Theology in the Raw - Making Space for LGBTQ/SSA People in a Theologically Orthodox Church: Ashley Anderson

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

Ashley Anderson is the Missions Pastor at Church of the City (NYC) where she is a part of the teaching team and leads ministries that partner in the spiritual, social, and cultural renewal of New York City. As a part of that work Ashley leads a group called The Table, which is a group of LGBTQ/same sex attracted Christians at Church of the City who have consecrated their sexuality to God in alignment with an orthodox Christian sex ethic with the belief that a consecrated life is not only possible, but can be deeply satisfying. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology Round. My guest today is my friend Ashley Anderson, who is the missions pastor at Church of the City in New York City, where she's part of the teaching team and leads ministries that partner in the spiritual, social, and cultural renewal of New York City. And as part of that work, Ashley leads a group called The Table, which is a group of LGBTQ or same-sex attracted Christians at the church who have consecrated their sexuality to God in alignment with an Orthodox Christian sexual ethic, with the belief that a consecrated life is not only possible but also deeply satisfying. I wanted Ashley to come on the show to talk about this group because I get asked all the

time by church leaders, you know, how can we do a better job? Discipling, reaching out to the LGBTQ community or discipling people who are same-sex attracted within their churches. And I always say, go check out church to the city. They're doing awesome stuff. They even have this group where they're walking with people who have lived experience in this, in this topic. And that's why I wanted to to come on the show and say, Hey, give us some insight into this group. How'd you go about it? What are some challenges and how should other churches do something similar? So with that said, please welcome to the show for you? Well, it's still morning for you.

Good morning here on the East Coast. So good to be here, Preston. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, I'm so excited. So, you know, we've only met in person maybe twice in a very brief, but we have tons of mutual friends. So, I wanted to have you on the podcast, and I'm selling this offline, but you know, I get asked by especially Christian leaders a lot, like, hey, we want to do a better job modeling grace and truth in the sexuality gender conversation. How can we do this better? And then they always ask like, what churches are doing this well? And I always, first thing out of my mouth,

Church of the City of New York, they're doing great things in this conversation. And especially when it comes to The Table, this group you guys have organized over the years, let's just start there. Can you tell us what is The Table, where did it come from, what is it all about? Yeah, I'd love to. So, the table has been around for about two and a half years now.

And it's something that exists within our church for a couple of core reasons. I was meeting a disproportionate amount of people in our church who, because I'm a pastor on staff, so I'm the missions pastor at Church of the City. And as a pastor on staff, I'm having all of these individual pastoral conversations with people and several people began to disclose that this was a part of their story, that they had same-sex attraction, that they were a queer Christian. And so many of them had on their own just chosen a life of consecration, just from the Holy Spirit and getting in the scriptures and in their discipleship to Jesus. And they were just walking this narrow road,

but they were walking it totally alone. And because I didn't want to out any one person to another person, I just held all of their stories and was just desperately wishing, like seeing them worship it like a few aisles away from each other on a Sunday and just wishing that they knew each other and wishing that they could walk out this life side by side. And so it would have been three years ago this summer that I approached our lead pastor, John Tyson, and I kind of sat him down and I was like, I think we've just got to do something about this. Like I think that there is a group emerging. And at that time, I probably knew of three to five people in our church for whom this would be applicable. So, I didn't have vision

of like, let's scale this thing. Let's blow it out and make it huge. I was just like, what do we do with these three to five people God has entrusted us with? How do we steward their stories and pastor them well? And so, it was honestly an intimidating conversation to sit down with John, who's just probably one of the, I mean, he's just such a thoughtful thinker and speaker in this space and just his level of intensity and articulation, it's just like hard to match in any conversations. I'm sitting there like trembling before him

and thinking like, I think we need to start this group. And I was so nervous that he was gonna dismiss it out of hand. Like this could go sideways. Like how do we keep this in line with, we have a really orthodox theology around human sexuality. And in that conversation, he just immediately was like, I trust you and I bless you. Like, you're right, we have to do this.

And so I had the grace of a leader who had vision for this and the grace of a leader who just said yes. And so I then honestly probably experienced the most like resistance and fear over the next six months when I was like, I have the green light, but I hadn't hit go yet of just like in it was just like it felt like spiritual resistance in myself of like, what if I build this and it collapses? What if I extend this invitation and there's yeah, like it gets messy? Like what if them being in each other's lives actually complicates each other's lives? So I was just like experiencing a ton of resistance, but we ended up having

a date on the calendar where David Bennett was going to come and spend time with our congregation. He was preaching on a Sunday, did a workshop the Saturday before. And that felt like the line in the sand, like it's got to be that weekend. I've got to do something. I've got to gather these people. So, I hosted a brunch on Sunday after one of the services and one of our elders actually just opened up their home. I told them that this would need to be anonymous, like who came, they may not want to out themselves. And so our elder just like left their apartment early in the morning, didn't come back until the evening, just gave us their space. And we just had this like beautiful, elegant meal around the table. And it just was the three to five that I knew. And then each of them

shared like two or three people that they also knew that might want to be invited. And this classically has gone down in our history as like the time I sent the email, which is like the honest in hindsight, I'm like, that could have been more subtle because I emailed all of these people. And then the people that they encouraged me to reach out to. And I'm just a pastor in their church and I'm like, Hi, you're receiving this email because I think you might be same sex attracted. And if you're not, I'm so sorry. Just disregard. So I send this incredibly bold email. And I think there were like 15 or 16 people that first Sunday. And I had maybe seven questions that I had workshopped with David Bennett about like here are the nuances and layers of your sexuality and your spirituality.

