When Is Excellence a Problem?

By David Santistevan

When does our pursuit of worship perfection become a problem?

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At what point does excellence and production value become too much?
When does it cease to serve the local church and, instead, distract us from our goal—equipping the saints for the work of ministry?
We’re always waiting for what’s next. Doing more. Making everything better.
I’ve heard the argument on both sides.
If your production is over-the-top excellent, you are a seeker sensitive, sellout church with no Bible, no depth and a congregation that shows up to be entertained.
If you’re a small church with little to zero production value…well, that’s also looked upon with a certain degree of chagrin. You at least have to be using a click, right?
Of course, these are blanket statements to illustrate a point.
Today, I’d love to set the record straight as far as excellence goes. As best I can.

The Role of Excellence

Problems surface when excellence becomes the end rather than a means to an end. When it becomes a competition to prove yourself or your brand. When you want to be impressive.
I think we all agree that the greatest strength of a worship team isn’t just musical ability. We’re after heart. We’re after unity. We’re after something more than just flawless worship sets.
The Bible has something to say about this.
For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus and who put no confidence in the flesh” (Philippians 3:3).
In this passage Paul goes on to say that if anyone has a reason to boast, it’s him. He has the skills, the good looks, the resume, the bloodline, to boast.
The problem is that Christian ministry isn’t about what you can do. It has everything to do with what God can do through you.
The best ministry teams don’t flaunt their talent. Even if they’re the most talented, impressive singers and musicians this world has ever seen, it’s not the weapon they lead with. Rather, they put no confidence in the flesh and serve God by the Spirit.
Of course, this doesn’t mean we outlaw talented people and lower our standards of excellence.
I noticed that this past weekend. I want my musicians to be excellent—not as an end in itself but as a service to something greater. Practice finds its proper place when your heart is captured by something greater—the glory of God.

The Intuitive Musician

You know what practice affords you? Hours upon hours of time in the practice room? Day after day playing the difficult, boring, hard scales and technique?
Intuition.
Yep, that’s it. Music becomes a matter of intuition. You no longer have to think about how to play the instrument and you can focus your full mental energies on leading people in worship. This is why we’re after skill and excellence.
It’s not because we want to sound great. It’s not because we want to make a name for ourselves or be the most creative bunch in town. It’s because we want the practical matters of music and music theory to be automatic…without a thought. That will enable us to lead worship more effectively.
Consider when you weren’t a good musician. Or maybe you’re just learning right now. It takes all of your mind and more to figure out what you’re doing. I remember those days. I had no clue. Nothing was intuitive. Every chord required every mental faculty and every drop of sweat in my body.
Let’s relate this to some practical band issues:
• Memorizing your music forces you to be prepared, thus being more ready to be used by the Holy Spirit to do what He wants to do, and see what He wants you to see (rather than having your head in a chord chart).
• Knowing the Nashville number system helps you see music more clearly and flow easier because you can transpose into other keys quickly. It increases your versatility to be used in spontaneous/prophetic ways.
• Having your rig set up in advance takes the guesswork out of your tone selection in a worship set. Instead, you can focus your mental energies on the question, “What is the Holy Spirit up to today?”
Knowing the setlist backward and forward enables you to temper your playing to serve the moment. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do it.
Do you see where we’re going with this? Catch a vision for excellence that is bigger than getting opportunities. Catch a vision that is bigger than sounding amazing. Catch a vision that is bigger than how many compliments and social media likes you can amass.
When music becomes intuition, you can play prophetically on your instrument. You can look up with eyes of compassion.
So let’s move beyond our skills. Let’s use our skills in pursuit of God doing the miraculous through us. Let’s put zero confidence in the flesh. I don’t know about you, but I want to do with my life the things that only God can do.
Are you in? 

How Do Today’s Teens Compare to Previous Generations?

By Jonathan McKee

Unpacking some numbers and trends.

