“There’s an interesting connecting point with the quarantine and the amount of students especially who are coming out, who are questioning their sexuality or maybe even questioning their gender identity.”
“Five years ago, when it comes to engaging LGTBQ people, [churches] were asking questions like, what’s at stake if we do engage LGTBQ people? Now they’re asking, what’s at stake if we don’t?”
“I think that that’s really, really interesting that you have younger people who relate or identify as LGTBQ who say, ‘I don’t have to agree with everything a church believes to attend. I just need to know there’s a place for me.’”
“Nobody is going to leave one community and make their church their primary community if they don’t feel safe there or comfortable there.”
“Personally, I would have a tough time listening to a pastor preach a sermon on tithing if that pastor weren’t tithing…I think it’s really hard to preach on things if you don’t have moral authority to preach on those things and the experience because without the experience, you’re not going to have the empathy. Because nobody is empathetic from a distance.”
“God is the most empathetic being in the entire universe.”
“I do talk to a lot of pastors, and can’t tell you the number of pastors who will say, well I don’t have anyone in my congregation who is gay or lesbian or experiencing gender dysphoria or same-sex attracted, and I always laugh and say, good one… because they are there.”
“There are plenty of people that I know who are in same-sex relationships, or who agree with that, that who do not agree with the Equality Act.”
“The less we assume about individuals, the easier it will be for us to get to know them.”
“I think that’s another important question: how far am I willing to go to build and keep influence in another person’s life?”
“We don’t ever want to be people who participate in the culture war. And sometimes I think we can unknowingly and unintentionally start participating.”
“Some of these conversations, the deeper elements of them, are best had in small groups, one on one.”
“Even people that don’t believe in Jesus, like him. So I think there’s something to be said about starting a sermon or a topic that’s very, very difficult with the words of Jesus.”
“One of the biggest mandates, even when we don’t know what to do, we do know that we are supposed to walk next to people.”
“We have to be willing to be uncomfortable.”
Mentioned in the Show by Caleb Kaltenbach
God of Tomorrow: How to Overcome the Fears of Today and Renew Your Hope for the Future by Caleb Kaltenbach
Messy Grace: How a Pastor with Gay Parents Learned to Love Others Without Sacrificing Conviction by Caleb Kaltenbach
Messy Truth: How to Foster Community without Sacrificing Conviction by Caleb Kaltenbach
Equality Act Document, a free resource from Caleb for church leaders
Check out Caleb’s website
Follow Caleb on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
Brene Brown
Reggie Joiner
Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges
