Answers to Gender & Sexual Identity Questions Webinar

I have Ted Witzig, Jr with me, Ted needs little introduction. Thanks for being here Ted and Ted is a Psychologist and Pastor and Elder of our church, and we’re looking forward to getting in this topic. Thank you each one to invest an hour of your time in the middle of the day.

I think we all understand how important this matter is. I’m going to set and frame up the conversation that we’re going to have here in the next hour and then we’ll get right into the content. So really, our aim here is to provide some most important things to know as it concerns mentoring individuals who have sexual and gender identity questions. So, this is geared towards the audience of mentors, Ted. And so, we’re thinking about that individual who is working with and who’s head is in a relationship with somebody, and all matters of life are important to a mentor. And so, we’re trying to give just this is not going to be an exhaustive address of this very important topic. No, I think one of the things is some mentors are going to be dealing with people in high school for example, and some will be older, and we understand that the context of what we share some is going to have to be geared up or geared down based on the individuals that you’re working with for sure.

And let’s start with our heart in the matter is our purpose statement there for our church to glorify God is loving as Jesus loves is such an inspiring right? It’s huge. It’s so huge. So inspiring to see Christ interact with people, the people came to him. It’s an amazing. It is amazing and often the people that were outcast the people that were that would have been considered far from him, but we’re drawn to him and I think that’s the amazing thing and it really gives us a vision for what it means to connect with people, forces to kind of keep track of here in this presentation that I think are somewhat goals for us, Ted, is conviction for truth. Compassion for people. Context for the experience and comfort in Christ.

It’s just the fact that that we believe that the Bible is true. And because we do is so important that our compassion for people follows the example of Christ the context of what’s going on. We live in in this day and age when things in our society and world are changing rapidly and sometimes in ways that are surprising sometimes not surprising, but we have to understand the context that we live in and then we just take comfort in Christ who he was is and what it means for us and that we don’t have to fix all things. He’s making all things new and so we pull all this together and for a mentor to really embrace these four C’s I think is important because sometimes they seem to be in conflict.

Yeah, but they’re really not. I have found context for example to be very helpful in bringing about compassion. I think sometimes we can ignore the context of the matter and it’s easy for us to have conviction on truth without that and so there’s a lot to keep in balance and that’s why the example of Christ is so comforting and if we could land there and that Christ is big enough to put his arms. Do you think we’re going to be able to perfectly do that during this? I don’t think so. But we’re going to do our best, but I will say this, Ted, we will learn from this experience as we have learned from every experience and doing that, and Ted and I just had a conversation before this on how much how much we’ve been blessed by the perspectives of individuals in this space and out of this space and helping us understand. So, thank you for your patience as we move through this.

Let’s look at the outline. There’s a lot here on the screen, but I want you to see some of the shape here for this webinar. The number one thing to know about sexual and gender identity, Ted. Again, our aim is like what do you need to know? There’s a lot that we need to know but for this hour let’s hold just a couple of things. So, we’ve selected four, looking at vocabulary, looking at identity scripts, looking at gender roles, and then looking at influences. So, those would be the things that we’re going to center on. And they’re really geared to help a mentor say okay, those are some things I can pick up I can grow, and I can learn I understand that.

Yeah, the number two moving into some common questions to the mentor. So, imagine a mentee coming to a mentor and saying what if I’m questioning my gender identity my sexual orientation, right and then for questions follow they might ask that individual am I alone in this? Why am I struggling with this? What does God think of this struggle? Right? What can I do about it? These are just high stakes questions. Yeah, and some of these questions may not be asked outright, but they are asked under the conversation that question of am I alone is just lurking right there, you know, and so we just need to be able to speak into these things to touch hearts.

The number three looking at a direction to walk. This one is simply an attempt to provide a direction. Yeah, maybe for a mentor to apprehend and say okay that guides me now. It is. This can be a confusing and ever-changing walk with people but it’s helpful to kind of have some direction and in terms of where we’re going but it’s going to be different based on the individuals that you’re working with. And then finally resources pointing you to resources that we’ve found to be very helpful.

