Our church currently holds two services. The demographics of both are vastly different. Our early service tends to be young adults or younger families with children (there are some exceptions) and youth. Our later service tends to be an older demographic who prefers a more traditional style of worship.We have about the same attendance numbers in both services. I keep kicking around the idea of combining the two and just having one service but I’m afraid the results would be disastrous because the two groups are so different in terms of preferences/styles. We have a sanctuary that is large enough to accommodate both groups in a combined service (we can seat around 600 in our current sanctuary).
Homosexuality is a sin. It is not consistent with a christian lifestyle. That said, we have to make sure that we have a consistent gospel. Two preachers slapping each other on that back and lusting after a pretty girl that goes by is just as much a sin being gay. We all have flesh and with that comes desires that we have to say “no” to to live holy. We have to preach the truth but we need to live the truth as well. Are we as quick to call out alcoholics, dirty joke tellers, gossipers, fornicators, non-tithers, people in adulterous marriages, etc.?
Read “After The Ball”, they’re own manifesto and understand their agenda or “Making Gay OK” and you will discover the reason for God declaring it a sin. The issue of gay marriage is about far more than sexual practices. It is about the transforming of the very fabric of society; the radical reordering of society’s views of reality.
For Pentecostals, especially Wesleyan Pentecostals who traditionally place a high value on scripture and consider the nature of scripture to be instructive and transformative, the issue is not whether homosexuals are sinning. That’s a given for anyone who takes scripture and the tradition of the church as being a good indication of what orthodoxy should entail. The issue is how we should treat homosexuals and prepare to minister to them and what role should they or any blatant sinner or addict be permitted to engage in on the local church level. The question is, how should churches respond to the LGBT community? How do we speak truth in love to them? Are we able to have a “Come as you are.” mentality?
Jim Price, I think the problem you keep bumping into is the way you interpret God’s will in scripture. Good dies not intervene in human decisions, he tries to influence them instead. He wants us to choose him. Soon confess when we don’t. Destruction of various kinda come add a result of poor decisions. The Bible merely recorded that fact with much of these stories you are referencing from the Old Testament. The New Testament also contains several very clear references to homosexuality and other sexually deviant behavior as sin and also as an indication of a society or a mind that had reached a point of moral depravity. The guesswork confess in to say, “This is what some of you were!” In other words, there is redemption. Many Christians are former homosexuals, adulterers, liars, thieves, etc…. God knows how to redeem people’s lives and the time. That’s the good news….even for homosexuals who think they were born that way. We are all born in sin. All of us are born bent towards one or more particular types of sin…..BUT God who is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from All unrighteousness. That’s the good news.
Well thought out response.