And they were just like very sophisticated questions. The only question that we got out was what brought you to this room. And it was just an hour, 90 minutes long of just like weeping testimony, people sharing their stories. And so many of them shared person after person of like the churches I've been in in the past, I've had to start this. I've had to go to my leadership and tell them I exist. People like me are here. Will you please make a space for us? I'll pioneer it." And so much of the response that Sunday is, we can't believe somebody in our church leadership started it

for us. Like, we're just so encouraged that our church knew that we were here before we had to raise a flag and say so. So, that was the beginning. You used the phrase at the beginning, consecrated, living a life of consecrated sexuality or something. Can you just, just for the audience, can you clarify what you mean there? Yes. It's like so funny because of how linguistically cumbersome it is. We're always trying to explain who we are and we're like, well, we are... I love the term because it's not familiar and it causes people to say, well, what does that mean? So, that's, yeah, I love it.

But yeah, what... Yes. So, the theology of our church around sexual formation is like an Orthodox Christian sex ethic. And that's been honestly, like, by the grace of God, like, been very clear in a lot of our teaching and on our website and things for years where nobody has to wonder when they walk into our congregation, what do they actually believe in? Are there any secret barriers to like, maybe somebody wouldn't find out until baptism or find out until they wanted to be a leader about like your theology. John has just kind of had a vision where he just wanted to be as clear as early as possible

to even avoid the harm of confusion later on. So, the term consecration has really become the ethos of our group and it's just like living a life of consecrated sexuality into that Orthodox Christian sex ethic. So for some of the people in our group, they're in mixed orientation marriages where they would each... There's actually one couple that co-leads it with me and they each are attracted to men and women. They ended up dating each other and finding out in the dating process that it was a part of both of their stories. One of them came out to the other one and was like, this is probably going to be relationship ending. I'm not sure

how you're going to feel about this. And then the other one said, me too. So there are a few mixed orientation marriages in the group where a man and a woman are married who might both have same sex attraction. And then the majority of the group though is dedicated to a life of celibacy and singleness. So we've seen throughout revival history, consecration and people like consecrating their lives unto the Lord, not just for sexual minorities, but for everyone. Living a wholehearted, dedicated life to God often precedes a great move of God. And we've actually seen that. I'm not trying to take too much credit for everything we're seeing happen in our church

right now. It just feels like God's near. There's like so many salvations more than I've ever seen before in my time in New York City. I think there's at least a hundred salvations that we've seen in the beginning part of this year. Just seeing people every Sunday cut to the heart by the scriptures, come forward and confess sin. And a lot of like what we're seeing the Spirit do is felt so paired with a community, like a church that is so dedicated to consecration to the Lord, which is not just being set apart and holy from something, but it's being dedicated unto something like for a purpose, for the kingdom. And I think this group, the table, was the forerunners of that.

Pete Wow, golly. You said you had fears going into it. What were, and it might go sideways, whatever, like what were some of those, like what are possible scenarios that you imagined could come about? Like what was driving those fears? Yeah. So, to be totally candid, peel back the curtains on the fears as a leader. I think that I had this fear of how to hold the tension of orthodoxy and also pastoral care. I was like, will this actually turn into a lot of hard, harmful conversations where people get hurt? And there's some, like, I knew that my conviction was not just to gather everyone in our church who had same-sex attraction, but to actually gather the ones who had chosen to live this life of consecration,

primarily for a plausibility structure of, okay, you've chosen this actually pretty high-stakes sacrificial way of following Jesus. You've given up a lot of things that, honestly, most of the American church will tell you is like a core part of life. Yeah, essential to flourishing. Yes. Yeah, I mean, so much of the church, I think, still is wrapped up in this belief that romantic love is the ultimate expression of self. And culture will tell us you can't be a complete person or a whole person without finding romantic love. And so there's so many, anyways, things like kind of battling for our hearts. So, I just wanted to create a space for the people who have chosen the narrow path to not have to walk it alone. But with that like high bar of like a radical minimum standard of discipleship,

I feared like, what is it going to look like to have conversations with people on the edges? Now, they were already the core people were already there, right? Yeah. But you're not sure other people that might be interested in the group, you're not totally sure where they're at, right? Exactly. So, in that like extended ring of invites, I didn't know most of those people's stories. Some of them I met that Sunday. And so, how did that go when you said, all right, here's the vision of this group, here's the

position of the church and we are passionately holding on to that? Did you have some of those hard conversations that you were fearful of? Well, it's actually so interesting. So in the two and a half years of the group's life is we have had several conversations where some of the people in that room that first Sunday weren't a good fit for the group just based on like either they were still on a journey of discerning what their convictions were around their sexuality or they didn't actually attend Church of the City. So that ended up being another, we have three prerequisites for joining the group. One is that Church of the City is your home church. And part of that is we don't want

this to be an isolated event, this monthly gathering in someone's life. We want these to be the people that you're serving alongside and worshiping alongside. And this is just kind of like a broader, we are part of the broader community. And then also, we wanted to house it under the vision of our church. So, the vision of our church was to see the fame and deeds of God renewed and known in our time. So we were wanting to run with people who kind of had that same drive, that same vision to see God's kingdom come above all else.

So there were a few people in the room who didn't fit some of those categories. Also, you have to have lived experience. So we don't bring in like spouses who aren't, who don't experience same sex attraction attraction or allies or parents of LGBTQ people. It's just like, you have lived experience, you're walking this road. With those conversations, and then we've had people reach out over the years interested

in joining the group, and the ones that haven't fit into those categories have been generally or genuinely so still encouraged and inspired that a group like this exists, which has felt beautiful and surprising. Like I thought that people might feel hurt or othered or outside some way, but we've just kind of laid it out as like, this is what this group exists for.

