Some have said, “If my kids have any chance of maintaining belief in the gospel and staying connected to the church, this has to become a nonissue for a while.” Those parents left our church to go to another where the gospel is preached but this subject is never broached, churches similar to the one Stanley calls for. I know of members of our church-godly, Bible-believing, mature Christians-who had older kids struggling with questions of this nature. Hard conversations need to happen across coffee tables, not pontificated from stages or dogmatized in documents. Not at the expense of truth, he’d add-just before it. Relationships come before truth, he often says. I’ve repeated those words often at The Summit Church.įor Stanley, this isn’t about a cultural argument to be won it’s about people to be reached. I remember hearing a message nearly 15 years ago where he expounded on Acts 15:19, saying, “I wish I could write this over the door of every church in America: we should not make it hard for Gentiles who are turning to God.” His words moved me deeply, and I wept in my seat. One of the biggest influences Stanley’s ministry has had on me is his focus on reaching people.
Let’s assume the reason they’re hesitant to publicize this is that they don’t want to create obstacles for LGBT+ individuals who are searching for God. I do know that they require those seeking leadership to affirm that they are not engaging in or pursuing a same-sex relationship.įor the sake of argument, let’s assume they are indeed “not affirming,” meaning they believe the Bible teaches God’s only plan for sex is between a man and a woman in the context of marriage, and anything else is sinful. Thus we have to assume Northpoint’s assurances only mean they’re not “affirming,” not that they’re “not affirming.” Whether this is true only Stanley can clarify, and I hope he’ll do it soon. Perhaps this isn’t surprising, given one of Stanley’s reported comments at Drive was that identifying yourself (or your church) as either “affirming” or “not affirming” will alienate someone. Some have reported that Northpoint assures them neither they nor Stanley is “affirming.” No official statement exists, however, where Northpoint or Stanley endorse an exclusively traditional Christian marriage and sex ethic, though many have asked for one. Pastors who declare they are affirming or not affirming are taking the church away from someone unnecessarily. you can say goodbye to the next generation. I know the “clobber passages,” alright? We’ve got to figure this out. Pastors set direction and they monitor the pace they do not set the pace. Prophets drop in and drop truth bombs, and then they get on their chariot and go to the next place and drop truth. A gay person who still wants to attend church after the way the church has treated them. As long as they think that we don’t understand that, they can’t hear us. What does this have to do with the next generation? Everything.
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