Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1108: Parenting LGBTQ Kids: Bill Henson

Episode Date: September 4, 2023

Bill Henson founded Posture Shift Ministries, Inc. in 2006. Posture Shift is a credentialed missional training curriculum on LGBT+ inclusion and care. Over 100,000 church, school and youth leaders have experienced Posture Shift across the globe. Bill is also the author of Guiding Families, which is a best practice relational care plan that Bill wrote after working with thousands of families and LGBT+ youth. Safe churches and homes allow LGBT+ people to grow in trusting and knowing Jesus Christ. The board and teaching staff of Posture Shift Ministries, Inc. hold to a traditional biblical view.  Learn more at https://postureshift.com and https://guidingfamilies.com. In this conversation, we discuss how to best parent LGBTQ kids from a Christian perspective. Having worked with thousands of families with LGBTQ kids, Bill has gleaned a ton of wisdom over the years in this area.  Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

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in the Raw merch, you need to order it very soon before it runs out. So again, click on the link in the show notes below, or you can go to theologyintheraw.com and click on the merch tab. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. It is my great pleasure to have my very good friend and mentor, Bill Henson, back on the show. Bill has been engaging the LGBTQ conversation for many, many years, has, I would say, more experience than anybody I've ever met. I mean, he's trained literally thousands of Christian leaders, has worked with thousands of Christian families who have LGBT kids. He focuses on how to create a place in churches, in our families, in our homes that are safe and life-giving for LGBTQ people within a traditional sexual ethic. And he's so incredibly wise,

has so much knowledge that I'm excited to have him back on the show. So in this podcast, we do focus on Christian parents of LGBTQ kids, and I think Bill just has an immense amount of wealth and wisdom in that area. Also, I'd invite you to check out a resource that he has produced called Guiding Families. It's now in the fifth edition, and this is my absolute go-to resource, whether you're a parent with an LGBT kid or maybe a pastor trying to navigate, especially real nitty gritty pastoral relational questions within your churches,

Guiding Families is an absolute essential resource. You can find it, if you just Google it, I think guidingfamilies.com or if you go to postureshift.com is the website of the ministry that Bill is in charge of, Posture Shift Ministries. So please welcome back to the show, the one and only Bill Hanson. Bill, I would not be thinking through this conversation the way I do without your incredible wisdom. So thank you for what you do and for our friendship.

Thank you, Preston. I feel the same. Thank you very much for your friendship. I was thinking about it. I think we first connected in 2009, something like that. Yeah, that's a while ago. So a long time. Was it through Leslie?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think that's right. Yeah. Shout out to Leslie. Amazing human being. Well, for those who don't know who you are or your organization, just give us a, just a kind of a one-on-one. I know, I think a lot of people will be familiar with your work. We get a lot of crossover. I mean, I, yeah, I can't tell you how many times people that follow my podcast, whatever, also mentioned you and the work you've done. But for those who don't know, who is Bill Henson and what do you do?

Sure. I'm married to my wife, Kong. We have two kids, 22 and 19, all grown up now. Founded Posture Shift in 2006. It was founded to be a training platform for church leaders. Just like you've found, Preston, quickly parents are coming to us. And over the years, kind of built up two brands, Posture Shift for training church teams,

guiding families for helping parents and families of LGBT loved ones. So that used to be kind of one and the same. Can you explain the division then? Division sounds harsh, but yeah. I'd say the umbrella is we are Posture Shift Ministries, Inc. And then under that, we have two platforms. One for church teams, church and ministry teams, and one for parents and families. So I just see it as two brands within one organization.

How many families have you worked with over the years? I mean, you've been doing this for almost two decades, right? And so many families. What number is it? It's really hard to say. There's different categories. Like seeing a kid and their mom and dad in person like every two weeks for years, I would say it's in the hundreds. Engaging parents and their kid through Zoom or over a telephone call, maybe once or twice,

it could be thousands and thousands. And then there's about 50,000 copies of the various editions of Guiding Families in print. So it's designed as a care plan, as a best practice care plan. So in a sense, there's a lot of families that are getting what they would get through our direct care by reading the book. Can you hold it up? And I want to tell people where they can get it because this is the, if I had one resource to give to families or church leaders or anybody engaged in this conversation, this is absolutely incredible. Yeah. Guiding Families.

It's now in the fifth edition. It used to be a lot shorter, right? Like 40, 50 pages. Yeah. The fifth edition is about double the content of our prior expanded edition. And it's available at either guidingfamilies.com or postureshift.com. That's my first piece of advice. If parents are like, my kid just came out, what do I do?