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Would you guess today’s young people are drinking more or less alcohol than you when you were a teenager?
What about drugs? More or less?
Sex?
Smoking?
Last week Vox.com released an article with a title saying, “Today’s teens have babies less than you did.” Then the words “have babies” scroll off the screen and are replaced by the word “fight.” Then “drink.” Then “use meth.”
The article goes on to compare the results of the CDC Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey over the last several decades. It even allows you to select the year you were born (if after 1972) and compare your teen years to today.
The question I have to ask is, “Are they right?”
No, I’m not questioning the integrity of the CDC study. In fact, when the most recent survey was released (they release it every two years), I went through some of those numbers with you in detail.
The CDC report is good. It’s the interpretation or “spin” of the report you have to always carefully consider.
Years ago when headlines claimed sexual activity was down in the last decade, I took you on a tour of what those numbers actually revealed. The reality is, teen sex has not dropped in the last decade. If you don’t feel like reading my whole breakdown, the short of it is this: More kids were having sex in the ’80s and ’90s, then it dropped about 8 percent by the turn of the millennium, and has stayed pretty level since. In fact, the CDC’s reports actually say, and I quote, “These levels of sexual experience have not changed significantly from 2002.” (I broke down all the numbers in detail here in our Youth Culture Window article back then.)
So what should have the headlines read?
Again, it depends what vice we want to talk about. Binge drinking is down. Smoking is way down. But even the Vox.com report admits, trying marijuana is way up, about 10 percent. And sex? It’s down since 1991…but really hasn’t moved much in the last 14 years…among TEENS.
That’s where this gets a little more interesting. So far we’ve just been talking about teens. If we look at college kids/young adults, we get a different picture. In fact, casual sex is more common with this college-age group than years past. Mandy Stadtmiller described it well in the title of her Mashable.com article, How long until sex? For millenials, try 10 texts or less. She cites an interesting SDSU study revealing a huge generational shift in attitudes about sex, with acceptance of premarital sex increasing from 42 percent in 2000 to 58 percent in 2012 (and acceptance of same-sex relationship more than tripled). In fact, Millenials are 13 percent more likely to hook up (casual sex) than Xrs were, but with fewer partners. In fact, “sex with aquaintances in the last year” jumped over 10 percent as well in the last decade. In a world where 59 percent of young adults (ages 20-26) have sent a sexual text message, I guess this isn’t surprising.
So read the numbers carefully. When you read the Vox.com article linked above claiming today’s teenagers are watching less television…read the fine print. Because today’s teenagers are staring at screens far more than ever before, but now that includes Netflix and Hulu on their small screens…which, yes…officially isn’t television. (Nice spin, eh?)
Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those doom and gloom guys who thinks today’s teenagers are all going to hell on a bicycle. In fact, I liked this Vox.com article because it shined a light on some areas where our culture has really made some strides (smoking, binge drinking, teen pregnancy…). I just want to make sure we don’t paint an unrealistic picture. We still have a lot of ground to gain, especially teaching young people sex matters.
So keep up the good work being advocates of truth, and be aware how the media spins things.  
Jonathan McKee is the president of The Source for Youth Ministry, is the author of over a dozen books including the new Get Your Teenager Talking, The Guy’s Guide to God, Girls and the Phone in Your Pocket, The Zombie Apocalypse Survival Guide for Teenager, and youth ministry books like Ministry ,y Teenagers, Connect: Real Relationships in a World of Isolation, and the 10-Minute Talks series. Jonathan speaks and trains at conferences, churches and events across North America, all while providing free resources for youth workers and parents on his websites, TheSource4YM.com and TheSource4Parents.com. You can follow Jonathan on his blog, getting a regular dose of youth culture and parenting help. Jonathan and his wife, Lori, and their three teenagers Alec, Alyssa and Ashley live in California.

Forgiving Fallen Pastors

By John MacArthur

“The church must have leaders who are genuinely above reproach. Anything less is an abomination.”