This is what we've all chosen. We hope that you come back to us and choose this. And we would love to roll you into this movement and this community. But we also don't want to course you into making a decision just for the ability to belong to a group. And so we've walked alongside people on their journey

as they've kind of discerned where they were gonna land, but we don't roll them into the group unless they land in that place. So that, that I could see an argument for both. So just to be clear, um, if somebody says, you know what, I'm not sure where I'm at. I would love to walk with other people, uh, to help me figure out where I'm at. Like, would you, what would you say to that person? Because I can see

a case on both sides. Like, it makes sense that everybody's on board the vision, they're already on the journey that, you know, that the church feels people should be on. What about someone who's genuinely like, just, I'm not sure where I'm at. Like, what do you say to that person? Yeah. So, honestly, I will say this is probably like the greatest tension right now in the season of the life of the table is what do we do with those people who are open and genuinely seeking? They're not going to come here to just debate theology or they've landed in a firm conviction and they disagree and they just want to come and argue about it like the people who are genuinely

seeking. And we're also seeing a lot of LGBTQ people come to faith right now. So they're coming in like totally blank slate, like what does this look like? And I would say my leadership team is honestly split on what to do. My, where I've landed is to continue to make consecration the core thing we all have in common in the group,

primarily because I don't want those people to roll in. And every week we have to correct them. Like they roll in and share and we have to be like, okay, great, but what we actually believe is this. And I don't want it to feel like there's an outer ring, like they're in the room, but they don't actually like belong. And the other side of that is I don't want the group to get muddy on what we're about and what we're actually doing. It's like the center of the bullseye is this wholehearted

surrendered life to Jesus, including our sexuality. And the two options would feel like either muddying down the clarity of that or over-correcting people every week. And I just don't want either of those. So we've experimented in a couple of ways of how to walk with those people outside of our group. Pete So, how many people are in the group right now? Or on average, you know, of last year or so? Courtney Yeah, they're usually about like, on average in attendance, like 16 or 17 in the room every time. And there's about 24 people who belong to the group. Pete So, you said you're seeing a lot of LGBT people come to Christ recently? Sarah Yes.

Pete Can you unpack that? Like, what's going on and what does that look like? Sarah Yeah, it's genuinely felt and I feel like I'm hearing this from church leaders in other contexts. It just felt like there's a grace on people receiving salvation right now. Like, I just genuinely have never seen God move like I've seen Him move in the last year. And one of the ways we're seeing that unfold is our church feels like it's rising up in boldness and sharing the gospel explicitly with strangers, with coworkers, with neighbors, with friends. And we're just seeing people receive Jesus in waves. So, friends. And we're just seeing people receive Jesus in waves. So there was a five week run between January and February where in five weeks, I saw five LGBTQ people give their lives to Jesus.

And they all came from like slightly different pathways. Like one came to us through, there's a girl who's been in our church for years and she runs like a hospitality and events business. She catered our staff's Christmas dinner in December and she intentionally, missionally hires people that she wants to get in the room with other Christians. And so she hired this guy and he's like a college student and and he's gay, had a church background, experienced a lot of pain in his past. He grew up in like a small parish and his friends found out that he was gay. They outed him to his priest. His priest asked him to leave the congregation. He outed him to his parents. His parents kicked him out of his home. So from like 14, 15, he was homeless and like totally alone

and very spiritually homeless. But through connection to this girl who had in some ways been employing him and in other ways been discipling him, she brought him into the room of our staff dinner. He got to meet all of our pastoral staff and was like, I think it's time to get back in church. So he had been attending Sundays regularly.

He said, he's like, I'm being wrecked by John Tyson's preaching in the best way possible. And we got coffee and bagels with him one morning, me and another co-leader of the table. And we just kind of walked through his story and asked him like, is there anything that would stop you from surrendering your life to Jesus right now? And he said, he's like, honestly,

just embarrassment that I didn't do it sooner. Like, I'm really sorry it took me so long. And then we kind of walked through how there's just like no shame, no guilt, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And we're like, is there still anything that will hold you back from surrendering your life to Jesus? And he said, no. And so we got to lead him to Jesus in that bagel shop. And just a few weeks ago in the altar at the end of one of our services, I got to see this girl in our church and her entire staff that she's led to Jesus all in the altar praying together at the end of a service. And so, yeah, that's been really beautiful. We have a married couple who's been attending our church for years. A gay married couple?

A gay married couple, yeah. And they've been unmeetable. I've tried so the church for years. A gay married couple? A gay married couple, yeah. They've been unmeetable. I've tried so hard to meet them and they dodge me every single time. They know who you are. 100%. They have to know. Or they're like, why is this girl so eager to meet us? So it's like they come in late, they leave early during greeting time.

They're just like head down. One time I was like about a year ago, I was in line for the bathroom behind one of them and just try and couldn't for the life of me to start a conversation with like talking to a wall. And so I've just like been praying for them and also just been like putting myself in proximity to them as much as I can. And then one Sunday we have this guest speaker come in from London, Al Gordon, and he's preaching in our church and he is like inviting everybody

into this very charismatic moment with the Lord. And this girl who had just been like so close to the gospel for the three years she had attended our church, all of a sudden has this encounter with God, is weeping, goes to the connections table and is like, I want to know how to give my life to Jesus and also I need to figure out what to do with my marriage. So that will unfold over time. So that's where it's at right now? Yeah, that's where it's at right now. It's not resolved yet, but she asked to have coffee with me, which felt very full circle.

I finally got to sit down and talk to her. She asked you, wasn't you badgering her and she finally gave it? Yeah, God redeems all things. So we sit down for coffee. I get to walk her through the entire gospel, get to in a coffee shop, lead her to Jesus. But her ask was, for the first time in my life, I'm wondering if my marriage is a sin, will you talk to me about this? Wow, what do you say?

What are you going to say? Because I get asked this question all the time, like, okay, I want to show the gospel to, you know, gay, okay, I want to show the gospel to, you know, gay, lesbian, queer people and stuff, but they're terrible. People are terrified to say, and also here's what the Bible teaches about sexual ethics. They're like, I mean, I could say that, but it's like, of course that's going to just turn them away from Jesus. Like they're like, what are you going to wait? Like, well, heck No, I'm not, you know, like, yeah, anyway, I, what are you going to, do you know what you're going to tell her?

