No, you didn't. You just presumed to call my into question.
Ministering to the Homosexual community
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Ingbert,
No one can tell you that you are or are not a Christian except Christ. I wish that the church knew how to love. I will call you brother.
I find an interesting correlation between "unhealthy lifestyles" and oppressed people groups.
No one can tell you that you are or are not a Christian except Christ. I wish that the church knew how to love. I will call you brother.
I find an interesting correlation between "unhealthy lifestyles" and oppressed people groups.
I think we also have to realize that there is only so much we can do to minister to homosexuals (or, for that matter, anyone). Ultimately, it is the Holy Spirit that must deal with their hearts. We minister in the love of Christ and in His Truth, but the power of conversion lies with God, Himself. That relieves us of the pressure to try to badger people into the Kingdom of God or to berate them into changing their behavior.
What I meant to say was that it wasn't apparent. If you were/are offended, I'm sorry.
Ingbert,
It seems you are guilty of the very thing you accuse others.
(ie 3nails)
May I suggest you
Addressing me you said,
I find it interesting you ignore my post:
You seem to prefer to focus on anything you can interpret as negative towards yourself and then blame Christians for bigotry and hate. You are choosing to be offended regardless of reality.
From what I see here, I find no reason to assume the examples cited in your blog are based in reality, but rather on your feelings which may stem from within and probably have nothing to do with the way Christians react to you. In fact it's quite possible you consciously or subconsciously provoke the reaction you desire to justify the way you judge Christians.
Look at your interaction here! My observation is you choose the posts you can misinterpret and find reason to be offended by, and ignore anything that doesn't quite fit with your claims about Christians persecuting you.
quote="Ingbert, post: 242192"]........forget everything you've been told about homosexuals .......[/quote]
I did. The day that man knocked on my door.
It seems you are guilty of the very thing you accuse others.
(ie 3nails)May I suggest you
Addressing me you said,
I find it interesting you ignore my post:
You seem to prefer to focus on anything you can interpret as negative towards yourself and then blame Christians for bigotry and hate. You are choosing to be offended regardless of reality.
From what I see here, I find no reason to assume the examples cited in your blog are based in reality, but rather on your feelings which may stem from within and probably have nothing to do with the way Christians react to you. In fact it's quite possible you consciously or subconsciously provoke the reaction you desire to justify the way you judge Christians.
Look at your interaction here! My observation is you choose the posts you can misinterpret and find reason to be offended by, and ignore anything that doesn't quite fit with your claims about Christians persecuting you.
quote="Ingbert, post: 242192"]........forget everything you've been told about homosexuals .......[/quote]
I did. The day that man knocked on my door.
Amen.
And what are you now? may I ask?
Exactly! This is why I believe that one can be Christian and "practicing" homosexual and still go to Heaven. Change is possible, yes! However, I do not believe that is the change God is looking to make in the heart of someone who is homosexual.
I believe the change God is looking to make in the heart of anyone is spiritual; not physical.
Romans 9:10 ... "If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."
Therefore, I believe one can be homosexual and still confess with their mouth and believe in their heart that Jesus is Lord and that God has raised Him from the dead.
1 Samuel 16:7 ... "The Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."
Who are we as humans to say that we know the heart of others when we are not always quite sure of our own hearts?
I believe that the spirit man has no gender but the flesh man does, and I believe God is not so much concerned with the flesh man as He is with the spirit man.
Maybe this will be the unpopular response here, but I visited Ingbert's blog. I tend to believe that Christianity fails pretty bad when it comes to ministering to homo/bi-sexuals. However, I still stop a bit short of just accepting the lifestyle wholesale. I've had a few gay friends in the past and we've always gotten along, but there is always a wall. We only ever get "so close", and both sides feel like outsiders. I think it was a very well written, and well thought out blog. If you want to minister to the gay community, this is probably a good way to go about it.
Read it again.