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It has always saddened me over the years as I’ve watched church leaders bring reproach on the church of Jesus Christ. What’s perhaps most shocking to me is how frequently Christian leaders sin grossly, then step back into leadership almost as soon as the publicity dies away.
Some time ago I received a recording that disturbed me greatly. It was audio of the recommissioning service for a pastor who had made national news by confessing to an adulterous affair. After little more than a year of “counseling and rehabilitation,” this man was returning to public ministry with his church’s blessing.
It is happening everywhere. Restoration teams—equipped with manuals to instruct the church on how to reinstate its fallen pastor—wait like tow truck drivers on the side of the highway, anticipating the next leadership “accident.” Grace Community Church, where I pastor, has received inquiries wondering if it has written guidelines or a workbook to help in restoring fallen pastors to leadership. Many no doubt expect that a church the size of ours would have a systematic rehabilitation program for sinning leaders.
Gross sin among Christian leaders is a signal that something is seriously wrong within the contemporary church. But an even greater problem is the lowering of standards to accommodate a leader’s sin. That churches are so eager to bring these men back into leadership—and to do so relatively quickly—is a symptom of rottenness to the core.
Christians must not regard leadership in the church lightly. The foremost requirement of a leader is that he “must be above reproach” (1 Timothy 3:2, 10; Titus 1:7). That is a difficult prerequisite, and not everyone can meet it.
Some kinds of sin irreparably shatter a man’s reputation and disqualify him from a ministry of leadership forever—because he can no longer be above reproach. Even Paul, man of God that he was, said he feared such a possibility: “I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27).
When referring to his body, Paul obviously had sexual immorality in view. In 1 Corinthians 6:18 he describes it as a sin against one’s own body—sexual sin is in its own category. Certainly it disqualifies a man from church leadership, because he permanently forfeits a blameless reputation as a one-woman man (Proverbs 6:33; 1 Timothy 3:2).
Where did we get the idea that a year’s leave of absence can restore integrity to someone who has squandered his reputation and destroyed people’s trust? Certainly not from the Bible. Trust forfeited is not so easily regained. Once a man sacrifices his purity, the ability to lead by example is lost forever. As my friend Chuck Swindoll once commented when referring to the issue—it takes only one pin to burst a balloon.
What about forgiveness? Shouldn’t we be eager to restore our fallen brethren? To fellowship, yes. But not to leadership. It is not an act of love to return a disqualified man to public ministry; it is an act of disobedience.
By all means we should be forgiving. But we cannot erase the consequences of sin. I am not advocating that we “shoot our wounded.” I’m simply saying that we shouldn’t rush them back to the front lines—and we should not put them in charge of other soldiers. The church should do everything possible to minister to those who have sinned and repented. But that does not include restoring the mantle of leadership to a man who has disqualified himself and forfeited his right to lead. Doing so is unbiblical and lowers the standard God has set.
Why is the contemporary church so eager to be tolerant in restoring fallen leaders? I’m certain a major reason is the sin and unbelief that pervade the church. If casual Christians can lower the level of leadership, they will be much more comfortable with their own sin. With lower moral standards for its leaders, the church becomes more tolerant of sin and less tolerant of holiness. The “sinner-friendly” church is intolerable to God. And such a church reveals the precarious status of contemporary Christendom—a reality that should frighten all serious and obedient believers.
Conservative Christians have a strong legacy of battling for doctrinal purity. And that is good. But we are losing the battle for moral purity. Some of the worst defeats have occurred among our most visible leaders. The church cannot lower the standard to accommodate them. We should hold it higher so the church can regain its purity. If we lose here, we have utterly failed, no matter how orthodox our confession of faith. We can’t be salt and light if we compromise the biblical standard of moral purity for our leaders.
In view of this crisis in leadership and morality, what should you do? Pray for your church’s leaders. Keep them accountable. Encourage them. Let them know you are following their godly example. Understand that they are not perfect. But continue nonetheless to call them to the highest standards of godliness and purity. The church must have leaders who are genuinely above reproach. Anything less is an abomination. 

Same-Sex Marriage, Culture Wars and the Next Step for the Church

By James Emery White

What is the one culture war we cannot avoid?

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As has been observed by many, recent events were nothing less than a cultural earthquake. For the first time in history, a sitting U.S. president endorsed same-sex marriage.
But the larger issue may have been the aftershock. Namely, the debate among Christians as to whether the issue even justifies engagement.
Many discuss the 40/40 divide (my terminology) on the matter. Those under 40 tend to support same-sex marriage, and not only believe it is pointless to engage but harmful to Christian outreach. Those over 40 believe it is a decisive issue and that failure to speak out and resist comes at great cultural peril.
Let’s dig deeper into the under-40 crowd. What is driving the divide from their elders?
I would argue that it is two-fold: First, they were the generation raised on Will & Grace, followed by Ellen. For them, homosexuality was normalized by the mainstream media. Further, the cultural acceptance of such matters has increased the number of friends and family they know, or know of, that are openly gay. This is a powerful combination.
But second, they encountered the fall-out of the Moral Majority and tend to automatically associate any and all cultural stances of a moral nature with its spirit.
Let’s camp out on the second.
The idea that captivated many Christians in the ’80s was the idea that ours was once a Christian nation, and we should actively work to return our governing bodies and laws back to their original intent. Even among those who did not espouse a sense of “returning,” there was often a deep sense of fulfilling a Christian destiny.
To be fair, the idea of “chosenness” and “special blessing” from God has been a constant theme throughout the history of the United States, beginning with the Puritans and their desire that, in the words of John Winthrop in 1630, they should be “as a Citty [sic] upon a Hill.” As historian Conrad Cherry writes, “Throughout their history, Americans have been possessed by an acute sense of divine election. They have fancied themselves a New Israel, a people chosen for the awesome responsibility of serving as a light to the nations….It has long been…the essence of America’s motivating mythology.”
That vision of a Christian America was again popularized in the late 1970s by evangelical authors Peter Marshall and David Manuel in The Light and the Glory. Marshall and Manuel held that America was founded as a Christian nation and flourished under the benevolent hand of divine providence, arguing further that America’s blessings will remain only as long as America is faithful to God as a nation. In 1989, a team of evangelical historians (Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch and George Marsden) attempted to lay this somewhat dubious thesis to rest, but it continues as a popular framework for viewing American history among American evangelicals.