Like, how do you go about that? We already had the coffee. Oh, okay. And so I do. So I will say the presence of the table in our community has been such a brilliant evangelistic tool. That's not even why it was created or designed, but it has felt so much lower barrier to have gospel conversations with the LGBTQ community when there's already a community of practice who have gone before them, who have surrendered

so many parts of their lives because of the worthiness of Jesus. They're not martyrs. They're not people who are just like suffering their way into the kingdom of God. They are people who looked at everything the world had to offer and everything Jesus had to offer and said, Jesus is the more satisfying path. This road of consecration is the more satisfying path. And then they have testimonies to prove it. And so, I got to sit across from her and share real life stories of people who have sacrificed the things that she is terrified to sacrifice, and all of the ways that they have found Jesus absolutely worthy and lived the John 10, 10, life and life to the full. And we also just got to pray and ask the Holy Spirit and get into the scripture. So it's very like, with a lot of humility, it's always I try to give people invitations to live fully surrendered lives to Jesus early and often because I found him deeply satisfying.

And Psalm 16 says, those who chase after other gods suffer more and more. And so you might not be like, you not be practicing worship at a different altar, but if there is another God, like lowercase g, God that has gripped a part of your heart, you will suffer more and more. There's anything that has divided your heart from this full surrender, full worship to Jesus. And so out of compassion, I just try to give people as many invitations as possible. Like, hey, would you want to do this crazy thing and like totally surrender your finances to God or totally surrender your sexuality to God?

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Timeline is offering 10% off your first order of Mitopure. If you just go to timeline.com forward slash theology, okay? That's timeline.com forward slash theology. Go check it out. How did she leave that conversation? Just kind of like, gosh, I need to really think through this or? Yeah. Well, she one, just like repented of like life apart from God, received the gospel. Two, she is from Brazil and she had grown up in like the cult of Spiritism. So, she had not been, I mean, there's no spiritually neutral ground in the universe, but she had not been

like an atheist before. She was actively practicing like worship of other spirits and trying to connect with the realm of the dead through these other spirits. And so we walked through that and I was like, is that something you want to repent of and renounce right now? And she said, yes. So we went through all of that. She just said she'd continue to like journey on this other part on her sexuality. So I did see her and her wife on Sunday. So they're still worshiping in our church side by side and I'm still standing a few pews behind them just like praying and interceding for everything that goes on.

Where's her wife at? You don't know? Honestly, a little bit more complicated. So she comes from the Spiritism background, no real context on Christianity. So she's coming in to the gospel with like very fresh eyes. Her wife used to be a pastor. Oh, wait, her... And she stepped out of...

The wife you talked to or another wife? The other wife. Okay. So, the one I talked to is the Spiritist background. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. And she's... Her partner used to be a pastor, stepped out of ministry in order to pursue their relationship. So layered and complex.

So she knows this is not, I don't know, she knows what this is going to entail. Yes. And the one who met with me who was wondering, like, what do I do with my marriage? She knows her wife knows, like, the dates are high and that it would, yeah, so she's kind of processing it a little bit in private. What does the church say they should do? If say they, one comes to Christ, both come to Christ, do you have a set like, all right, we believe discipleship looks like, you know, breaking off your marriage or, I mean, do

you have a set policy or do you kind of take it case by case on how to walk with people or? Yeah, we are honestly in a window of like the accelerated work of the Holy Spirit in such a way that we are seeing things happen that we have prayed for for years, but to be honest, don't have the policies for it. Like in some ways, I think we're feeling convicted that we are underprepared for the move of God that we're seeing in our midst. And so, on several fronts, some conversations that you and I have had about like trans members

of our community. Right. Yeah. Like we just didn't have a pathway and we didn't have a plan. And then somebody showed up in our congregation who is trans and said, in the body I now have, how do I best glorify God? So, our policy, we don't have a policy for the literal miracles that we're seeing, and we're very much trying to catch up to it. I mean, that's preferable, right? That the work of God would be driving the relationship rather than a policy driving it.

I mean, I think that's, I would prefer that rather than a policy trying to shoehorn people into the work of God or, you know. Well, okay, so that's one conversation you've had. You said you've seen in just this year, five other LGBT people come to Christ. Like, that hard conversation, how does that go with each one? I mean, is there a variety of mixed responses? Or is there people who are like, I want Jesus, so I'm going to give up whatever it takes to follow Jesus? I mean... Yeah. It's been a spectrum. I think we've tried as best we can to separate the conversation

of consecration and salvation, too. For me personally, I can speak for me, maybe not on behalf of Church of the City of New York, but like sexuality isn't a salvation issue. There is this like then hand in hand becoming not just a convert but a disciple into a whole life of surrender. But I've seen that grow more over time as people build trust and depth of relationship and experience and encounter with God. And so, I haven't seen yet these salvations that we've seen this year roll into a place of the table yet. Okay. They haven't rolled in yet.

They have table yet. And so... Pete Okay. They haven't rolled in yet. Lauren They have not yet. Pete Because they're not fully committed to consecration just yet. They're still in that journey process. Lauren Yeah, there's honestly so much they're learning about God in general. I think that the moment that we're in in the West, people just have such low biblical literacy, such little context for Christianity. So sexuality is not the only thing they're figuring out. They're figuring out, do I believe that the Bible is true? And

what does it say about all of life? And there's just a lot of discipleship gap because people aren't coming in with a grid for a life of following Jesus. And so, yeah, we're just trying to like walk with them through the scriptures, get them connected to a Sunday gathering and the Bible and community and just walk alongside them. Something that I will say, like I wish if I could go back two and a half years, start the table over again and do differently.

I wish from the beginning I had a pathway for how to walk with people who are still discerning their convictions. So for the first two years, year and a half that we met, if somebody reached out to us and they were in our church and they had lived experience, experienced same sex attraction, but didn't know what their convictions were, we would send them resources. We would be available to meet with them as often as they wanted to, but it was very one-off and sporadic. In some ways, we just sent them into the world and were like, figure this out. If you land where we land, we desperately want you to come back. I just had this moment of pastoral angst where I was like, we can't keep sending people into the world to just journey on their own and hope they arrive at this certain place.

