Finding Overlap with LGBTQIA Activists: LGBTQIA Homeless Youth Project

Where can a person who believes homosexuality is an aspect of the sin nature’s color wheel find ways to align with the Human Rights Campaign? You know the ones who staunchly fight for marriage equality or in other words, same sex and transgender marriages? The cool thing is they do a lot more than just fight for the right to have unions before the state on par with heterosexual couples. We found just one small way to align with the more activist leaning members of the Community.  One steering committee member of HRC stated with force at one earlier meeting that there really is no overlap to what her crew (liberal secularists, I assume) and mine (conservative religious people, I think she assumes me to be a member of) believed and lived.

Every year, the San Diego chapter of the Human Rights Campaign partners with local youth service organizations that serve homeless LGBTQIA youth in San Diego. Many of these kids by the way, likely come from homes where their parents reject them and they are seeking value and acceptance and ability to live the life they feel they are meant to live-by being themselves. It wouldn’t be very unlikely that perhaps a majority of these kids are from religious homes, their rejection which pushed them to abandon the benefits of their family at the hope for the benefits of finding where they really belong. In the intersection of social rejection and placelessness, HRC seeks to help their own. They want to bring the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people of the next generation up. But, before they bring them up, they meet them where they are, even if that be wandering the streets.  This is where we can and did seek to find common ground with the Community.

From the garden of common purpose and concern, we hoped a crop would form in the Community via a small partnership between our outreach and HRC. A partnership where we also care for the poor, the rejected, and the needy-people who happen to be members of the LGBTQIA tribe.

So, we gathered our resources and we asked others to gather them with us. Together, we helped form over 700 bags filled with toiletries, particular articles of clothing to keep them warm, hygiene products to help them in practical ways that shape their worth, and other stuff that each hopefully showed them that someone cares. Here was our biggest contribution (see below for the images of the lip balms we procured). They let us acknowledge that we too love them and believe God does.

a full label for the lip balms we donated

lip balm sample, one of 750

Paul exploited the intersections of culture for the furthering of the message of a sacrificial King, with the desire for all people and creation to live under the care of His reign (Acts 17:16-34). Since Jesus and disciples who wrote the sacred text we adore as Scripture advocated for the poor, we too can hopefully bring the light of the good news to the poor in the LGBTQIA community. As Christ loved us, so do we love others—IN ACTION (Rom. 5:8).

The work of over 100 volunteers that served with HRC

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’” (Matt. 25:40).

Seeing more of the bridge: An Integrated Life….

How does the Church reach the LGBT community when the gap between us seems so wide? The culture roots for them to be authentically themselves, the Church is confused at best as to what life could be for them in Christ. And at worst, sections of the Church can be completely uninterested in them being in Christ. I have thought for a while that there are 2 camps with a large gap between them. Namely, the 2 camps are the Community and the Church. The task of this outreach is to help the LGBTQ people connect to God, but what does that really mean? Recently, I think I have seen the firm landing of an individual from the community into Christ and it wasn’t because of a recent conversion. We haven’t had one since David and Tim, the latter is the one who recommitted his life but seems shaky in his connection to Jesus still. I am starting to see more of the entire bridge and this is because I just saw someone live honestly in the Christian community, in light of their past and current needs.

Bob (a pseudonym) was once doing the Who is Jesus? Study with me, but stopped after I challenged him to share with one person he trusted at his current church. After I left him one day after our time together, our entire relationship seemed to come to a screeching halt. To understand the challenge faced by Bob, you have to understand the background story behind is journey with church.

Years prior, Bob had attended a church that completely embarrassed him and I believe, wronged him, in a very public way. One day his pastor stood up to publicly discipline Bob for some deep struggles in Bob’s life. While I don’t know the full extent of this, his sharing dealt with a drug addiction and a homosexual life. Needless to say, Bob’s relationship with this pastor and church eroded quickly. Since that time he was burned while living an integrated life, he had been unable to share his story in the new church where he had already been for 2 years. He was, in fact, not only part of the church but he was running a ministry, taking in destitute people he met on the streets, and a number of other radical things for God. He was vibrantly (and is) in love with God and thankful for the forgiveness he had received in the sacrifice of the Son. Yet, no one really knew him. He wasn’t living an integrated life where people knew his story and loved him along his journey.