The Moral Majority of the 1980s found its genesis in such sentiments and accordingly formed a “top down” strategy for cultural change. If we could only have Christians in the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court—or populating other leadership elites—then morality would be enacted and faith would once again find the fertile soil needed to establish its footing in individual lives.
The moral majority “won” through the election of Ronald Reagan as president, and his subsequent Supreme Court appointments throughout the 1980s brought great anticipation for substantive change.
Yet there was little real change to mark as a result.
Even the prime target—the striking down of the Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion—remains the law of the land to this day. Further, the “culture wars” of the 1980s and 1990s are now widely viewed as one of the more distasteful episodes in recent memory, and many younger evangelicals want nothing to do with what was often its caustic, abrasive and unloving approach toward those apart from Christ.
So the effort to recapture the nation failed as a strategy and alienated a younger generation.
As one who was a college student in the early ’80s, I stand with that alienation. I am deeply sympathetic to those who give a resounding “no” to Christians joining any kind of “culture war” again. The idea is that it is ineffectual and offensive to those we are trying to reach.
But I also believe that in so doing, we may be throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater.
I have read Christian blogger after Christian blogger (yes, most under 40) jump on the anti-culture war bandwagon over North Carolina passing its amendment against same-sex marriage, as well as outspokenly decry anyone who would, well, outspokenly decry President Obama’s support of same-sex marriage. Yes, it’s all in the spirit of denouncing the failure of the Moral Majority of the ’80s and the ongoing alienation of the homosexual community.

But may I offer four rejoinders?