So, let’s get right into it. The first one is vocabulary is important. Okay. So, we’ve got a grid here on the screen. That’s it. Got some headings and some axis here. Once you walk us through, we’re not going to go through each of these terms. We don’t have time for that and there’s other places that folks can go to get those things. But give us a Yep, so I think a couple things the vocabulary number one is changing rapidly. Number two. There are some things about vocabulary particularly in the transgender space about pronouns that are rapidly developing and also, it’s a hornet’s nest because of how hot that topic is both in and outside of Christendom. Let’s go through this thing and I’m going to cross the top first and I particularly want to note a sexual orientation and gender identity when we talk about that. We’re actually talking about sexual orientation means who someone is sexually attracted to, okay. So that is about sexual attraction where gender identity in and of itself is not about a sexual attraction. It’s about how somebody perceives themselves as male or female or along a spectrum. And so, I think one of the things because you have that acronym LGBT a lot of times transgenderism is kind of lumped in to be the same thing as sexual identity and they’re different and so it’s important. Can I just accent? I’m sure I mean That’s a classic I think an example where we can quickly get into a ditch with an individual. Yeah, if they perceive that we can’t separate those two matters and that we simply lump them all together. No, they deserve their own dignity and separate them out.

So yeah, it’s really held in vocabulary. I think one of the things too is it’s often really just helpful to talk with people and just ask them questions and just ask them about what the words and terms mean to them so you can get a sense of that because otherwise you might be using the same term as another person. Giving that term different definitions on the left-hand side there. We have a binary and non-binary. For most of time, this was all kind of putting up in a binary category. It was either this or this you were either straight or gay. Obviously, there was bisexuality where you could be on both and but the reality particularly gender identity is you’re either male or female biologically, we would say that’s true. But with the fact of the matter is the debate right now or the issue going on is how much someone’s biological sex either matches or doesn’t match what they perceive their gender identity to be and the non-binary space.

This is where this is growing rapidly because as things progress more and more people are not looking at this as a binary issue either or they’re looking at it as a continuum and oftentimes fluid across that continuum. So oftentimes people are coming up. So, you’re this but you’re attracted to this and you’re in kind of like wanting to figure out where people are and people are oftentimes more kind of more comfortable with a continuum or saying I’m not on that continuum, you know those kinds of things and so I think that’s where you really need to be able to ask questions. It is again. I can’t stress enough how a word being used by one person does not indicate the meaning to the next. Good example of that is transgender. You haven’t yet both of those quadrants there. Yeah, so it could mean binary it could be non-binary and the only way to know would be to ask and have a conversation and what do you mean by transgender? Yeah. I think another thing is sometimes there’s a large debate about terms and how to use terms and if using terms means that you automatically agree with somebody in terms of how they’re using those terms is particularly true of pronouns of somebody wants to change they’re a male pronoun. They want to change to a female pronoun, or they want to change their name to a non-gendered name for example, and I think this is one of those that people are going to land in different places on.

I will just give a couple of pointers something out there that just to consider because some people are going to be more comfortable with using the terms that somebody uses and some people are going to feel very much like some people even feel like well, I’m lying if I if or I’m being dishonest if I use another term, I will say two things in general. The younger the child we’re talking about a very young child. There’s so much development happening there that overemphasizing a change too early definitely isn’t I would say isn’t helpful a lot of the time. There’s going to be debate on that. People are going to say you know, he’s off base there but I would say that what happens is the older somebody gets. So, if you’re talking to somebody who’s, you know out of college or in college and they’re again not that there’s not development going on, but I think one of the things is that oftentimes if you don’t use the name or pronouns that they want to be known by that ends the conversation right there. Okay. It’s such an issue that it’s a conversation stopper. Like we can’t have a relationship.

I would say that my bias on this, Matt, is that in order to have that place of where we’re going to love as Jesus loves we have to have a relationship and I’m willing to join them in that space of how they’re naming themselves are using their pronoun so that I can have relationship. There are other places that perhaps I couldn’t cross but that’s a place that if that’s going to be the stopper, I would rather be able to move into a relationship and have that relationship. Now people will differ on that. Yeah. That’s right. I really appreciate that.

I want to pull a few things together. Number one is thank you for many of you who signed up online and you provide us some questions and pronoun use was one of those questions and you can see how that’s been addressed. We’re going to try to address some of those questions. So, thank you for that. Very thoughtful questions that came in. Our questions are coming from experiences. Yes, coming from people loving on people. And they come forward. So, thank you for that. But what I hear you say in that address of that particular issue is that it’s very nuanced. Yes, and there’s going to be different opinions. Yeah, within the church on how to use that but you gave two different things to think about. One is relationship. Yeah, and you also gave maturity. Yeah, longevity of the person in this experience. Yeah, that would be some sort of a something to think about exactly. There’s a big difference between a second grader that says, “Hey Mommy today, I think I’m a girl” and then you just jump in and go. Okay, we’re going to treat you, you know versus someone that has really gone through something later on. It’s a tough issue because we know that the amount of fluidity and change is just almost a wild card. For how this develops for different people? Yeah, let’s use this slide simply to say this, Ted. There’s vocabulary, vocabulary is important, but you can find definitions for things pretty easily and Google search. Yeah, you can find so if there’s a new term that that the mentee is using or what not ask about it be sure and we can find those things in terms of what’s being said, so we’re not going to unpack all of those.

