Dear Church, We've Lost Our Way

 

Dear Church,

I recently attended my third Revoice conference and, once again, I came home with a full heart. Every year I leave reminded of the beauty of the Holy Spirit and with a renewed commitment to spend whatever years remain in my ministry helping create spaces where my LGBTQ+ siblings cannot simply survive within the Church but truly thrive.

This year was especially meaningful because my wife, Jenny, and our fourteen-year-old daughter June joined me. Watching my daughter embrace and be embraced by this sacred community reignited something deep within my soul. She encountered exactly what I have experienced for years now: followers of Jesus who are authentic, faithful, vulnerable, joyful, and deeply committed to Christ despite often being wounded by the very institution that was meant to embody His love.

Yet I also returned home with sadness.

There are pictures I didn't take and some I cannot share because, sadly, many of our churches are still too dangerous a place for many of my LGBTQ+ friends. Think about that for a moment. There are followers of Jesus who still must calculate the risks of simply being seen.

Church, we need to sit with that reality.

Coming home this year, I realized it is time to alleviate any confusion on where I stand and out myself by declaring where I belong.

I belong with my queer siblings.

Not because I am queer myself, but because I have chosen to belong in relationship, solidarity, and friendship with my LGBTQ+ siblings. Their stories have become part of my story. Their joys have become my joys. Their pain has become my pain.

I say this as a cisgender pastor, an aspiring ally, and a friend. When stones are thrown at them,  I will stand beside them and, when necessary, in front of them, because they belong in our lives as well as in His church.

I can proudly state all of this without compromising a single ounce of my long-held theology. In fact, I believe this is exactly where Jesus stands.

Before I invite the Church into repentance, I believe it is essential that I repent myself.

There was a time in my life when I contributed to the very harm, I am now calling us to confront. I participated in words, actions, and systems that communicated condemnation more clearly than compassion toward LGBTQ+ people. At the time, I believed I was being faithful. I thought I was standing for truth.

Today, I see it with clearer eyes. I recognize that my posture and participation often reinforced shame, fear, and exclusion for people who bear the image of God with the same sacred worth and dignity that I do. I cannot undo that harm. I can only name it honestly, grieve it deeply, and refuse to continue repeating it as I seek to follow Jesus more faithfully. 

For that, I repent.

I share this not to center myself, but to acknowledge that I am not writing as someone who has always gotten this right. I am writing as someone Jesus has continued to transform. I cannot undo the wounds I helped create, but I can refuse to continue creating them. I can listen. I can learn. I can stand alongside those I once stood apart from. And I can spend the remaining years of my ministry helping build the kind of Church I believe Jesus envisioned, one where people are known before they are judged, loved before they are labeled, and safe enough to become all God created them to be.

Perhaps that is where repentance truly begins. Not with defending our past, but with allowing Jesus to transform our future.

Church, having first repented myself, I believe it is now time for us to repent together.

Not because we have failed to answer every theological question, but because we have too often allowed exclusion to become an acceptable expression of discipleship.

We as the Church must repent for the ways we have:

• Created spaces where people fear being known
• Spoken about LGBTQ+ people more than we have listened to them
•  Prioritized institutional comfort over human dignity
• Allowed fear to shape our posture more than love
•  Mistaken exclusion for faithfulness

The Church was never meant to be a fortress protecting itself from people. It was meant to be a family gathering around the person of Jesus.

Over the years, I have become convinced of something simple:

Creating Safe spaces is sacred work.

When people feel safe, they begin to heal. As healing occurs, people begin to flourish. Human flourishing reflects the heart of Jesus. Creating spaces of safety is not a secondary ministry objective, it is an essential aspect of the deepest work of the Gospel.

I understand there is deep fear among many of us, so allow me to define clearly what I am and what I am not saying.

• Safety is not compromise, it is hospitality. 
• It is not surrender; it is discipleship. 
• It is not abandoning truth; it is embodying love.

As I have said repeatedly throughout my ministry, "My theology has not changed. My posture has." The world already knows how to exclude people. It does not need the Church to become more skilled at it.

What the world desperately needs is a Church courageous enough to look like Jesus:

• A Church with open chairs
• A Church with open hearts
• A Church that chooses relationship over fear
• A Church where our LGBTQ+ siblings no longer must wonder if they belong because they already know the answer

My prayer is that one day people will not remember us for how well we debated these issues, but for how faithfully we embodied the love of Jesus.

Grace and peace,
Pastor Rob Townshend