We've got to go with them. And so we still haven't figured out the silver bullet on this, but we actually walked a cohort, some of whom had just come to faith through Alpha in September, and others who had a long journey with the Lord, even been like missionaries abroad, but were re-examining their convictions. And we put them through journeys of faith. So, we walked through your curriculum week by week, and each week they got to share their testimonies and their questions, and that cohort just finished their course. Real quick, this isn't just for LGBT people figuring things out, or is it?

That was actually just for LGBTQ people figuring things out. Yes. Oh, so you have created almost another group for the person on... On the other side. So very experimental and very new. If I could do everything over again, I would have started that immediately. Like from the start of the table, I would have had this other space. I'm so torn about it, Ashley. Not that my opinion, BobbieD, you guys gotta do what you gotta do. As I look in from the outside, I'm like, I could

totally see an argument for both cases. Because I mean, what better way to help somebody on the journey than to be around people who have consecrated? It seems like that would be one of the most helpful things for them to figure out where they're at, because it can see the credibility, not just here's what the Bible says, figure it out, but like, it's been validated by people actually doing this and living a flourishing life. On the other hand, like you said earlier, there is something about the profound benefit of people who are all on the same page and just

having that kind of rich community where you're not having to, this is going to sound bad, but like, let the group be bogged down by constantly addressing, you know, people who don't have it. I just, so, but yeah, maybe. So you would say going back to, to, to have two kind of separate groups at the same time, would that be a recommendation if you have enough people to fill it? Cause I know some people listen are like, all right, I've got one guy who I think is wrestling and another person that visited last, you know, so you can't start two groups with, you know, one in one person. Yes. So I will say a year from now, I'm hoping we kind of have enough iterations to figure

out what's the best version of this. One thing that we did do with this group, we just called it the table discipleship group is we filled it with half of the people who are also in the table. So they did get to get around people from the table and hear their stories and journey with them, but the entire orientation of that group was laid out from the first night, we're going to present orthodoxy to you. And we believe it's beautiful. We think it's breathtaking.

We've all chosen it. We won't coerce you into a decision, but our hope is that that's where you land. So if you're curious, I want to dig into a sexual ethic, let's journey together. And so they did that over time. And that is kind of the benefit of the separate conversation, not just so that, yeah, kind of to your point of like, it actually gets to be about that, of figuring out what does the Scripture say and how ought to I live or how, yeah, should I live in light of that and ask all of your questions. Something we've experienced from Alpha guests rolling into the church, which I'm not sure if your audience will be familiar with Alpha, but it's a dinner and discussion series where people come who are like atheists, agnostics,

seekers, skeptics, witches, all kinds of backgrounds. And it's just no question is off the table. And we just create space for them to hear a video teaching about something like, is the Bible reliable? And then they just get to dive in and ask anything. But we then try to roll those people who have come to faith or encountered God into our community groups, and they can sometimes just blow up a community group because we changed the rules on them and we didn't tell them. So all of a sudden, the orientation of the

group is not around just like wrestle it all out, challenge anything, ask everything. Now the question is like, we've all decided to follow Jesus. We're working out in our lives how to do that. And alpha gifts sometimes like bump up against that. So it's not that, you know, small groups are not for questioning, but it's like the primary orientation for the small group is working out a life with Jesus. And that's similar to the table. The primary orientation is working out this life. So we tried to create the separate space. The challenge to your point is having a start and stop time and a group format is limiting. So we had people come to faith since then that we couldn't roll into it because it had already started. Or now there's like two people who are interested,

but it's like we're not going to run a group for two people to feel awkward for them. So we're going to probably experiment with more one-on-one discipleship, where the hope is to equip everybody in the table to disciple somebody outside the table who's still working out their sexuality. Do you ever encounter people, specifically LGBT people, that come to the church, are interested, they say they're not Christians, whatever, but when they hear about the sexual ethic, they're just almost angry, hostile, like, I can't believe, you know, like they have a very negative reaction or have you had those experiences or is it mostly people that might reasonably say, I'm not sure if I'm there yet or that's not for me, but the reaction isn't like hostile or anything.

Does that make sense? Yeah. I personally have not experienced much hostility. Cause I mean, just to highlight the context, New York city, I mean, it's very, very liberal. It could be very activist, you know, like, you know, protests all the time. There's a lot of like energy behind people's viewpoints

there. I was just there over the weekend. I didn't tell you this. I just got back Sunday night. And it's, yeah, people, my limited experience, I mean, I've been there several times, but like, it's, yeah, people are very passionate about what they believe. And, you know, it's, it could sometimes make for not a helpful conversation when people are coming from different perspectives.

But anyway, sorry, cut you off. Yes, no, that's so true and real. I've personally not experienced a lot of hostility from people with lived experience, from people for whom this is their story. The more challenging conversations have been allies. Oh, that's always the case. Yeah. Uh-huh. People are here to take a stand. And I think part of it is because our group is inherently story-based. It's like we're based on a shared, not just conviction, but testimony. This is how God's moved in our life. It's just harder for somebody to bump up against

that and to deconstruct your experience or to tear down the way that you're living, who's also had lived experience. I think there's something beautiful about, we might've landed in different places, but we have windows into each other's stories. And we're just not the only church in New York. And so there's, I think, just other spaces that those people sometimes find themselves in. But it has definitely been more the allies for people who,

for whom this might be an idea or an ideology that just like, it just like wars with something in them in a different way. That was, you know, so I've been in this space for, geez, 12 years now, 10 years, about 12 years. And early on, that was, that was shocking to me that, because I fully agree anecdotally, it's like early on, it was almost exclusively the younger, and not to bring race into it, but in my anecdotal experience, it's been exclusively white, straight people that have been the most angry and hostile toward me because of my traditional viewpoints.