Let’s move on to the next in the next important thing to know from vocabulary is this concept of identity. Yeah, roles scripts. There’s something really key here that I think really lets a mentor loose to interact in this space. Yeah. It’s important to understand this goes back to the sea of context at the beginning because the script is kind of like if you will it’s kind of the expected action or like how something’s going to unfold. When you go to a restaurant and you’re waiting to be seated by the by the waiter or waitress. If somebody’s lying on the floor there, that does not fit your script of what’s supposed to happen at a restaurant. Okay, and so that’s an example of you know, what’s supposed to happen in a place, and you know, it’s not supposed to happen in a place. Well, the popular script around sexual identity and gender identity is really this that attractions and feelings, okay, are the way that we distinguish between things. Now, of course, we do that I do that you do that. But what ends up happening is it ends up saying essentially that experience or attractions or whatever are not only important I would say they’re important, but they would say they are core that they are core to who you are, and they tell you exactly who you are.

And so if you have a feeling or you don’t have a feeling it tells you who you are and what it does is it puts experience at the top of the list in terms of what is true and not true and then what ends up happening and is if you have that experience and that is core to who you are then the culture says this that living out that identity, living out those feelings, behaving in that way is the only way that you’ll ever experience fulfillment and that you will not have pain. It is and I think that is the central or I’m sure there’s other scripts out there, but it is a very big script happening in American society. But all over the world today is that my feelings are the indicator of all truth.

Now, okay. I just want to sketch out a little bit that shape and so really, you’re looking here at the popular script that Ted just really walked through where there is attractions or feelings. And those inform me about who I am which follows directly after that then I need to behave and align my behavior with that which then also then my fulfillment and human flourishing is dependent upon that behavior. Yeah, they all have to line up. Yeah. Okay, so you’re going to set that aside and look at a very hopeful Christian script. Yeah, and I think one of the things that I would say is that the Christian script is different because we have a different worldview about what those things mean. So, first of all, we would just say that that various attractions and feelings don’t necessarily signal a distinction among that says this is who you are. This is who you have to be. I think the reason for that is that human experience, human that what we have and feelings and thoughts and things there are many different kinds of experiences that are just not the way it’s supposed to be. What I mean by that is that everyone in different ways experiences things that just that come out of the fact that life is touched by the fall at the beginning of time, but just in relationships identity things just are the way they are.

So, what does that mean? Why do I say that? It’s because this number two is that you can choose to center your identity around aspects of your experience. And so, here’s the thing the world says that what I feel tells me who I am and what I have to do. The Christian calling actually says that God is the one as the Creator, God is the one who is the center of all things and he in many ways, he is the pinnacle of what our identity is and then there are other aspects of our identity. The world kind of looks at it and says your sexual identity tells you everything about you. I would say yes, our sexual identity tells us something about us. But so does my career so does my faith so does my biological sex so does my vocation or callings in life. So do my relationships. There are many aspects that fill out our identity. And so for the Christian what it means to be a human being what it means to be a person in the identity of Christ means that first and foremost that our identity in Christ is number one. Okay, and everything else falls under that identity. That’s so important for us to remember. It’s true whether you’re dealing with a sexual identity crisis or not.

The fact is that that if, for example, your identity in any other way any other skill talent whatever is above Christ in the Christian sense, that needs to be reordered. It’s out of line that thing and I would even go as far to say if my identity as a psychologist is above my identity in Christ and I’m gonna say my identity as a psychologist as an idol to me. It’s beyond that. So, I think one of the things we want to do is give the wonderful and hopeful message that all of us need the help of Christ. A first and foremost by faith put him first. Okay, and then by grace that he then brings these other aspects of our life into alignment to Him. And we’re all a work in progress, right? I’m a work in progress. Me, too. You know what I really like about this, Ted, look at the hope that’s here. And again, this is to help mentors as you’re thinking about the people that you’re working with.