I didn't write about what I've been told about Christianity. I wrote about what I've seen and heard with my own eyes and ears.
My comment to you was in response to your comment about me.
Yeah, I ignored the rest of your post. I didn't see any point in reading further.
Yes, go back and look at my interactions here. Right off the bat folks are questioning if I'm even a Christian and calling me a liar.
I too have read Ingbert's blog; very eye opening.
I have some gay friends, and there is NO wall between us, and we do not feel like outsiders around each other.
I'm Christian and they are Christian. We talk about the Lord and the Bible and spiritual things without walls and without judgment.
I have some gay friends, and there is NO wall between us, and we do not feel like outsiders around each other.
I'm Christian and they are Christian. We talk about the Lord and the Bible and spiritual things without walls and without judgment.
Thanks. That's something many don't realize, that many LGBT folk are Christians themselves.
I actually spent a few years trying to not be Christian. The person who was most influential in bringing me back was a gay Christian.
The Church is missing out on a lot by vilifying its LGBT brothers and sisters.
I will be honest. I'm struggling a bit with the idea of gay Christians. I'm sorry if that seems judgmental, but I'm 100% with you on the rest of it. Nobody can just pretend to be something they are not, and any attempt to do so is far more dangerous than the alternative. I'm especially happy with the last sentence. I've never quite understood the vilification of homosexuals. At the very, absolute worse case, it's a sin as any other, yet I've seen churches treat them with such disdain that you would think they were walking through the doors while snorting cocaine. It's ridiculous. It is much better to simply share the Gospel and leave it to the Holy Spirit to deal with any remaining issues that may or may not exist.
I think part of the problem is that when people hear the word homosexual, they automatically think of the homosexual "lifestyle", people going to bars and hooking up with different partners every night or dancing naked on parade floats. That doesn't describe the average homosexual any more than the Girls Gone Wild "lifestyle" describes the average heterosexual.
As for gay Christians, I've known many gay Christians, including a few pastors, who never acted on their same sex feelings.
You're right, we each have to go to the Lord and let him tell us what he wants of us.
That's okay Banarenth. Everyone struggles with something.
yeah. I'd have an easier time accepting that if I knew anyone who really did it, but I've only been exposed to the opposite. Either way, I'd honestly love to see some show up at my church. I'm not entirely sure how well they'd be accepted, but I like to think that they would be accepted. I know that I be friendly and wouldn't condemn them, but I honestly don't know how far I'm able to take the idea of a practicing gay Christian. I at least am open to the idea that it's possible, so I guess that's something.
I get what you are saying. I don't even disagree. My experience with homosexuals is a bit stereotypical. I'm an artist and a musician. So, you can do the math and realize I've been around a LOT of theater. Stereotypical or not, there are a number of gays involved in theatre and such. I think perhaps that culture has it's own unique differences though, but as I said, that's been my personal experience. I've simply never seen any openly gay people in a church environment, so it's a bit hard for me to imagine the crossover.
The idea of a gay Christian who has never acted on their sexual feelings...I'm really not sure how I feel about that. I mean, how do we resolve that this is how they SHOULD act? That's a weird issue.
I don't mean this as judgment or condemnation, but maybe that is because you have probably allows attended a church that doesn't accept openly gay people.
And, many openly gay people don't want to attend a church that won't accept them, so (for lack of better words) they create their own church where they ARE accepted.
Just a thought.
I can almost guarantee, unless it's a very small church, you already have some LGBT folk there.
Most of us have had bad experiences in church and won't come out to just anybody, much less the whole church.
When I was first struggling with my faith and sexuality, I made the mistake of confiding in my pastor. I became the topic of his next sermon.
I confided in a trusted Sunday School teacher, and became the topic of one of his lessons.
I went to a different church and confided in that pastor and he made a pass at me. (Of course I was much prettier in those days.)
I don't confide in pastors or teachers any more.
It doesn't take long for us to figure out that Christians are not safe people to come out to.
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