But I've almost exclusively had, not all, but the overwhelming majority of very reasonable and nuanced and complex conversations with actual LGBT people, which to me that was so shocking. But then over the years, I've heard that confirmed from so many people in the space too, that was so shocking. But then over the years, I've heard that confirmed from so many people in the space too, that now it's just kind of like, of course, I didn't

have you like, why is that? Is it because you wouldn't expect, you wouldn't assume that that would be the case, but do you have any insight into why? Is there something about the ally spirit that you have to like, there's kind of like a paternalism of protecting the underdog, the mama bear kind of thing, maybe. I don't know. Yeah. It's such a good question. Yeah, I mean, there's so many layers and nuance to this and kind of echoes the conversation you and I were having offline, even about like conversations around like race and racial justice. I helped to lead our church in some of those conversations at the height of the pandemic.

Oh, fun. And the most difficult conversations I had were with white people. I was like, why? So it's interesting there are echoes of this in both spaces. I think with this, when it comes to sexuality, some of the things I always try to hold in tension and in my heart when I have conversations with somebody who is angry and an ally is realizing like I'm not just speaking to them. I'm going to speak a little bit as like probably a more charismatic Christian. Your audience might land in a spectrum of belief on like what the powers and principalities are around or behind some of these like cultural

wars. But I'm realizing like I'm speaking into a person who has been formed by a culture that told them that to kind of my earlier statement, romantic love is the ultimate expression of self. And to repress this is to live in a life in bondage. And they're trying to set a captive free, but I'm coming back and saying, this is what it means to be free indeed. Pete That's so powerful, Ashley. Oh my, so you would read this idolatry of romantic love, and I know that's kind of strong, but I mean, I don't mean it in a demeaning way, but it is like holding something in a way that God doesn't want you to hold.

But that clinging to this romantic love is kind of the ultimate. You're saying that that ideology is wrapped up in the principalities and powers. It's a powerful distraction from people giving their allegiance to God, ultimately, when romantic love is on par with the divine. I mean, that's, I never thought about it through that lens. That's, wow. Yeah. So, I try to just address like the layers of the conversation we're actually having. And the reality is if that's the true story, then a life of singleness is bad news.

Sure. Like that is a sad journey if truly romantic love is the ultimate like experience in life, but inverted, it's like if we can reconcile ourselves to even like a life of like what suffering actually means and what it's for. I think in the West, like we've so gotten enmeshed with some of our like cultural ideals around the good life and what life is ultimately about. And in a very different way, I have a friend in New York City who spends a lot of her time in a wheelchair. She has muscular dystrophy and a lot of her teaching and a lot of her ministry is oriented

around like, how do you actually suffer well? What does suffering actually mean as like a prophetic witness to the Western Church around like a good life with God is not just the removal of suffering. So like, I've seen her have deeper encounters with God, depend on God more deeply, know Him in ways I don't even know Him because of her suffering. So, like, I've seen her have deeper encounters with God, depend on God more deeply, know Him in ways I don't even know Him because of her suffering. And so, how do we embrace the Second Corinthians? Like, my grace is sufficient for you. My power is actually made perfect in the empty parts of your life. So, I think the LGBTQ Christians who have chosen lives of celibacy, in general, Christians who have chosen lives of singibacy, or in general Christians who have

chosen lives of singleness, are a prophetic witness to a watching world about what the good life actually is. God, I cannot agree more. Some of my, I would say spiritually with Jesus in just ways that are so unique, you know? Because they live in a world that idolizes romantic love, because they live in churches that idolize romantic love, they haven't had the option of making Jesus their all. Like, that has been a necessary liturgical rhythm of their life, a daily life of waking up every day and finding their satisfaction in Jesus to the point to where it becomes muscle memory.

And they just have a glow about them, you know? A glow that you can only get from meeting the presence of Jesus. And part of me is like, us heterosexual married people, you know, referring to myself, it's like, yeah, we often are so tempted to make our spouses or our families, whatever, the ultimate source of our joy. Like, that is an ongoing temptation that we often fail at, you know? And again, I don't want to say these are bad things, but good is a beautiful thing, bad things, but good, these are beautiful things, wonderful things, but even good and wonderful things can become an undue focus of

where you find your ultimate joy. And I just, gosh, yeah. And like you said, what a testimony to the power of the gospel and the beauty of Jesus. Okay, so this might be a slight of the gospel and the beauty of Jesus. Okay, so this might be a slight left turn here. We've used language pretty freely here. LGBTQ, queer Christians, sexual minority. In the broader evangelical world, like especially the conservative branch of evangelicalism, this has become a major, major, major sticking point that you should never use the term gay, the term gay Christian or especially queer Christian is anathema. If you say this word, don't say that word, you know, like, do you even deal with any of that where you're at? I mean, I imagine New York City, doing ministry in New York City is just, I would imagine you

just can't be bothered with that kind of stuff. But have you guys ever talked through that? Is that even a conversation at your church? It's probably one of those conversations that we're catching up on. We're just like so deep in the water. We should probably back up and figure out some of this stuff. We've been building this slowly and over time. And in the building of this community, I've just like kind of honored the choices that our group members have made. And so, there's a spectrum in our group, like in the table of how people would identify.

Okay. So, there are some people, and honestly, it's the evangelists in our group, the people who have the absolute spiritual gift of evangelism, who will every time say they're a queer Christian, because that for them is a missional bridge into a community that they want to see the gospel break into. And I know it's a deliberate choice on their part. And I've actually seen a lot of fruit in their life. I would say this past round of Alpha, we ran about 30% of the guests were gay. And this person single-handedly shared their testimony with every single one of them.