This might be a way off for individuals and that’s fine. But at least it helps us the first. The popular script says we are a product of our feelings and attractions and experiences. The Christian script says we are a product of what our faith. Yeah, which is I think a really exciting message and I just go back to when Christ was baptized. God pronounced in that moment who he was. Yeah. This is my beloved Son. Yeah. Well, God does what I think God does yes, is he pronounces on people there who they are and then that allowed Christ to walk into his wilderness. One of the things I love that Matt and I would just out of that I would encourage everyone. That when they’re dealing with somebody or regardless of us who are dealing with a sexual and gender identity as you’re not but since we’re dealing with that, let’s talk about that. One of the things that I would encourage you no matter where this person is in terms of how close they are to Christ or whether they’re behavior is where you think it should be or not. One of the things I would really encourage you to remember that as you look at them think about Jesus looking at that person or God. Look at that person saying beloved. Okay, it is so easy to see, you know, sometimes whether it’s the teenager with purple hair whether you know, whatever it is okay, or whether it’s to be able to look at them and then to remember that term beloved and just remember that we’re working alongside of them in that way. If you look at this and say this is a project my job is to fix this project that is going to lead you in so many ways that are not only not helpful but also are counterproductive.

Yeah, let’s move along then. So, we’ve talked about vocabulary identity rules. Let’s look at the gender roles now. Okay. I’ve got a picture up here. I’ll do a little of explaining on that down here at the bottom. We have chromosomes XY XX chromosomes. So, we have our biological sex and that’s printed in every cell of the body. We have that coded but we have this expansive moving out to gender right now. Years ago, gender and biological sex would have meant the exact same thing, but now they are nuanced. So, this is a little bit of a vocabulary instruction. Gender today does mean something different and there is a social cultural construct to it now. I’ll give a story as an example. My mother-in-law who is Japanese, bought me a new wallet a beautiful leather wallet. And I needed a wallet, and I was glad for it. And so, I was delighted to get it, but it was so big I couldn’t get it in my back pocket or if I got it in my back pocket, I couldn’t sit down, and it was way too uncomfortable. It had lots of pockets and snaps and all kinds of stuff to it. But ask my wife and she said well, that’s meant to go into a bag. It’s not meant to go into your pocket. Right? So, there’s an example where in the Japanese culture having a bag a guy is to have a bag. Yeah, their wallet in it. Yeah, and in my culture that would be something that gender speaks to? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you told because we wouldn’t say “hey Matt, you know why you’re carrying the purse?” Yeah. Okay, you know, right so there is And so I think that’s an example that helps us understand. Now, is there anything I mean, is there anything wrong with carrying a bag? No, not at all. Not at all. But in my culture, there is an expectation that placed on that. Yeah, and so what you see here is the classic frogs and snails and puppy dog tails along the one side here. So, let’s suppose this is a classic boy, right according to that tale or that poem would be over here and sugar and spice and all things nice. That’s what little girls are made of that’s all the way over here. Ted, the experience of everybody on the planet is not classic boy girl am I right on that? So, there’s some rules here that people find their experience deviant, or they deviate from UVA. They deviate from what in their own mind is classic, right? And so, I think that’s an important level set understanding set and that roles are a big deal for sure. And I think one of the things that happens is that so if you have a boy who is who is very artistic, musical and gifted and that in that regard. Okay, that is a great gift and a blessing. Okay and what an opportunity for the Lord to use that and so if you kind of have a very rigid perspective of what things have to be or not be it’s like no boys don’t do music, boys go play in the mud.

Well, let me ask you a question. Was King David more of a man when he took down Goliath or when he was writing poetry? Oh, it’s a great example, Matt, because in David what you have is you have this concept of masculinity that is both Warrior and King, but you also have this poet you have some musical. You also have a man who was very articulate with emotion. Yeah, okay, which characteristically men are not in tune with, and he was able to engage in relationships right relationship with a very close relationship with Jonathan. Right? So, I think we find a person in David as a completely refreshing reversal or upending gender roles to understand that wow, am I thinking too narrowly? There was a time maybe when teasing a person about being a tomboy, for example, didn’t have an effect, but I’m not sure today. Yeah, that is appropriate.

Yeah, I think one of the things we have to do is just understand that when sometimes we say what’s appropriate for a boy or a girl, we’re not saying that they’re there isn’t training or teaching that can be done. That’s not at all. But I think one of the things that happens is that sometimes we’re actually speaking more about our culture than we are about something that is biblical. We believe that God created male and female. That’s not the point here. We would see that is very true. And affirm that the flip side is to say that every boy is going to look like every boy, you know in this, and every girl is going to be just like this and when we do that, we accidentally apply a cookie cutter where God didn’t make a cookie cutter. Yeah. Yeah, and we have ideas being positive in minds that are questioning going back to that feeling experience saying oh now I feel yeah odd because I enjoy the arts and I’m male yeah. What maybe what we should do then is surround that young individual with good male art role model. Yeah, and there’s a lot out there. Yeah, right. Yeah, and instead of switching out the paintbrush for a gun, right? Yeah.

