012 Interview with Sam Allberry {Clip 4 | 01:43}

0
April 26, 2017

You are viewing a clip from the Care & Discipleship Podcast.

For more information about this and other episodes please visit the podcast page.

The thing we do, which gets us into trouble is we abstract the issue of homosexuality outside the gospel. Really, what I’m trying to do is put it back in the gospel framework and to say actually, the gospel framework of repentance and faith is true for everyone. I think one of the reasons we get stuck on the issue of homosexuality is that we’ve stopped counting the cost of discipleship generally. When we see the cost of it for this particular group we think, oh that sounds a bit unfair. We start to doubt whether it’s right and good. Actually, we just need to remember what the gospel is.

Jesus, he says you must lose your life to save it. Which means at the very least, at some time, at some point in your Christian discipleship it’s going to feel like Jesus is trying to kill you. It is going to feel like losing your life to follow him. If we all recover that understanding, actually it will reduce the shock value of when we see how it applies to one particular context.

The other part of the conversation that has to happen is not just what is the correct sexuality to come in to people, but what do we need to do as a church to make that sexual ethic a viable lifestyle, and to easily, we’re saying to people in a lot of churches that I see, if you’re same sex attracted, you need to be celibate. Actually, in our church, that means you’re going to be really, really lonely. I kind of feel like saying to churches, you can’t call people to celibacy unless you are providing the kind of family and community that the Bible says churches should be.

Author

Tags:

Related posts

035 Interview with Keith Palmer {Clip 3 | 1:02}

035 Interview with Keith Palmer {Clip 3 | 1:02}

You don’t have to have a counseling center to be effective in your community. In fact, you know, I would argue from scripture that it’s you know, as you go you’re preaching the gospel so you know, the church is gathering together to be equipped, to be encouraged, and then we disperse, right? We go to our work places, we go to our schools, we go to our neighborhoods. That one-on-one ministry, where now we have some equipping to be able to address some of those life issues, you know I think as a pastor I’m thinking I want the average person at our church to be able to you know, talking to their neighbor next door that evening and a life issue comes up. You know, a teenager that’s addicted to something, or you know, they’re having marriage problems. I would hope that a believer at that point wouldn’t say, “Well hey, let’s go to our community counseling ministry,” although they could do that, but that they would engage them wisely and in a loving way from the scriptures to give them gospel hope in that moment.

035 Interview with Keith Palmer {Clip 3 | 1:02}

035 Interview with Keith Palmer {Clip 1 | 2:21}

So didn’t realize it at the time, but by teaching literally every leader in our church who was teaching at some level, taking them through a basic course in Biblical counseling, I didn’t tell them that. I said, “This is discipleship material,” but to get that type of training it really created a culture in our church that helping others with the gospel from the scriptures for life problems, for training children, training adults, you know, whatever it is, that’s normal church ministry.