It's my first is like, okay, read this. And then, you know, call me in the morning kind of thing. It just has a wealth of just amazing, not just information, well, information, good information, but drawn from so much experience and people's stories. And yeah, it's just absolutely incredible. We spoke offline. And when I first started engaging the conversation, it was kind of as a theologian, I was doing a lot of theology. And then it quickly turned into theological pastoral care, kind of combining more like helping pastors navigate a lot of the nitty gritty relational questions. Over the last few years, we as an organization

are just inundated with Christian parents with LGBT kids. And this is something that I, in a sense, I didn't like sign up for, but I've had to like say, oh my gosh, this is a huge need. But man, I have leaned so much on you and your work and other Christian parents who have walked this road for a while and have great stuff to say. Let's just start with Christian parents of LGBTQ kids. I know that's a broad, broad category. Every story is different. I know that's a broad, broad category. Every story is different. But are there some big picture things that you would tell parents listening, watching right now, whose kid maybe just came out or maybe they've been out for 10, 20 years?

Are there some just real big picture stuff that you would tell every parent to start with? is when a child comes out, no matter what age they are, there's a tendency for suddenly us as parents to project our needs upon our child. In other words, you have given me information that has now triggered me or shocked me or disappointed me or hurt me. This is not what I expected. So instead of coming out of posture of really, really being engaged and listening to the self-report of our child, we're often reporting our story upon our child. So we're, in a sense, we're inflicting our grief upon our child. So the number one principle would be to have that self-awareness of, whoa, let me make sure that I get my support to process my stuff with other people separate from my child. But right here, right now, I need to be present for my child in what they are

self-reporting to me. I think that's the number one, number one principle is that presence of actually being listening rather than hearing something and then spilling a bunch of fears or a bunch of trying to create a whole trajectory of a future for the next 20 or 30 years. Wait, wait, no. My child has just told me something and I need to be present in this moment. I think that's the top principle. Now, I would imagine, I'm going to guess almost every parent listening who has an LGBT kid is going to say, I didn't do that. Like, if you're, I mean, how many parents do you know, like prepare for the time in case their kid might... It's just not something parents do. So there's basically little to no preparation ahead of time, right? So most parents are probably backtracking. freak out, maybe tears, maybe this guilt of what did I do wrong? Or even like, why are you doing this to us? I mean, I've heard it all. You have too. What can they do? Can they go back and redeem

that moment? What can they do if they've made some mistakes along the way? Yeah. So one, mistakes are very, very costly. So let's just say that anyone with a minority experience, they experience marginalization at a very high rate. So when something that feels like marginalization is coming from my own mom and dad, whoa, oh no, now it's not just bullying, teasing things I might encounter on the outside or people I don't really know well at church who are thinking ugly thoughts about me. But all of a sudden, whoa, now I'm dealing with that same, what feels to me like mistreatment from my own mom and dad. So mistakes are very costly. It'll take a lot to

overcome the mistakes. In Guiding Families, in prior editions, we actually wrote how to write a reset letter. And the reset letter is an opportunity to confess innocence, mistakes, even sins that I've committed against my child to not just verbally tell them that. I may do that as well, but to put it in writing. Like if I'm a dad that has hardly ever written a letter to my own children, because we live together and we love each other and all that, you know, well, put it in writing, handwriting, you know, and a reset letter could powerfully reach into the heart of a hurt kid and convince that kid to forgive and to give mom and dad another shot. Now, but this is how hard it is in 2023. We went to some of our, let's say most trusted parents. And we just said, Hey, tell us about

some of your successes of, you know, when you wrote a reset letter and you know, how it helped to repair your relationship. And all of a sudden, this one mom and dad said, oh, well, your book is entirely missing a whole article. I was like, really, what is it? When a reset letter doesn't work. And Preston, that article ends up being, they helped us co-write it. And it ends up being one of the most powerful

articles in the whole fifth edition. So that's just to say that, like, it can be so costly, that there can be kids, even adult kids that, like, are not ready to forgive mom and dad for some of those mistakes that they've made. In 2023, there are kids that are saying, your traditional view is white supremacy to me. So when you can put it in writing that you no longer have a traditional view, then we can have a relationship. Until then, no relationship. Whoa. Have you seen that? That that viewpoint that was my next question um how because this is probably the most challenging question i get and i don't know how to answer it and maybe there's not a you know magic bullet answer but i get all the time and it seems to be increasing my my child

or my friend it could be just a relational, demands 100% agreement until I can give that any kind of verbalization of love is just a charade. You are either toxic or you 100% agree with me. Those are the two options. Has that viewpoint been increasing? And what advice do you give? I'm so excited to hear you speak. Yeah, it's, uh, it's increasing. And, but what I would say is I think it's more a symptom of a highly, highly divisive