Anyway again, as you can tell a lot can be said about gender roles, but there is a lot here that’s embedded in this matter. So, it’s something important, I think to have an understanding of. Let’s go now to this the fourth and final informational piece of this webinar. And that is the effect of influence. Yeah Ted. We’ve got this individual here and these sound blurbs, this impact of influence. I don’t know in talk about any of them. But yeah, I think when I look at this, I love the graphic because it really highlights that there are messages and some of those messages are very overt. Some are very subtle, some the person is very aware of, and some they are not and so I think one of the things that happens is that often times when growing up, a child is very much aware of parental influence. Their biology is going to really be aware because a lot of kids are well, I’m a boy you’re a girl, you know that they’re those kinds of things but then and even the desire to love God out of a very simple, I’m excited to go to church those things. But as time goes on particularly in adolescence, one of the things that happens is being born in tune with social with what the peers who the people on Instagram and TikTok. So, then what starts to happen is feelings and experience start becoming not only very powerful, but they start becoming in many ways. The social feeling is an experience start raising up in a way that kind of like some for some people starts to block out parents’ biology and God. Okay, and these things are designed. I think none of these are bad in and of themselves. Okay, but we need to understand that there’s a lot going on there. And I think that’s where as we as people that love others who want to be in part of somebody’s social sphere to be able to speak to and help them to understand and contain their feelings and to put experience in the perspective. That doesn’t mean that you’re going to necessarily agree or disagree with every experience they have or conclusion, but to be able to be part of that is also really helps you to speak to this too though. Not only are these all speaking but the brokenness of these things.

Oh, okay. So, you work in trauma, for example, yeah, sometimes experience that a person has been very, very much affected by a traumatic experience, an abuse, right sure or from parents or abuse that is interpreted as God. Yeah, right. We have some things that are very impactful on the human no question and I would say that you bring this up, Matt, in a way that reminds me that life and all of us are dealing with things that are working very well and then some aspects that have either been traumatized or that haven’t followed the path that God would have or social relationships. We all know that people sometimes have people in their lives that are wonderful influences in high school and others are not such or pressures in those places. And so we need to understand that each person that comes to us isn’t going to share the same combination of experiences that you have. So when you look at all these things and say, oh, well, I always knew that God loves me and my dad he was just always so positive to me. You know, somebody else can’t go no dad wasn’t there or you know what I or you know, I feel very detached from God right now. And that’s where that just understanding this variety of things that’s going on. It is important in both the positive parts and influences, but also the place where there is something that either is malformed or is actually broken or need somebody.

What I really hear out of that too, Ted, is sometimes we can oversimplify this matter for sure to say. Oh, this is a choice. This is a simple choice. We’re going to get to that. Yeah, but we can see here that there’s a lot that bears in on our makeup and some of it I want to mention just on biology you did already, but I think right now culturally which is interesting because biology is scientific. Yeah, and that seems to have a have a good place at the marketplace of ideas. Yeah, it usually does. Yeah, but it seems like in this matter biology doesn’t, which is really interesting, but I just want to I know you’ve thought a lot about this too. Yeah, Jesus came and lived in our bodies. Yeah, isn’t that amazing? Yeah. So, Jesus in a beautiful way says the body is a good thing. Yeah. I don’t know. I think there’s something there, right? I do too. I think one of the most fascinating fields going on right now in medicine is genetics and sequencing the human genome and all kinds of things that they’re tailoring medicine to and the fascinating thing is the more and more that medicine for example is looking at genetics, which is about some of those codes which every cell in the body is encoded. That way societally is kind of like yeah. Yeah, we know that’s really important. And yeah, we’ll figure it out on our own you know, and that’s not uncommon in life in the world because in each of these sections you can find things that help to take God’s creation and amplify it so that we go oh Lord God you’re wonderful, or we can take what God did and say I just don’t see it, you know and that happens a lot.

I hope that this slide simply just gives you a little bit of direction as a mentor to think. Okay. You know what, how can I tweak up the biology speak here and allow it to speak a little louder? How can I help in the feelings area or provide good social messaging, right? So for sure anyway things to know we’re complex beings and we’ve come to where we’re at by way of a complex road.

Let’s now look at we’re going to go to the questions. The question is this, imagine yourself working with an individual and first, you know, we mentioned mentoring and mentees and we kind of have this cookie cutter. This is very varied, right unbelievable. It could be a high school student who’s been assigned to work with. I know in Morton, you some of that in Bloomington we do too. It could be somebody who selected a mentor. This could be grandma working with grandson, right? Lots of different ways. Lots of different ways. Lots of different age differences how well somebody knows one another all those things. Yeah. So, the question comes what if I’m questioning my gender identity and sexual orientation, perhaps a question you did not want to hear. And part of the webinar here is to that’s just a fine question to be asked, there are things to be said.