1. It is the responsibility of Christ followers to be salt and light in a fallen world, and this includes politics. We should use our freedom to vote in any way possible to bring the Kingdom of God to greater reality. And yes, the Kingdom of God includes the biblical understandings of marriage and family.
This is not about attempting to impose things through power, but influence. There is a difference. In Jesus’ day, salt was one of the most useful and important elements you could possess, but not for the purpose of adding flavor to food. The main use of salt was as a preservative to keep food from rotting. Without refrigerators or freezers, canned goods or packaging, salt was used to keep food from spoiling. If you had a piece of meat that you couldn’t eat right away, you would take some salt and rub it into the meat, which would prevent the meat from going bad. As John Stott wrote,
The notion is not that the world is tasteless and that Christians can make it less insipid…but that it is putrefying. It cannot stop itself from going bad. Only salt introduced from outside can do this. The church…is set in the world…as salt to arrest—or at least to hinder—the process of social decay….God intends the most powerful of all restraints within sinful society to be His own redeemed, regenerate and righteous people.
Stott continued by noting the obvious—namely, that this influence is conditional. Meaning that for salt to be effective, it must retain its ‘saltness.’ “For effectiveness, the Christian must retain his Christlikeness, as salt must retain its saltness,” Stott observes. “The influence of Christians in and on society depends on their being distinct, not identical.” Even further, this difference must be applied to what is, in fact, decaying. Unless the salt penetrates the culture, the decay cannot be arrested.
2. It is one thing to denounce “culture wars” in the name of the failure of the Moral Majority of 30 years ago; it is another to abdicate our responsibility to be salt and light on today’s contemporary moral issues. Yes, social justice matters, but so does moral order. Lovelessness toward anyone, including homosexuals, must be repented from (as I have written about—see below), but that does not mean we should not continue to speak out on sexual ethics. As Martin Luther is reported to have proclaimed,
“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battle front besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”
We can have an honest debate about whether amendments such as the one North Carolina approved are beneficial or unnecessary, but the discussion itself is pivotal.
3. Same-sex marriage is not exactly a fringe issue that propels Christians into the backwaters of culture. Lest we forget, North Carolina was the 30th state to pass such an amendment. That is not just Christians speaking, but by necessity involves the majority of Americans (e.g., one of the major groups supporting Amendment One in North Carolina were African-American Democrats). Could it be that we live under such pressure to be politically correct that polls show a majority in favor of same-sex marriage, but when faced with the opportunity to vote their conscience in private, a different perspective emerges? Whether that is the impetus or not, whenever such an amendment has been presented, it has passed without fail. Thirty for 30.
4. Refraining to speak out on a particular issue because you fear alienating a particular community or sub-group for Christ is specious at best, heretical at worst. The gospel is offensive. Jesus offended the Pharisees (Mt. 15:12), He offended those in His hometown (Mt. 13:55-57), He offended His family members (Mk. 3:21, 31-35). He offended His closest followers (John 6:60-61, 66) and closest friends (John 11:6). As Peter wrote, Jesus as the living Stone is precious to those who believe, but to those who do not believe, He is the “stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall” (I Peter 2:8 NIV). Or as it says in the NKJV, “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.”
You can’t escape that word: offense.
I sometimes fear that Christians are so eager to be accepted and honored like, for example, a Bono that they capitulate on key issues (not that Bono does—just let the example play out).
Jesus ended up on a cross to jeers, not a stage to cheers. It is one thing for young adults to leave the church for an unloving attitude toward the gay community (I’ll follow you out the door); it is another for them to leave the church for a moral stance against homoeroticism that is simply culturally unpopular.
I live in North Carolina and saw the debate first-hand between supporters and opponents of Amendment One. There were no “God Hates Fags” signs that I saw. Indeed, there was no incivility by Christians toward the homosexual community at all. When one prominent African-American pastor made a sermonic joke in poor taste (he put his arm around a male choir member and said that if this was his mate, they wouldn’t want him as their pastor), his own church confronted him on the matter, and he immediately apologized to the wider community.
A seemingly small matter, but it shows the degree of sensitivity Christians attempted when speaking to the issue: a sensitivity to speak to the issue, but not engage in ridicule of any kind.
Yes, Billy Graham took a public stand on the issue, but so did Bill Clinton (can you say “robo-calls?”). As did many other prominent non-North Carolina clergy. All to say, it was a refreshingly respectful process that brought no shame on Christians in regard to spirit or rhetoric.
Our goal is not offense for offense’s sake, much less to do so with impunity. But we are not trying to make the gospel socially acceptable or palatable to the masses. If my stance on homosexuality offends a practicing homosexual—despite the fact that my stance was forged on biblical conviction and expressed with compassion—then I cannot help that offense.
Indeed, I cannot escape it, nor should I try.
Our goal is to remove every barrier that exists between such persons and their acceptance of the scandal of the cross…except the scandal of the cross!
Which, of course, calls for repentance.
And that is one cultural war we cannot avoid.

How to Reach Kids from Broken Homes on Father’s Day

By Nathan Johnson

“Here’s a dirty little secret about the kids that show up to Sunday School each week: Not all of them come from a healthy, stable home.”

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At first, you might think to yourself, “Well, of course that’s true!” But upon further inspection, it’s a truth most of us tend to accidentally ignore. Most Father’s Day lessons tend to turn out like this: “If you think your earthly dad is good to you, wait until you hear about your Heavenly father!”

While God is certainly an amazing father, comparing him to some earthly fathers would leave kids with more questions than answers. There are certainly kids in your group where the dad has left the family for his girlfriend and only shows up when he’s mad or is forced to against his own will.

So how do we reach kids from broken homes? How do you explain our amazing Heavenly Father without trying to compare Him to a lousy earthly dad?

(Well first of all, don’t call their earthly dad lousy )

Here’s an idea…

Take a little of the “Sunday School Shine” off a famous dad in the Bible.

Here…let me help:

When we think of David, the stories are easy:

David the shepherd defeats Goliath the seasoned solider.

David goes from taking care of sheep, to taking care of an entire kingdom.

David conquers Jerusalem and brings the Ark of the Covenant back.

David’s name is used to describe the place where Jesus would be born: “In the city of DAVID”

David is no small figure in the Bible…he’s a man almost everyone would consider a hero of the faith.

But David’s got plenty of issues. Maybe some your kids would recognize these from their own homes:

David had a girlfriend, AFTER he had a wife.

David’s actions made many around him sick, and some even died.

David left a trail of wives and sons in his wake.

Several of David’s sons did such terrible things that we would put them in jail if they were alive today.