culture that we live in. In other words, it's, it's, it has nothing to do with a particular family or the history of that family. Assuming there's love in that family, it has to do with a particular family or the history of that family, assuming there's love in that family. It has to do with ideologies. And there's an ideology that, like, if you vote this way, then you can't be my friend. If you use this word and not that word, then you're no friend of mine or you don't love. All right. So like not to be, um, uh, sarcastic in any way, but it's so prevalent that I actually went to chat GPT to ask the question, does love require unity and belief? Now, biblically, I already know the answer. Love transcends

differences in belief. Love transcends sin. Love transcends all the different kinds of divisions that we might have in our relationships. But I wanted to see on a secular platform, what would the answer be? And even AI says, no, it would be a torturesome definition of love that it would be based upon a unity and belief across all the important issues in life. Love must transcend differences in view or else it is not a true definition of love. definition of love. And I was very encouraged by that because obviously there's someone programming AI and there was some recognition at purely a secular level outside of Christianity or any religion at all, that love must transcend differences in belief. Ah, but it'll be measured by honoring actions, attitudes, and words. So as long as there's honoring, then there's a possibility for people to perceive that they are loved. If there's ugly attitudes, horrible actions,

disrespectful words, then clearly we're not being loving and therefore that love can't transcend that gap. Well, that's what I was thinking. Could it be? And again, we're talking 30,000 foot level. Every individual case is different. Have you encountered parents that think they are actually being as loving as they can, but they're actually doing things, maybe often unintentional, that they can actually improve on to genuinely be loving their kid better? Yes. And it's goes across the whole spectrum.

Parents that think they're being loving, but I'm even listening to what they're saying. And I'm like, that's not going to, that's not going to translate, you know? And then I meet parents that are doing everything right, but their kid will not internalize that or accept it. So can you give examples of being the parents thinking they're being loving, but doing things again, unintentionally that are not loving? Yeah. A dad who's even like the demeanor is like very calm. Like you can just sense this dad loves his son. You know, he's saying, I love my son. I, you know, I'd do anything for my son.

But I just didn't raise my boy to be in the gay lifestyle. Okay, wait, no, the moment that we take your son's self-reported identity, and now we assign to it all kinds of negative lifestyle, we're actually communicating condemnation to our child. And the father's like, well, what did I say? I just, my kid came out. All I did is share with you that my kid came out. I said, well, but what does gay lifestyle mean to you? It means my son is gay. Okay, well, what does gay lifestyle mean to your son? I don't know. Well, maybe you should ask him, you know, because I bet he's going to say that it makes

it feel like you're saying to me, dad, that I'm like involved in all this ugly sexual activity and that I don't have a conscience and that I don't have integrity and things like this. So when we reduce what people are reporting to us about their identity and using language that means something to them, we've got to understand we're responsible for that. That's not their fault. That's our responsibility. So that's an example. So a big part of it is using language in a way that you don't realize is maybe communicating things that maybe you're not even intending or maybe you are intending and maybe you don't realize that this idea,

this assumption can be really off-putting. Is there another example that comes to mind of, again, unintentional miscommunication of love? Yes, there will be parents that like they have an older son who is allowed to date at age 16. But they'll have a lesbian daughter that is not allowed to date. But it's not an age threshold thing. Or it's not a no dating in our household thing. It's your brother can date because he's heterosexual. How could we ever allow you to date when you have a lesbian identity? All right. So now I'm not saying parents have to allow dating. What I'm saying is that if you have an inconsistent policy in how you allow sleepovers or how you allow friends to visit or what friends

you allow your kids to hang out with or dating, if you have an inconsistency in policy, you think you're protecting your child, but all they're seeing is the disconnect between the permissions that their siblings have versus the restrictions they face. And that's going to feel to them like marginalization. They are being treated differently. So that's another example. And by the way, by very loving parents. No. Yeah. How do you, cause I do have a question about that. Like, would it be, cause I've thought about this, like even with, you know, my kids are all straight, you know, and, and, but even then they're different dating. Like we've had to navigate just different, like, man, what, what, what what what you know what we said to this one daughter who might say well

for you because of various things it might look different and and maybe we're every day we go back to the drawing board of parenting i don't know how people have a full-time job and parent parenting is like a two full-time jobs and i'm also supposed to go to work all day. And like, it's just, it's insane. And we're only talking about that as dads. Imagine how moms feel. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. So, would it be okay?