And so, another good question that comes is, Ted. Am I alone? You mentioned off the outset that it might not be verbalized but it’s there. I really want you to speak to this slide because I think there’s a lot of hope here. Yep. I think that one of the things that happens is that this is whether it’s spoken or an unspoken question. Sometimes somebody will be feeling very alone because they don’t know anybody who is dealing with this particular set of experiences. And so because of that they feel alone that way.

Other times it is they’re worried that other people are going to reject them just outright. And so I think the question of am I alone needs to be answered one way or another and I think we do that first and foremost by simply loving well. What I mean by loving well, it means that when you hear something like this in someone that you love, one of the responses that happens sometimes is kind of a, it’s the most natural response is kind of a recoil. Okay, like oh no and again, I can understand where that comes from in terms of what people are expecting or anticipating but one of the things about it is remember that part of loving ss Jesus loves is about the engagement. It’s about staying engaged. Now that person may or may not let you be engaged sometimes but the concept is to love. Well, another one is to listen.

Well, that is so important, and I cannot tell you enough that our first response is oftentimes to speak when our first response needs to be to listen and to ask questions. The neat part is that as you do as somebody who finds out that you’re safe enough to talk to. Then it allows things to kind of unfold and you can ask more questions. One of the major players in this in terms of emotions is shame and the shame often occurs, and the shame is often saying if you knew me you would not love me if you knew me you would reject me.

And I think this one gets to us because oftentimes we’re trying to figure out if I love does that mean I accept this behavior, you know, or does it mean that I, you know, this and so it gets into this feels like a very much an either-or statement. Either I love you, which means anything you do is okay, or I have to say, no not everything you do is okay. So therefore, I don’t love you, you know, and that kind of thing but yet Jesus Yeah, didn’t do those? Yeah, he was able to love that perfectly. He walks in that place. And so I think that these two words at the bottom of the screen, I would say are keywords. We want people to be able to feel like they can be authentic with us that they can open up that part of themselves that feels safe. Okay, and they may not do that for a while. Okay, I think that’s one of the questions as they’re going to have his, can I? and they may test the relationship for what can I be authentic with you? If I really told you? Yeah, that I was having these kinds of feelings. Would your willingness to be with me change?

The other one and I can’t stress this enough is the belonging. The human soul craves belonging and I will say this that the secular LGBT community starts out with saying these two things: you can be whoever you are, and you fit here. What do you think about that? You can be whoever you are. And you belong here, and you fit here, and I think what happens is because of that, it kind of makes the Christian church that the biblical Christianity who’s trying to hold on to a sexual ethic that is based in Scripture. It can kind of say you can either belong and be authentic or you’re going to be rejected and if you’re going to be part of the part of the Christian Community, it means you a have to hide and be fake and you have to be fearful of not belonging if you’re found out.

If I could tell a quick story that I think it’s gets to this. Interacted with a wonderful young man believer living obediently and overcoming life and yet struggles and yet has an experience of same-sex attraction and he gave up his Bible study position. He was leading a Bible study, gave it up just because of the elephant that was in his own head that if they knew I, they just don’t know me. You know what? I mean? Yeah, and I think there we see that example where authenticity was not able to be achieved. And so we have an opportunity as mentors to rewrite some script here on what that reaction looks like for that individual. Yeah, right and how we love that individual and rewrite some of that script, but this is a big job. It is and I think one of the things people are going to vary on how who they tell and how much they tell to and I think that’s perfectly fine. That’s true. Most everybody they, so we’re not necessarily advocating that the goal of everybody is to do that okay. Your most private things regardless of what it is. It has to go up in the billboard but the flip side to that is that shame and secrecy really become toxic to the soul. And that’s true. That’s true because this is a human issue. It’s a human issue and so having a safe place and having a community of people that you can be authentic with and know that you are welcome that you belong is truly powerful and that’s going to be part I think of moving forward I do have someone listening.

Well, I just remember interacting with a precious person who was struggling with transgender. She was a biological female and as I was able to listen to her she told me this, Ted, that I’ll never forget. She said, “Matt I now have an explanation on why I’m not pretty” that was huge. And there I think again goes back to those roles. We live in a world where women’s bodies are, what is the perfect right? Yeah, and that’s what she lives with and when she saw that she didn’t match that she had in her mind questions, right, generated feelings and experience. She was very attractive. She was a delightful young lady. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, we see by listening. Well, yeah, we learned something really important information.