And we just saw defenses drop and walls come down because she was like, oh yeah, I'm bi, I'm queer, and I'm a Christian. Let me show you how I've walked this out. And there are people in the group who would only identify as same-sex attracted. Some would identify as side-B. Some wouldn't even identify with a side because they've so intentionally tried to disintegrate this from the center of their story. They know their testimony is about so much more than just their sexuality.

So we hold those people in the same room on a Sunday once a month. It's beautiful. It's never been an issue. People would pretty much everybody consider this like this is kind of a secondary issue. Here's how I frame my story. Here's the language I use, but they're not policing other people's language. Is that? Yeah. I would say there's a lot, there's a grace of unity over the group. And there's some things that have been said that I'm like, oh, I can see how that will offend that person. And they've just chosen to not be offended by each other. person, and they've just chosen to not be offended by each other. Can you give, you know what, let me grab a question here real quick. This is from Don.

So yeah, I've got some Patreon supporters who can tune in live and they can ask questions and stuff. You can't see them, nobody can see them, but they can chime in here. So Don, yeah, this is a question that came in a while ago. I just get into it now. How does your church, you might have already answered this, how does your church welcome those? Oh, he says that has been answered. I'll read it anyway, just because you asked it, if you have any further thoughts. How does your church welcome those who are in a same-sex relationship and maybe moving towards consecration? You said you kind of walk with them one-on-one. You also have this other group that you've started. Yeah.

Okay. What advice do you have for Christians listening right now, particularly maybe Christian leaders who are inspired by hearing everything you're talking about and saying, oh my gosh, I would love to do this. I'm not sure how my leadership would feel. How do I go about even getting my church on board with creating spaces for people, either exploring whether or not they want to consecrate their sexuality or are already in that space where they have consecrated their sexuality? Pros and cons, advice, do's and don'ts on how to go about starting something like this. Yeah. I'll start and then keep me on track, Preston. So I would say, do it. Start this

group. And I will say there, I want to warn you to not assume that this is a niche in New York City. Like this is possible because you live in a city where there is a large LGBTQ community. So of course this has happened in your context. The reality is there are gay people in your church. They just might not have told you yet. There are people who experience same sex attraction in your church. You just might not know their story yet. So I wouldn't wait until you have a quorum of people to start a group, start a group and the people will find you every single time they do. We put this group not, I intentionally didn't put it in our list of community groups. Do you want to be in a running group or the LGBTQ group?

I just didn't want to put it there. But where I did put it was on our page of like our theology of sexual formation because every person who experiences same sex attraction in your church will go to that page on your website. When they come to your church, they're going to be looking for like what's your theology around sexuality. So one, if that page doesn't exist on your website, I would encourage you that it probably could and should. And two, we put that out there because the reality is I don't know everyone in our church with this story, but they found us. So, again, I started this when I knew three or four stories, and behind that there now are 24 people in our group. Wow. Okay, that was my question is, okay, start a group, but how do you announce it?

Would you say that's brilliant? I have not thought about that. So, put it next to, you don't need to put it on the front page or even on the list, but put it next to a sexuality statement, assuming churches have it. I know a lot of churches that don't have a sexuality statement on the website. And some of that is, I've heard churches explain why they don't, and I'm like, oh, okay, that makes sense. Other churches that do, and I'm like, oh, that makes sense too. So, I've come to the view that it really just depends on your social context, your church context. Will it, given your specific circumstance, will it unnecessarily turn people away or will it add necessary clarity?

I know you guys are big on clarity and that's something I've been harping on, especially the last couple of years. Clarity is kindness. When you're not clear, people get hurt. That doesn't necessarily mean a statement on the website, but I think it can. It depends on how the statement's worded, too. Some people, they use old language, and just the way they word it can be an unnecessary turn off. It's not just people being turned off by the truth

or turned off by the way you're wording it. It shows that you haven't talked to a gay person in 38 years. Yes. I would have somebody with lived experience edit, like have the ability to add to or edit whatever you post on the internet about your theology of sexual formation. And if you want it to be missionally compelling, you might have to adopt missional practices of the language you use. Going back to our earlier point about having some flexibility with how you word things,

you know, being inclusive of with how you word things, being inclusive of people who might word things differently. So start it. Okay, you've given people a challenge. Start it small. I will also say the second part of that that comes to mind for me is you might be thinking, I've got to start this group to care for these two or three people that I know of. And yes, there's more people in your congregation that will find you who have this lived experience and this is for them.

But honestly, the table is not just for the table. It has so stirred faith in our entire congregation, just around the worthiness of Jesus to consecrate other parts of their life. So just for a short example of that is last fall, we got all of our volunteers together across all of our teams and we have this big vision day where John just kind of doubles down on, here's a vision of the church, here's what's coming up this season. And at that gathering, we had one of the members, one of the leaders of the table share her

testimony and share what God was doing in the table. And at the end of her sharing, she got a standing ovation from 300, 400 people in the room. And they weren't giving her a standing ovation because she had taken a hard line on a controversial topic. They were giving her a standing ovation because in her testimony, they saw you are fully surrendered to God. You have seen the beauty and the goodness of God, and it really just like inspired their faith. So, I think it fuels the faith of your entire congregation and is for so much more than the four or five people in your group. God inspires people to consecrate their finances or to give up their porn addiction or something,

or whatever. Like, It models the beauty and joy that comes from seriously following Jesus. Yeah, oh my gosh. Okay, how about this? You start a group, what leadership has to be... Because if you just say, all right, let's just get a group going or whatever, it has to have some kind of oversight, right? Yes. So, we have... Actually, by the time this podcast airs, we will have on our website, if you even want to check it out and download, we have a table playbook now on how to start something like this if you're interested. So, it's on our website, church.nyc.com, backslash, sexual formation. So you'll see our theological statement, a

testimony video of a member of the table. It's breathtaking and beautiful. We have an interest form where people don't just like automatically join the table, but they fill out like a quick form to express interest. And then we'll have our table playbook that you can download. And it has some kind of handles for like, what should your leadership team look like? And how does this then connect to the leadership of the broader church? And what are some good like rhythms and practices in your monthly gatherings? We just like pull from the ancient church practices from like church history. So when we gather, it's around Revelation 12, 11. They overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.