And this is actually a genuine question. For me, I'm like, we have one kind of standard for dating. Like if you say you're a Christian and, you know, then we're going to hold you to a Christian standard. So if my Christian... Yeah, let's just say, yeah, 16, they're still under authority. I think once they're 18 and over, that relationship kind of changes. But if our kid who says, I'm a Christian, but I want to date, say, a non-Christian, I would say, here's why I don't think that would be wise. Or even if the guy was a Christian, but it's like, oh gosh, I'm seeing major red flags here. We would say no.

We do have to still approve of what we think is a wise Christian standard of dating. So if we did that and say we had a lesbian or gay kid who said, well, I want to date the same sex. I say I'm a Christian. Would it be okay to say, well, that actually falls outside the bounds of what we think would be a wise Christian form of dating? I don't want people to come away from this podcast saying, Bill Henson said you must allow your child to date. But what I don't want to sweep under the rug is the impact that that has on LGBT kids.

So if parents have that standard for dating, it could still be applied in an inconsistent way. For example, you know, maybe the red flags aren't so apparent that their heterosexual kid is actually dating someone that is really, really not actually walking with Christ right now. You know, and maybe we're aware of pieces of that, but like kind of let it pass. Why? Oh, because he's such a wonderful young man, you know, and oh, they look so cute together and, you know, and they're having fun. OK, so my point is there tends to be this idea that we communicate a consistent policy, but then we don't implement it so consistently. of this question is, if I am going to strictly say to my gay son or my lesbian daughter or my pansexual child, if I'm going to say, look, because you're not capable of dating in an opposite sex relationship that would be consistent with our biblical beliefs, therefore you can't date until you're 18. I think we need to really, really consider how can we be consistent with our other kids in that manner, number one. But also, we talk about this in postures for church leaders.

For every no, you need to have three to five yeses that you can say yes to. three to five yeses that you can say yes to. So like, if you're going to say no to dating, and your child is going to absorb as victimization, the idea that they are being treated differently, we can talk all day long about how no, they're not being treated differently, because it's a Christian view of marriage and dating. I understand that theologically. But at a relational level, there's no way that child is not going to absorb that, internalize it as they are being mistreated. They are being treated differently than their siblings. So for every way in which we might treat LGBT kids differently, we need to really be creative in thinking about what are three to five things

that I can say yes to you know like if I'm a pastor and if I can't officiate a gay marriage then that's saying no to someone on the biggest day of their life by the way I won't officiate a gay marriage so let me make sure I'm being very clear here but just saying in light of that, it's my responsibility to be thinking very creatively. How can I make this a church home for LGBT people? I'm going to say no on the biggest day of their life. I better have five things I can invite them to now. So parents, I'd say the same thing. Be thinking creatively about what you can say yes to. I'm not saying yes to sin. I'm talking about yes to engaging your child based on how they understand their identity. That's so good. Bill, I remember that you reminded me. I remember hearing you say that years ago,

for every no, you should have a number of yeses um and and i do i i let you add the clarification you're not saying yes to sin but there could be some gray area issues that you might not be super excited about but i'm hearing you say given the unique challenges that this relationship is going to have you you might have to make some, can I say, I don't know if the words in your mouth, but maybe accommodations like this wouldn't be my preference. But if I look at the long-term picture, the long-term picture, I want to do whatever I can to maintain a relationship here. And there's already going to be things stacked against the, you know, the deck kind of stacked against this. And so maybe making some accommodations to preserve the relationship. Is that? Yes. And maybe also to protect my child

emotionally. For example, if my child is an older 16-year-old or almost 17-year-old, 17-year-old, or if they're in their senior year, okay, am I going to say no, no, no, no, no to dating? And then when they go off to college, they literally fall off a cliff where for the first time in their life, they are now making dating decisions on their own outside of my household without any of my insight or influence or oversight. So surely there has to be this kind of letting go. Do we want the letting go to be this binary on-off switch when a kid is 18 and out of our house? Or do we want to be able to say, well, okay, you're 17 now and you want a date.

Okay, we're going to allow you to make that decision on your own. We don't support it, but we're allowing you to make your own decision. At least it would give me a year to have oversight and to be available to them. If they got hurt, they wouldn't be able to come to me. I'd be able to comfort them. I'd be able to talk to them about the lessons that they learned. So that is not promoting sin. It's not approving of sin. It's not encouraging sin, but it is saying, let me have some relationship with my soon to be adult child and be part of their life rather than just no, no, no, no, no. And then they go off the cliff on their own. So you think it could, because again, this transfers to, this is just good parenting.