Let’s move along. Why am I struggling with this? Certainly, crosses the experience, right and what they’re like, you know, so is this a choice what causes sexual orientations and gender dysphoria these are high dollar questions. Oh, yeah, these are all. You picked a great loaded question to ask me. So I think first of all is this is one of the classic questions, what causes these things? The answer is a lot of different things and that’s going to sound like a cop-out but it’s actually the answer. It’s important that you not oversimplify these issues. Traditionally, the Christians have kind of looked at this issue and said this is 100 % of choice. Okay, and the secular crowd has looked at it and said 100% this is not a choice. Okay, and I would say both of these are missing a big portion of the thing. There are some aspects of our experience that are not our choice. Okay, and there are some aspects particularly of our behavior and the direction that we go with things that definitely fall within choice. Okay, the who and the how much somebody prioritizes part of their identity above Christ that’s a choice. That’s a choice. Okay, whether I choose, or somebody chooses to have a sexual relationship with somebody or not. It is a choice. The flip side is to say that somebody has this experience of being attracted to both the male and female people that isn’t necessarily choice. And what most people find is they’re dealing with these things and then they’re not sure what to do with those things because they know they’re around people that have a very clear perspective. And the mindset of, just stop it, is counterproductive for most kind of things.

Well, I think that actually that’s very helpful too in terms of the audience that we’re talking to that would send us on a trajectory to say, how can I assist this person or love this person in living within the difficulty? Yeah, but to the flourishing that God wants them to live in absolutely by his Word, right? This is very important because some people look at this and say the only way that this person is going to flourish or that the only way a person that is experiencing these kinds of attractions is going to flourish is if we can like completely to remove that or rid them of that sensation and that experience. We’re going to somehow go from whatever they had and go to zero and I think one of the big problems is that kind of mindset puts us in a, we have to fix, and we have to, and this person is all, you know, this is going to be broken until fixed. What we have to do is help people to live well and part of that, for some people, is to be able to come to a place where they’re able to live with some of the tensions that they feel and to be able to live with that and be able to go that tension doesn’t define everything about me. Okay, whatever that tension is, whether it’s in a gender place, whether it’s just a sexual orientation place, whatever it is that in fact, I may have this internally, but you know what, the who I am is because of who I am in Christ and who I am as a child of God. Which to get to that place does require a believing experience. Yeah sure. Faith and a repentance and a conversion. Yeah, and so certainly that comes into play with this topic, in every single topic, but it needs to be mentioned. It does and I think one of the things that happens is sometimes we look at a neighbor and we’ll say or a co-worker and it’ll be like, okay, I need to talk them out of their sexual orientation so that they can know Christ and I would just say we start with, we present Christ, we represent Christ and then, and that’s the most important thing, and then after that we let Christ and what he’s doing do the work because Christ gives all of us a new way to live that’s right. And that is I think one of the things to remember is that isn’t just a little remodel that we’re just putting a coat of paint on something. The Bible calls that a transformation I think that’s well said and I think it’s important for us to keep that in view.

Let’s look now. What does God think of my struggle? Yeah. You’ve got three different lenses. So, one of the things I want to say about this is that you’ll see these three different lenses, love, truth, and grace and I think one of the things that we want to do is we want to understand that God, when he looks at us in this time and space, he is seeing all of us through these lenses. Okay. The love part is where he is able to look at us with agape. Okay for God so loved the world, he agape the world that means he looks, and he says I am coming for you, and it’s not based on us. And so that’s I think so important that everyone needs to know that God looks at them and once and looks and says “beloved” the second thing is the truth and the grace parts of that. The truth is going to go back to his nature and character and it’s going to go back to the Word. And so, God is going to call us to come to him and here’s the thing on his terms. Okay. That’s true. That’s true. Whether somebody’s dealing with the LGBT issues or not. He asked us to come to him on his terms because he is God and we are not okay, but the grace part here the grace is that he understands that our lives are filled with areas that are dealing with brokenness that are dealing with challenge that are dealing with sin. And so, with this, he looks at it as the compassionate-grace-giver. So, I think the thing about it is when these come together, that intersection is what we’re really after. The world wants these to be very separate. So, it kind of says hey we’re going to love everybody, and love equals do whatever you want. Truth, oh, hey, wait a minute, if truth means that there’s a right and wrong to something throw that away because we’re going to write the book and humanity has always wanted to write the book. I mean Satan in the Garden of Eden said, “so did God really say”, that’s nothing new. I think this is helpful even for all of us to think boy, I kind of favor one of these lenses over the other. Yeah, God does it beautifully and so that I think is excellent to think about.