These actions don’t suddenly make David a disappointment, they simply make him human! All of a sudden, David sounds a little more like a dad from a broken family. David is a little more relatable than the perfect Sunday School Bible character he started out as.

This kind of look at David’s life should be a tremendous encouragement to Sunday School kids showing up for a Father’s Day lesson. The very man who is listed in Jesus’ FAMILY TREE…the man who is one of the MOST famous characters in the entire Bible is a flawed, messed up human being. He’s a dad who was far from perfect. And yet, God still chose him for greatness. Not only that, but David’s son, Solomon, would build Israel’s first permanent church building.

If you look through the Bible…MANY of the most famous characters are deeply flawed. It seems to me that God primarily chooses messed up people, from messed up places, to accomplish the greatest things for God’s kingdom.

So this Father’s Day, don’t let anyone feel left out, regardless of their family circumstances.

Talk about the fact that there are probably kids in the room who don’t have a great dad in their life…and THAT IS OK. Having a “perfect family” is not a requirement for God to love them or use them! In fact, God loves using people with a crazy family history. That’s just the kind of Dad he is!

Five Rules About Failure

By Perry Noble

Failure happens to everyone. Here’s how you should respond when it happens to you.

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1. If you are alive then there is still hope (if you’re not dead then God is not done!).
2. The biggest breakthrough is often right after the perceived breakdown!
3. Blaming other people or circumstances for the trouble in our lives (and accepting zero responsibility) means failure is imminent!
4. Our failures in the past do not have to be the focus of our future (in Christ…what we did is not who we are!).
5. No matter how dark it seems (think tomb sealed with a guard outside) God is able to do the “impossible” (think resurrection!).

Gay People Have Feelings Too

By Stephen Altrogge

“Let’s adorn the truth of the gospel with the grace of the gospel.”

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I have several friends who are gay.
Some of them embrace the homosexual lifestyle while others embrace the teachings of Scripture and fight against the sinful desires within them.
As I’ve interacted with them, I’ve come to understand something that, on the surface, seems painfully obvious and potentially even offensive to them: They have real feelings and longings and desires. 
Yes, I know. That sounds like something Mr. Rogers would say. Maybe he would even make up a cutesy song about it that he would sing while zipping up his cardigan.
But this is real and this is extraordinarily important.
Many Christians talk about the LGBTQ community in the abstract, as if they’re a homogeneous group of people who want nothing more than to destroy the Christian faith and make the entire world gay. And I will admit that the media as a whole is pretty strongly anti-Christian when it comes to the issue of sexuality. And the politically correct, never-offend-anyone atmosphere of today is incredibly frustrating.
But here’s the thing. Behind all the stories and arguments and political battles are real people, made in the image of God, who, just like me, desperately need Jesus. People who desperately desire human connection and sexual fulfillment. People who are trying to make sense of how to live in a world that is deeply and fundamentally broken.
When we call men and women to repent of homosexuality and embrace Jesus Christ, we need to realize the depths of what we’re calling them to. We’re calling them to a life of intense struggle and frustration. A life that is distinctly void of the sexual expression found in marriage. We’re calling them to lay aside something that feels central to who they are as a person. We’re calling them to give up something that seems part of their core identity.
Consider yourself. How would you feel if someone called you to a life of celibacy? How deeply would that cut against you? Would you struggle if someone told you that all your heterosexual desires are sinful? I would, and I think you would too.
My concern with all the passionate, vitriolic and even violent rhetoric about gender and bathrooms and marriage is that we’re forgetting that real people are involved. It’s easy to lob grenades from the safe bunkers of our Christian communities. It’s much harder to do that when we’re sitting across the table from a man or woman struggling deeply.
I’m not at all advocating that we soften the claims of the gospel to be more inclusive. That spells death for everyone involved. And I understand that fundamental issues of religious liberty are involved that require clear, intelligent, passionate advocacy.
But as we preach the gospel and fight for religious freedom, let’s do so with compassion. The gospel is for sinful, broken, struggling, jacked up people. If we dismiss the struggle as non-existent, the gospel isn’t good news anymore.
The gospel is a superior pleasure—it’s superior to the pleasures of sin. But to hold forth the gospel as a superior pleasure, we have to first acknowledge that sin is desirable, even if particular sins are not desirable to us.
So yes, let’s call people to repentance. Let’s call people to repent of sexual sin and cling to the gospel. But as we preach the gospel, let’s wrap it in compassion. Let’s adorn the truth of the gospel with the grace of the gospel.