Again, a straight Christian kid who really wants to go on a date or date a non-Christian would be a very similar situation. If this relationship is not something we would be excited about or even approve of but you're saying you a parent could do that and yet still let the child kind of like pursue something that you're not excited about but you're giving them the freedom to make that decision because and again if they're like 13 maybe that's different okay but you're talking 16 17 in a year or two a couple months that they're going to be in the realm of outside your authority. And there's, you know, maybe parents would disagree with that. I do think that once your kid is, you know, adult out of the house,

then, well, I, as, as one parent coach, I just recently heard said, you know, you move from like, you know, when you're, when your kid's five to 12, you're a cop when they're 13 to 17, you're, you're a coach after 18, you're a consultant. You're kind of available for when, you know, Which you might not get hired. You might not. Yeah. So, yeah, that's that. Cause we, we've thought about that.

Like, and we've gone back and forth on like, when do we just, you know, they're still under our roof, you know, top's that. Because we've thought about that. And we've gone back and forth on when do we just, they're still under our roof, top-down authority. But then also, we do want them to be able to make not wise decisions while they're under our roof to guide you through when you're navigating that. Bill, this is hard. It is hard. Because we've made the mistake on both ends. Yes. We're too lenient. And all of a sudden, I'm like, what is going on? And I feel like I should have... How come I'm not parenting my kid better?

And then the other side of parenting too much. You're like, I'm just way too much dictating how they're supposed to live. And it's just that balance is so hard and there's fallout on either side. One thing my dad said, I'm seven years old. So this is going back to when I was like probably 17. And my dad, he didn't say yes or no. He said, son, you're going to have to learn to live your life before God knowing that you're responsible only to him because we're past the point of you being accountable to me I mean that was a very

factual truth it was probably hard for him to say that and hard for him to let go. It was very true, but also it kind of infused in me, oh my gosh, I have to live my life before God, not before my dad. So it was almost like a growing up moment for me that all these years later, I remember that. Yeah. Wow. That's so good. I want to shift gears a little bit. This is something I get a lot from parents, and it has to do with the intersection of parental care and our sociopolitical moment, where you have, obviously, a massive rise in teenagers identifying as LGBTQ. And that raises questions you have in certain areas of the country, especially like the school system might be so radically affirming. And parents are like,

what do we do? Third graders being taught this, this, this. What's your advice to parents that are maybe they do have maybe some legitimate, maybe fear or deep concerns about kind of the world out there and where this conversation is and how their kid might be wrapped up into that. And also maybe tempering that with, with not letting, I don't know, you probably know where I'm going with this, but like how to also care for your kid, not out of fear of kind of the out there, but like actually parenting them well. Yeah. I, I, first of of all we know 30 of kids are not trans or gender minorities uh we we know that scientifically it's simply not true uh we do know though that every next generation

of youth has a certain ideology um that they hold to like there, there aren't many hippies in the world today, but at a certain time, you know, like there, there were a lot of hippies, you know, and I'm not equating gender, uh, identity to something like being a hippie or something like that. But all I'm saying is that every next generation tends to scare the heck out of their parents. OK, and like, whoa, will the gospel survive this generation? I guarantee you God is not done yet in this next generation. And they have ideologies that will be shaped over time. And so one of the biggest principles here I think about is long term, the gospel will have power over this next generation of kids.

Why? Because God will not abandon them. He will not forget about them. And his word still has power in this world. controversy around this. I need to ground myself not to get pulled into that controversy that I need to be prepared to engage the next child one-on-one right here, right now, based on that child's self-report and not in the loud background of all this cultural moment with 400 and something, you know, bills being considered around the country. By the way, many of those bills, I would probably be supportive of or supportive of elements of them. One of the things that I'd be most supportive of is that there should not be, in order to take care of a minority people group, there should not be an education platform that suddenly adults are telling first graders or

third graders who they are or who they can be in their sexuality or their gender identity. So anything in a bill that's trying to just say, you know, early education is about education. I'd be very, very supportive of things like that. But I can't, I cannot allow, I'm a human too. I get frustrated by how fast this world is moving and some of the things that are happening in on the extremes on both sides, by the way. But I get upset by that. But in my care of LGBT kids and their parents, I have to be present right here, right now. This is about the opportunity to share the presence of Christ with a human being, a young

person, and their mom and dad, and to make the gospel have more power in their family. So that's my focus all the time. If Theology in the Raw has blessed you or challenged you or encouraged you on some level, then I would like to invite you to consider supporting the show by visiting patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. You can support the show for as little as five bucks a month and get access to various kinds of premium content like monthly Q&A podcasts, the ability to ask me questions and dialogue with other Patreon supporters. Gold level supporters are able to participate in monthly Zoom chats where we talk about pretty much everything. Those chats can get pretty wild sometimes,

