Nathan* has led the youth ministry at his mid-sized, pan-Asian church for 8 years. For five of those he’s been asking for an open conversation about where the church leadership stood with LGBTQ people. It’s taken that long to get them to even consider his question.
It started in 2019 when Nathan polled the youth about the top things that they wanted to talk about. You guessed it, LGBTQ inclusion topped the list. Although the church only performed weddings for heterosexual couples, Nathan was told by those in authority, “Our church doesn’t have a position, so don’t talk about it.” The LGBTQ topic was struck from the curriculum. Reflecting on that experience, Nathan said, “I regret not doing that topic last time, whether or not the church had a stated position. We still needed to talk about it.”
So often it’s the youth pastors who feel the pinch first - caught between youth that DEFINITELY want to talk about LGBTQ issues and a church leadership that definitely does NOT want to talk about them.
Here are the three big reasons why LGBTQ questions put youth workers in a bind.
1. The Issue is Evangelism
“They dropped a spiritual ultimatum on us: if my gay friends can’t come then I ain’t coming.”
The primary challenge Nathan found himself bringing to his elder board was that his students refused to bring other students to the youth group. They would tell him, “I think I would invite my friend to youth group but it doesn’t feel safe unless I know what to say to them about how we handle gay students.” The concern was that they might bring a friend (a huge risk for a teenager) and then something might get said that was dismissive or judgmental of the queer community. Then the Christian student would lose both social standing and the opportunity to share Christ.
Tony pastors the young adults at a small African American congregation in a dense urban setting. He said something very similar. At one point, his own kids and the other pastor’s kids told them they would no longer be bringing friends to youth group. “They dropped a spiritual ultimatum on us: if my gay friends can’t come then I ain’t coming.”
In a ministry setting where friendship evangelism is everything, youth pastors feel stuck. Tony said straight out that his curiosity about being LGBTQ questions was an evangelism issue. In a context where 9.5% of teens are identifying as non-straight, this is a big issue. Just last month a youth pastor of a very conservative church in the Pacific Northwest told me that a third of his students identified as LGBTQ and he had no idea what to do with them.
2. Helping Students Find Their Own Faith
“We have gay kids in our youth group but their parents don’t know,” one youth pastor told me recently. He was hoping their church would enter into the conversations about LGBTQ questions in order to give him some better guidance on what to tell these youth. This youth pastor had no formal theological training, and though his church had a traditional sexual ethic, it had been very light on teaching it. As he put it, “there was a lack of clarity” and that wasn’t working anymore.
His purpose in youth group was to help students take the faith of their parents and to make it their own. That typically meant creating space for questions and teaching students to develop their own relationship with Christ. But helping students hear from God themselves got more complicated when it came to issues of sexual orientation and gender identity because students often saw following Jesus in this area differently than their parents.
While his youth have ended up growing close with Christ, many have also become LGBTQ affirming. That’s brought tension with their parents, who have typically seen LGBTQ affirmation as heresy. So the youth worker felt conflicted because he accomplished his goal – helping kids own their own faith – but got pressure from their parents because doing so ended up looking different than they wanted it to.
3. Trying to Keep People in the Church
A volunteer youth worker in a large, mostly White suburban church told me last week that she was the only adult volunteer in the church that the youth ministry could find who would lead a small group with LGBTQ kids in it. “They didn’t care what my theology was, they just wanted someone who wasn’t scared of the kids,” she told me. “They just really didn’t want these kids and their families to leave the church.”
That fear is real. Plenty of people are leaving the church. NPR says that the ‘nones’ (those without a religion) are now the single largest religious cohort in America, comprising 28% of the population to the evangelicals’ 24%. And why are people leaving? In a recent major poll, 47% of those who left church in the past year said it was because of the church’s harsh treatment of LGBTQ people. Youth workers are on the front lines, seeing students leave the church for these reasons and not having the tools to do ministry around LGBTQ questions.
Although it’s scary, perhaps it’s time that the church start having conversations about LGBTQ questions that wisely and graciously include all the differing perspectives in our churches. At Small Church Big Table, we understand the fears (and hopes) that faith leaders have about these conversations.
Starting a Process Helps
Urban context of their church and their growing youth ministry require a more thoughtful approach.
Nathan’s church has recently taken seriously his repeated requests for clarity about how to approach LGBTQ students. They’ve begun the conversation.
The head pastor at Nathan’s church has been a key advocate for the process. He wasn’t on staff when Nathan was first told not to talk about the issues, but he’s no stranger to that line of thinking. He’s currently part of a denomination that discourages churches from having conversations around LGBTQ questions. But the urban context of their church and their growing youth ministry require a more thoughtful approach.
Nathan’s church is considering officially allowing for theological diversity around things like gay marriage. While they don’t anticipate becoming fully affirming, they may recognize that faithful Christians disagree about these issues and allow into leadership those with differing views. However, if they open up this issue to more than just the traditional perspective, it may mean that the denomination will dis-fellowship them. But to stay faithful to the gospel in their context, they are willing to face that potential outcome.
There are Resources for this Conversation!
For churches looking to have conversation around LGBTQ questions, Small Church Big Table provides cohorts and/or individualized coaching for church leaders wanting to explore these issues in a safe context where Jesus is centered and where best practices are explored. We run webinars and cohorts for youth workers as well.
*Nathan and Tony gave permission to have their first names shared in this blog
-Bill