So, we do as simple as we share testimonies, we pray together, we like speak the gospel over each other, we take communion. Like it's just so simple. And so ancient and so beautiful. But all of that's kind of in that playbook if you want more info there. But I would say if you're a person who's in a church and you're like, I want to see something like this exist in my church, work with your church leadership because you don't want to be an island or a silo or a side project.

This actually needs to be integrated into the bigger vision of the church. And if you're a church leader and you're like, something like this has to exist. I don't have lived experience, I'm not sure where to start, partner with somebody in your congregation who has lived experience that you trust, like, not just their theology, but their character, their leadership, walk with them, develop them, work with them, but make sure somebody with lived experience is in a leadership position in your room. Did you guys ever face, with the table, backlash among other people in the congregation that anybody leave over it? I mean, you guys are a unique church. So, but yeah, I'll answer that question because my follow-up is, I know 98% of church leaders listening would say,

I'm going to lose some members if I start this for sure. I will say I am so grateful to the leadership of our church. John Tyson is a man who is willing to lose people in his congregation for the right things. So, anything that we like dig deep on, he's willing. He's like happy if people walk away because it's just like, well, this is the vision. This is like our conviction. This is what the Lord's doing in our congregation. And so he sees that as a clarifying moment of like, okay, you actually didn't have the same vision or weren't going after the same thing. So has that happened? I will say most of the friction that I've heard around this space came from ambiguity. So I would

say just like talk about it early, often make sure your congregation knows about it, make sure it's not hidden. Because some of the actual, I tried to protect the members of the table and by making it an anonymous group, because some of the people in the group aren't out to anyone outside the group. And that's a space that I want to be safe for them. But it's intentionally not been a secret group because we're not ashamed of it. We're not trying to hide it. But I think when some people in our church have actually heard about the anonymous factor, some of the friction has actually been like, why is this something you're hiding? And we just had to be like, oh, we're not. So it's mostly been from ambiguity, I would say.

Can you envision other, like a pastor in a more conservative church in the Midwest or not just Midwest, anywhere else? I mean, yeah, can you help pastor them and okay, they're like, okay, if I start this group, it's going to cause possible division, people are going to leave, people are going to be confused. Would you say you need to have almost like a public explanation of here's why we're doing it? Maybe even if you can't do like a sermon on it, but I mean maybe a short video from the past or just some sort of like correlating education to help people understand so that there

is clarity. And if people still leave, then that's on them. Because, yeah, I get it. People might, I think most Christians, many Christians are going to assume, oh, so we're going affirming now, oh, we're going liberal, oh, we're, you know, all these assumptions, but how can a pastor maybe alleviate some of those assumptions or address those? Yeah, I think everything you just suggested is brilliant. Of just getting as clear as possible, whether it's on the website or in a video, just making obvious why the group exists because those people, if they have an orthodox sex ethic and they're afraid, like, are we moving from orthodoxy? Your answer is no, we're actually making a plausibility structure for orthodoxy. We're making orthodoxy possible and also not just possible, but we're creating

a space where people can know it's deeply satisfying to sacrifice all of these other things and to follow Jesus in this way. So I would say to just be as clear as possible and hopefully those people would just roll in and double down on like, oh, we actually can hold this really high ethic because we have a possibility structure for it. And I just, yeah, I think our team has just also had this like burning conviction that we've prayed for the LGBTQ community for years, and we need to be ready to steward the answers to our prayers. Like we've got to get ready for the move of God that we've been asking for. And we have a leader on our team who has this conviction that, like, what hippies were to the Jesus movement, quite possibly the LGBTQ community might be to

the next move of God in our time. And so, we're just trying to, like, get containers to hold what God might be willing to do. I thought the exact same thing. Sorry, I just… Really? Did you ever see the film that came out a couple years ago? Is it the Jesus revolution? I watched it on a plane and wept. I don't recommend watching it in public. I watched it on a plane too. Yeah. But I thought the exact same thing, because at the time I was going to a Calvary Chapel and I thought the exact same thing. I thought like LGBT, it's like, if you had this influx, you know, these influx of hippies and this conservative church and

the conservative pastor is like, you know what, these are the people I want here. And if you don't like it, you can get out and the people left everything. I'm like, but that same, and I don't speak on behalf of all Calvary Chapels,, you know, it's a pretty conservative church and many are very conservative and some are, you know, more moderate. But I was like, what if there was an influx of gay and lesbian and queer and trans people? It was just very similar, the kind of like, the impact that the hippies had and like, would that be well received? Or like, would they actually go back to their Calvary Chapel roots of saying, you know what, this is who Jesus wants in this congregation. Like, go read the Gospels. And if you don't like it, then this isn't a place for you. I was sad because I was thinking like,

I don't know if that same movement that had these beautiful foundations would do that. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe some would do that. But anyway, yeah, I thought the exact same thing. Yeah. I think it's just such a new wineskin moment. I just think God wants to break open what we think is possible among the communities that we might not even be watching and expecting. I think we've seen that through Gen Z. We've seen what we saw as the least biblically literate generation. We're now seeing a move of God in that generation. We're seeing it among the incarcerated, like just mass baptisms, like a huge response to the gospel and maximum security prisons all over the country. And I think like we'll see it in this community and LGBTQ community. So, I'm just asking God for the new wineskin. Pete Ashley, thanks so much for being a guest on the show. Absolute delight to talk to you, and thank you so much for the work you've done.

This is, I think you've given us such powerful examples of how God is on the move in an unexpected way. So, thanks for your faithfulness and courage. Yeah, thanks for your ministry, Preston. You have been a north star and an anchor to us, and your resources have been invaluable as we pastor and steward this community so thank you. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.