and I absolutely love it. So join the Theology in the Raw community by signing up at patreon.com forward slash Theology and Raw. I feel like you probably keep up on the political stuff definitely more than I do. And this is kind of like, I guess this isn't that important of a question. I just, I have several people have asked me about the, some of the stuff in Florida in particular, like the so-called don't say gay bill, which I don't't think says that but that's how it's been kind of framed do you have any thoughts on some of the i know it's so polarized and misrepresented and just you know but i just think that when we get to the point of like either i think mandates on either side are really potentially very impactful. Like if you say like a mandate,

you must use a name and pronoun. Okay. Well, you know, like that doesn't leave room for a child that's just socially exploring, you know, and doesn't really need that. And then if you make a law that says pronouns and, you know, and names are never permitted, you know, well, then you're actually potentially cutting off creating safety in a school system for a teacher that might feel like it's very important to be able to use a name and pronoun. So these binary mandates that either cut one way, you must do this or you can never do this. I just really have a problem with things like that. I mean, kids that really are gender minorities, they really do need our care. They really do need us to be thoughtful about how we're engaging them.

And I'd rather there be freedom in how to do that rather than these extreme mandates one way or the other. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Yeah, I think it gets so politicized. And you know that when you have political parties that will do anything to wield power and assert their viewpoints, and maybe some of their viewpoints aren't even that bad. Some are bad or whatever, but just this polarization or everything, it just, it just makes, it just stirs up so much fear and anger. And when that trickles down into the church, it's like, we can't be led. Like we can't be, that can't be like our, our, our starting point.

You know, we're scared, we're angry at anybody on the other side. And so much of that is just stirred up by media propaganda and kind of extreme voices being platformed on each side. Oh, in 2020, we started seeing the division rise. By 2022, it was peaking. But it's kind of like, first of all, this conservative rising that we're seeing right now, it's almost undefinable. It's not like you can point back to a source. It seems to be operating in a secular realm. But in 2023,

we've now started to see that show up in the church. So to be clear, in pastureshift i don't know a single pastor who would want to be like trying to foment uh let's say um hatred toward trans people you know all the pastors we engage i know all the pastors you engage they're asking how can we share the love of christ with people right but then again we just have a sixty thousand000 church partner that just dropped us because we care for people who identify as gay Christian. So all of a sudden it is here in the church. And so my concern is the trajectory in the coming years is that our pastor is going to guard the church to make sure that the gospel is reigning high in the midst of this ever-changing culture? Or is there going to be more of the church that's now

starting to collapse into this unthoughtful posture of engaging people? So I don't think that's going to happen. But I mean, losing a $60,000 church partner, that speaks to something. It's a data point to consider. church I was at in a really progressive city. And they happened to not have any Christian school options. And they said the entire school district was... The way they would describe how it was... I would say pushing an agenda. I don't like that language. But the way they described it, multiple parents, I'm like, that would fit that description. It was just very, very far left, very aggressive promotion of certain sexuality and gender ideologies that that would be not not even like classically liberal or left leaning but just very very radical and they were like what do we what do we do like we can't afford to homeschool we have you know working two jobs or whatever and do we just leave them in there and

i guess my only response was like what what my response is like, number one, the church and parents, we need to be on the front lines of, you know, discipling our kids, our people in a holistic Christian view of sex, and, you know, extending kindness to our enemies and so on and so forth. Like not just promoting a traditional view of marriage period, but like situate that in the gospel story as a whole. And I also say, I mean, they always say, well, should we go and like, what should we do about the school system? And I don't know how, this is so far beyond my pay grade. The only advice I maybe kind of suggest with a very big open hand is, I mean, if you have opportunity to maybe speak into that, maybe you have the ear of some people in this school, like, yeah, I think you can do that. But those systems are so used to Christians coming in with some right-wing political agenda,

yelling and screaming and being very homophobic and transphobic, like actually, that if you're a Christian coming in with your ideas, just know that you need to deconstruct some of those kind of assumptions of the manner in which you're going to go about raising your concerns. I don't know. What are your thoughts on that? And do you have anything further? I mean, I just don't know what to do in that situation. I think if I'm going to live in that setting, there's a certain aspect that I have to accept that I'm in that setting. Like, for example, we raised our kids in Boston. And so we just taught our children, look, Austin. And so we just taught our children, look, we're going to believe what we believe in our own home and in our own hearts. And we're going to hold tight to that in our effort to honor God.

