merely where I felt God leading me in my own discipleship this election season.

I must say that I felt so free yesterday. I hadn’t looked at the polls once. I hadn’t tuned in to any of the three Presidential debates. I didn’t even think about checking the results until it was already a forgone conclusion that President Obama would be re-elected. I made my statement for Jesus Christ. He is the lone hope for our nation and world. My allegiance is to him alone. I place my trust in him as my Lord and Savior.

‘My first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man 
My first allegiance is not to democracy or blood 
It’s to a king & a kingdom’

‘A King & A Kingdom’ by Derek Webb

Taking up our cross and Following Jesus

wow…I am actually in a seminary class right now. I am SO tired that I decided to write a blog post to keep myself awake. blog #2 7 months later.

We are talking about the social political ethic of the cross. What do the cross and violence have to do with one another? Jesus rebuked Peter for refusing to accept the reality that Jesus would have to die. We have been reading Yoder’s the “Politics of Jesus”. Yoder refers to the ethic of the cross as the “price of social nonconformity”. Jesus died at the hands of the powers of this world (religious and political) on a Roman cross, but the act of Jesus’ death on the cross was the ultimate defeat of the dark spiritual powers behind the religious and political powers.

I just taught on what it means to “Follow Jesus” this past Sunday. We will continue to look at this topic for another week. We in evangelical Christianity have been guilty in the past of completely divorcing the social and political elements of the teachings and life of Jesus, especially both the spiritual and the social/political elements of the cross. What does it truly mean for us to take up our cross and follow Jesus?

We have made it easier on ourselves by spiritualizing and individualizing what it means to pick up our cross. No, to pick up our cross means to walk in the WAY of the kingdom, the WAY of the cross, the WAY of Jesus; which is difficult narrow path that leads to persecution, suffering, and potentially death.

I am finally a blogger

I have been told for quite some time that I should become a blogger. People say that they want to read what I have to write. Multiple job interviews for church ministry positions have said my lack of a blog has hurt me as a candidate. I have written in my own personal journal for probably the last 8 years or more. There was always just something for me about writing by hand. However, here I go.

I have now become public. My thoughts are out in the open for anyone who desires to read.