by Brad Duncan
Dear Pastor,
Please invite the gay crowd to our church. Please invite the LGBT people. Please do it soon, and with no reservation. Please love the gay crowd and welcome them. Don't make their sexuality an issue at all, or withhold acceptance from them, don't criticize or hold back your friendship. Don't talk to them about sin instead of grace. Just invite them.
Please don't delay or discuss it in committee. Time is running out.
Dear Pastor, do it for us, before our hearts grow cold and hard. Do it so that we can remember the dank stink that grows in our hearts from the seed of hate. Do it before we can't love anymore.
Do it before we start to think that sitting in judgment makes us good, makes us better, makes us receive salvation. Do it before we forget about grace altogether.
As long as we can love to hate a class of people for their lifestyle, we can believe that we are somehow saved by ours. Maybe we think we are saved by our straightness, our lack of accepting the gay crowd? Did we already forget about the blood of Christ and about grace? Have we already turned stale? Do we think we're actually ON God's side by not inviting them? Or are we against him?
Dear Pastor, the gay crowd is not going to corrupt our children, or convince us to be promiscuous or unfaithful. The gay crowd is not going to make us love sin or the devil. The gay crowd is not going to make us love God less. The gay crowd will not diminish our worship, or reduce our appreciation for the Bible. The gay crowd is not contagious or repellent.
No, dear Pastor, the gay crowd will melt our hearts. For if we can open our hearts to those we have formerly hated with no cause at all and no harm or threat to us, because we don't like their non-straight lifestyle, if we can repent and actually love them, then maybe our dead hearts can live again, our cold hard hearts can melt and love again.
No the gay crowd has something we don't -- acceptance of differences. Let's hope they can accept us now after all this time, and find room in their hearts for forgiveness of our sins. Let's try to repair the damage. Time is running out.
The gay crowd needs God exactly as we do, and the gay crowd can love God exactly as we do. Are they believers, like us? Isn't that up to them what they believe, and not up to us? Do they believe that Christ died for them? Who are we to object?
Please invite them, before it's too late. Not too late for them -- too late for us.
23"So if you are offering your gift at the altar and remember there that another believer has something against you, 24leave your gift at the altar. First go away and make peace with that person. Then come back and offer your gift. (Matthew 5:23,24, God's Word)
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