It was only recently that I ran into Bob on the streets in Hillcrest, he mentioned that he had finally shared his story with his church and that he was going through great trials in his life. He mentioned that he had been recently diagnosed with cancer and lost a lot of weight after having surgery that hindered his ability to eat. He confessed he left the church for a while, but when he came back he shared his story with a trusted friend. After he shared, he told me that the pastors of the church came around him and expressed their love for him. As I saw the beauty of a reconciled community member, I knew more of what we were meant to do here in Hillcrest and with the LGBTQ.

It is not easy and not all the way clear, but we want people to have an authentic walk with Christ. That means to really be a renewed and regenerated person, with a new connection to God. But it still means, being a person. A person has a history and they have a present, both of which are often not so pretty. People live an integrated life in Christ, when in spite and in the midst of their humanity, they are surrendered to Jesus and nestled deeply in a loving community of Believers. This is the destiny for an LGBT person who accepts the call of Jesus.

My New Position with HRC: Faith co-Chair

One of the people God brought in our path is definitely a person of peace (Luke 10:5-6), as she invited me to be her co-chair at HRC (Human Rights Campaign). When I attended my first meeting, I was blown away at the manner that the twenty or so people worked together. The main leader told me that HRC is actually the biggest lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender organization in the city of San Diego and that this gathering consisted of somewhat prominent leaders within their San Diego branch. As I sat at the table I was not only struck by the diversity of the group, but also at the unity that they showed in supporting one another.

            In attendance were people from different areas of the Community (the general term the LGBT use for themselves). There were diverse gendered people, varied ethnicities, individuals representing different socio-economic backgrounds, and also a wide range of age groups. And despite the diversity, it was a commonality that they shared which brought them into deep unity in mission and purpose. One co-chair would share what they were doing and share needs they had, while many others would fill the needed positions without even seeming like they were put out by the request. They actually signed up with enthusiasm. I reflected at that point that the one unifying factor was their desire for the rights of their people, which caused them to work in deep unity even more so than what I have experienced in the Church. In one sense it was beautiful, but in another it was frightening. The beauty was their corporate unity. The aspect that brought fear in me was the level of deception that I knew lurked in their desires to bring full equality for the LGBT people. Their mission is summed as this, “HRC envisions a world where lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are embraced as full members of society at home, at work and in every community.” So where do I fit in in all this?

All I know is God brought me to a place to seek and save the lost. While doing that, a person who has been open and has been attending our events has welcomed me in and now I am a co-chair this year for the faith-outreach portion of their organization. Is it controversial? Yes, a bit. Yet, I believe God is opening up forums for discussion and also to meet with LGBT leaders in the Community. In fact, my first night at their meeting I was able to ask a married lesbian woman about her spiritual background. She stated she went to a Catholic church as a child, but found they didn’t have anything for her there. To my surprise she shared that she would be taking her daughter, as she grew older, to different religious gatherings so that she could choose which, if any, she would want to be a part of. This was my first spiritual conversation through HRC and they know I am a Christian desiring to be a Pastor. This experience caused me to feel on a small scale like a mini Paul on the verge of meetings at the Areopagus (see Acts 17), hopefully prepared and emboldened to share Jesus, so that they may turn to Him and find true freedom.

            While they are united in their odd fit into the LGBT community and seeking LGBT rights (gay marriage, for example), I am even more inspired by what God has done through the Son and the people He has formed through His precious blood and the depth of unity God has for His people. I want to out community the LGBT community, but I tell you, it won’t be easy. Even more, I want to reach them with the Gospel.