And likened to it, we're not going to inflict our beliefs in certain areas upon all of our friends. Like we're going to be an inclusive family. We're going to invite our friends over. We're going to be generous in blessing them. If they're LGBT, we're going to accept them, love them, care for them, use their name, pronoun. We're going to be very loving family so that our witness of the gospel of Christ can actually connect to people. So with school administrators, I would, forgive me if this sounds like kind of like giving up, but I would never think I even have the power to even convince them because the ideology that they may hold to is so rooted. that they may hold to is so rooted. So I'd rather them be shocked by my willingness as a Christian to engage rather than, let's

say, trying to earn trust only to confront. So I'd like them. Now, I'm in this full time, so I've actually had rubber meets the road experience of like caring for kids that are suicidal, being aware of what kids go through growing up LGBT. So I could bring some of those things to the table with some of the administrators in our school children's school system. And then sometimes I could just drop a question, you know, like, of course, we want to make sure that we're not telling kids that they must be, you know, gender minorities if they're not.

And I've never met an administrator that did not agree with that statement. Like I've had many very liberal people say, yeah, we need to make sure that we're not like so over caring for minority kids that we actually inflict that upon other kids as a mandate. You must be part of this community. I said, yeah, that's exactly right. Because there are cisgender kids in the world. In fact, most kids are cisgender. So they should be honored in their identity and the discovery of their story as well, rather than having that deconstructed constantly before them. They should be encouraged in who they are. The key is protecting minority kids from mistreatment, but protecting minority kids does not require mistreatment of majority

kids. Do you think, I know, again, and we can leave politics here in a second, but um, you know, this know, this might go back into the kind of polarization and the rhetoric and everything, but like this kind of fear among people on the right of like, are there kids being groomed? The whole grooming conversation, like, is there any legitimacy to that? Is that completely made up? Is it a fear tactic or is there some legitimacy? Is it going on, but on much lower levels than what you would see? And then when I say grooming, I mean, yeah, certain viewpoints, um, being presented in such a way that would, um, maybe convince a kid that they are a sexual gender minority when they may not actually be, um, it could be kind of more

subtle or it can be really like aggressive. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that? Here's a real life story. Sixth grader wrote a report in class about a struggle with body image. And the teacher took a very proactive response to that report, talking to the child privately and telling them, have you considered the possibility that you might be trans or a gender minority? Well, the kid had not self-reported anything about gender identity. It was about body image and it was about self-esteem and it was about gaining a victory over an aspect of body image. So why on earth is an adult suddenly discussing gender identity with this kid? Okay. Do I think that teacher was intending to care? Yeah,

probably. But the way they did it, did it come across as kind of like indoctrination? Yes, it absolutely did. So like when we tell parent, when we tell adults, don't, you know, don't tell a kid's story for them. That isn't just a message to youth pastors or to parents of LGBT kids. It's a, it's a message to all adults. Do not predetermine what a kid's story must be or might be. Engage them based on the self-report of their life. If they're not talking about sexuality or gender identity,

why are we infusing that into the conversation? That's inappropriate. So I believe that there is absolutely an aspect of grooming that's occurring. Do I think the intention is to protect minority kids? Yes, I do. But do I think it goes too far in many cases? Yes, I think it goes way too far. That's helpful. So kind of that is almost unintended for the most part, unintentional. Like they might not realize because it might just be parodying kind of stuff they're hearing and points.

I mean, I'm sure you have to time when I'm talking to people about especially gender. I mean, I'm sure you, you know, half the time when I'm talking to people about especially gender, half the time I hear I'm talking like, I don't even know what you're talking about. They use words and all these inconsistent ways. And they're probably just relaying kind of what they're hearing their authorities say. You know, I get concerned with kids that would be classified as just gender nonconforming, which is probably 30 percent, you know know girls who are not super feminine and boys who are not super masculine and and i do think that again you know benefit of doubt maybe it's unintentional but convincing that kid that they again like you said might be trans again they might even like yeah over interpreting every gender non-conforming behavior as trans, and that might lead down to, okay,

then here's what the medical professionals say is the best steps to avoid suicidality. And you get down into social transition, hormonal transition. I think that the numbers of that aren't as high as maybe some people on the right make it out to be. But it is. I have enough stories, you know, where it's like, gosh, did this, I saw this process happening and it's really, it's really sad. But, um, the other thing is like, I'm more concerned about what we don't know scientifically than what we do know. For example, this rate of identification,