Okay, let’s look at you know, what can I do about this? Right? So certainly, moving forward here. Yeah, um, you talk about resisting the temptation to isolate and the importance of community. Yeah. I think one of the things is that as we talk here if you’re talking to somebody who is kind of at the beginning stages kind of confused about this. That’s very different if you’re talking to somebody who has come to a place where they have kind of come to a place of rest and know who they are and they’re an identity and they know who they are in Christ. So, there’s going to be variations here, but I think one of the things is early on particularly if somebody’s in that shame space we want to make sure that they’re not isolating. I think community will be necessary. You’re a big part of that community. There may be, and I love, we love to think about a support and network you think about different people serving different roles. There’s not a one-size-fits all. I do think it’s very important to understand that building a community support network takes time. And the person has to really become very comfortable with them. Yeah, but what I hear you saying is it’s important for this individual to have some people in their life. Yeah, that they can be authentic. Yeah, find that belonging. Yeah, and to be really known. Yeah, I think the other thing is people fear that if they are known that they will be rejected right, so that really gets to that shame piece. Yeah, and we play a part in that. Yeah, and that community for sure and I think one of the things is it’s easy in the church world, for us all, whether somebody whatever somebody’s dealing with to be able to look one way but be feeling another and so that’s a responsibility of us all for sure.

Yeah. We all need to be known fully. Be wise about where to seek counsel. Yeah. I think this is a real challenge today because everybody addresses this issue. Everybody, okay, including Matt, and I okay, everybody addresses these issues through a worldview. And that worldview is going to lead to different conclusions. Okay, our worldview here is that it leads us to want to take this issue and say where did we have to start with God and then put this into that because He is the beginning and the end of this. But I think the other things is when you just Google this topic, okay, you’re googling this topic and getting every worldview out there. I think the other challenge is more and more today. Even what in the broader Christendom? Okay what this means and how this is interpreted is going really all over the map. And so, I really have to say and really encourage both mentors as they look up information and as information is passed along or as it is looked at by individuals dealing with these issues, who they’re seeking counsel from is very important because that you couldn’t find more opposite council in a topic.

Ted, we just have a few minutes left and I really want to get to one of our last slides. So, this is what I’m going to do, we talked about the identity script already. So, let’s go to this a direction to walk and I do want to mention because we probably won’t get time for it the slide after this one, which this will be out available is some resources we have on our website. We’ve got some books that you would recommend and websites and good people in this space. So anyway, there’s resources there for some of that but a direction to walk out now, Ted, I wrote these, and I want you to pick them apart because I’m not sure I completely like them fully, but I think it’s important for to have, where do we go? What are we looking for? Okay, right. So sexual orientation. How about this living a fully flourishing life through celibate relationships after the example of Jesus. Could this be a direction that we walk towards? Yeah.

So, one of the things I’m going to take it in. So, first of all, we want an individual that is dealing with sexual orientation issues. We want them to live a fully flourishing life. We want them to know Christ. We want them to seek after him and to be known. I think what you’re getting at there when you say through celibate relationships is you’re very careful to say that we want them to have relationship, but we want their relationships to be within biblical bounds. So, what I don’t like about celibate is it’s a very, there’s not life in that. Sometimes people hear it and go. Oh, that means like kind of what I do is shut down white-knuckle you’re alone and things of this nature. Well, we want to do is actually promote a kind of that this that the word is referred to sometimes as a Christian vocation. It is a mission in life to live out godliness that flourishes that is connected and purposeful and I think what happens is people internally can feel like if I’m dealing with these issues, I’m on the shelf and I’m never going to be useful. We want people in the church who are dealing with these issues to be fully engaged after the example of Jesus his fully flourishing life. Yeah, right. So, I totally agree with that and there are individuals in wonderful mixed orientated marriages here. That’s right. So, I see the downfall of that of that statement. Thank you for that.

How about this one for gender identity with could this be a goal that we embrace biological sex as God’s divined appointment to bear his image and point to his gospel intention that’s pulling from Genesis. He creates us in his image, and he pulls out of Adam and makes Eve just like he pulls out of the side of Jesus and makes the church. So anyway, I understand your thoughts. So, a couple things that I think first of all each of the phrases here, we would embrace the fact that biological sex is real and that has a real imprint and that’s by God’s design. I think the other thing is we’re wanting people to know that they bear his image and that points to a gospel intention meaning that we eventually put our whole selves on the altar to him and then we work living into that the challenge of this one that I wanted to highlight. Is that the first phrase in this is embraced. Oftentimes individuals who are who are dealing with this for them embracing some of these things is a process.