Will you still love my children?

I love my church family, the Christians who share my faith, nurture and support me. But sometimes I want to ask them some questions:

Would you still love me if I thought differently from you? (Not about the big things – God as our Father, Jesus as our Saviour and the Holy Spirit who is our strength – but about other things.)

What if, by thoughtfully and prayerfully studying scripture, I came to a different understanding from you?

Would you still love me as one of our fellowship? And, more than that, would you even still like me?

I love my family – extended, blended and messy as it is. And my kids know that wherever they go in the world, they can always come home, to a place of acceptance and love. This makes me wonder: is church truly a loving and accepting home for everyone?

Fear my children would be rejected

After many years of questioning and long conversations, some of my children came out as LGBTQ+. My first thought was not any kind of fear about their sexuality, but fear of how the family – church and biological – would react. Would they be rejected?

I knew my children. I knew they loved God, and that telling people about God and living in a way that honoured him was very important to them. And yet I feared for them. I feared because statistically people who ‘come out’ are more likely to lose touch with their families, to lose their church, to lose the whole structure of their lives. The people who used to love them could suddenly see and treat them differently.

Studies from the US and UK suggest that LGBTQ+ individuals from conservative religious backgrounds are up to three times more at risk of suicide.

I was stressed and distressed by the fear that our church might reject my precious children

The fear of telling the truth about yourself to your church family is extreme. How can we live as a loving community if part of the body of Christ is not accepted, loved, celebrated and cared for like any other minority? 

I don’t know whether the people reading this are affirming (that is, fully inclusive), traditional (believing that being gay is a sin), accepting (loving everyone, but gay people must either change or be celibate) or have never thought about it. I can only tell you that I was stressed and distressed by the fear that our church might reject my precious children, and hurt and sabotage their relationship with Jesus and with the fellowship of believers. How could I as a parent love them, dedicate them to God and trust God with them, and yet fear their pain and rejection? Yes, I feared their rejection by the very community that had nurtured them, and claimed to love them unconditionally – until the unconditional challenged their beliefs.

The wrong obsession

Since starting this journey with my children and learning more about their sexuality, I have come to notice that many people are unwilling to engage with these topics of conversations in a non-biased, objective, prejudice-free way. The Church seems to be obsessed with monitoring sex and sexuality; I want to change that so the Church becomes obsessed with love. I would like Christians to be willing to sit alongside people, to communicate and listen, to learn and understand. This isn’t about the Church becoming ‘up-to-date’ with the ever-changing world we live in, but rather about giving time and space to revisit theology, conversations and scripture, and forming opinions based on knowledge rather than rhetoric. This is about trusting God with his creation: he created the universe, and I believe he can speak to each individual about their life.

Sometimes as Christians we need to hold our ideas about fellowship and love up against Jesus’ way of loving. Is it OK to accept one another if we see things differently? Do we assume some viewpoints are right just because lots of church people take them for granted? If you’ve never spoken to a gay person, maybe it’s time to sit and ask a few questions. Be brave enough admit that you don’t understand. Ask: “Can you help me to understand?”

Our God is a great God – a God of love, a God who made and understands every single one of us. I want to be someone who sees God’s creation as a fabulous tapestry of diverse and multifaceted humans, who can come together with all their differences of background and viewpoints into one glorious fellowship of love.

Welcoming everyone

I trust God with my children – all of them, no matter what their sexuality or where they are in their faith journey. God is so much bigger than me, and his love cannot be less than mine. 

I can’t control much in this world, but I can control how I respect his creation, how I honour and celebrate the people he has made – and that’s what I want to do. I don’t believe we all have to agree about everything, but I believe that we all have to trust God and his divine purposes. We have to trust each other on our individual journeys of faith. I accept that you may have a different view; I respect your beliefs, as we should respect and accept and support everyone with a heart and passion for Jesus.

Sometimes there’s a price to pay for sticking to our priorities. I try to be brave.

I’m willing not to be popular, if it means I can be inclusive.

I’m willing to be cancelled, if it means I can be accepting.

I’m willing to have a family that keeps challenging me and growing more truthful and honest rather than a superficially conformist happy one.

I’m willing to have a messy faith rather than a false one.

God said to his people: “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch the tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes” (Isaiah 54:2). In the desert places, hospitality is everything, and a tent can always be extended to make a place for the weary, the lost and the traveller, to welcome them home.

Everyone should be welcome and be given the opportunity to find a home in God’s house.