even the number of kids that are experiencing what we would accurately describe as gender dysphoria, a spectrum of gender dysphoria. Okay, that is becoming a much wider experience. We may find out 30 years from now that plastics in our environment has played a role in things. So like, the reason I want right treatment of gender minority youth or kids with gender dysphoria, the reason I want us to so love them, so care for them, so protect them is because like, literally, we may learn one day that we were torturing kids by telling them, you know, well, what you're experiencing is not true. You know, it's not real. We've met parents who moved away, even moved out into the country. And literally within months, their child's gender dysphoria is gone. But in the moment of being where they were,

where that child experienced gender dysphoria, there's no way to tell that kid what you're feeling is not real or what you're feeling. If we didn't live here, you wouldn't be feeling it. Therefore, it's not it's not real. No, it was very real to the point of creating suicidality. So the idea is no matter what this cause is, the right treatment of kids has to be our top focus always. That's so good. And when people say, well, there's so much social influence or social contagion, I don't love that word, but a lot of these kids that identify as something other than, you know, biological sex, it's all social influence or largely social influence. And I guess it's kind of to your point, like, even if some cases of gender dysphoria does have

some element of social causation, that doesn't mean it's not real. For people to say, if it's socially caused, therefore it's not real. Well, no. I mean, suicidality has a social influence aspect. You have eating disorders and self-harm have social... That doesn't mean they're not real. So whatever the cause, let's not pretend like the kid isn't actually experiencing some real distress. One of my fears is that, especially with teenage girls, because you mentioned like body dysmorphia or body image issues, which isn't the same as gender dysphoria, but it can be, I think, diagnosed that way. I don't know too many teenage girls, or you talked to older women today that said, I don't know too many teenage girls, or you talk to older women today that said, man,

going through puberty was amazing. When I first started getting my period, that was great. When my breasts developed and now men are no longer looking at my eyes or looking at my body, I really enjoyed the experience. There is a lot of just really difficulties that especially females go through that has to do with their female body. But I think there's so much just, that's just kind of a natural part. Unfortunately, I mean, there's a lot of sin involved and the difficulties and stuff too from society. But like, I do fear that in some cases, any kind of distress over their female body could be over-interpreted too quickly by non-experpert or sometimes by experts as gender dysphoria um but again i i don't know how many i don't have numbers or data on this it's just

more anecdotal when i hear stories you know i hear a lot from older women they were like if i was a teenager today i totally would have identified as trans and non-binary you know because of the categories that are available. Yeah. I don't know. Here's my full circle, Bill. And I think you'll agree. Like, a lot of these are legitimate concerns. I get concerned when they stifle pastoral care, when they provoke anger and fear rather than a deep heart for people, for whatever reason, are really, really wrestling

with things in life. Mental health issues are obviously off the chart, anxiety, suicidality, depression, and whatever the cause, we need to be deeply concerned about walking with this next generation. Yeah, I feel it very deeply as well. with this next generation. Yeah. I feel it very deeply as well. We also have the crossover or the correlation of kids who have Asperger's or they're on the spectrum and,

and, and they are reporting what they feel as gender dysphoria. Okay. Well, but research can't differentiate between the anxiety, the inner pain that's generated by Asperger's. What's the other one? My mind is blank. Autism?

Autism. Yeah. The anxiety, the social frustration of being on the spectrum of autism versus gender dysphoria. It's very hard to separate those things. So we have a lot more kids reporting gender dysphoria. We need to take it seriously. Underneath it may be autism that is the source of that. But again, right treatment of kids means engaging what they're self-reporting rather than dismissing it. Yeah, that's good.

Let's come back to just parenting LGBT kids in general. I know you guys have a few more minutes here, but what are some other things you've learned over the years? You've been doing this for so long, Bill. You have so much experience. What are some other kind of big picture things you would tell parents? We talked about when a child comes out, how to react and what to do when you didn't react well. What are some other big things that you would love the big picture advice you can give? So even talking about elder care, care of the elderly LGBT folks. And over and over again, it becomes an issue of right treatment at every stage. So like if your child has come out, you need to be very present in their story, listening, asking, honoring questions, making sure that there's safety, security in the home, that there's no question about love or togetherness.

And that way your child can actually talk to you about what they're experiencing rather than hiding it from you. Or growing up in your home, fearing that at any moment they might be rejected or asked to leave. Then as your child gets older, it doesn't mean they'll always identify as LGBT. They, you may have a trans kid that's now 24 and cisgender. And because they were trans, they thought they might be gay or pansexual. And all of a sudden they're cisgender and, and dating someone of the opposite sex. So, you know, like keeping in mind this long-term trajectory, you don't want to, you know, just hold on to one testimony and say, my daughter's story will be like this, you know, that's my only hope. No, my hope is in the gospel. My hope is in the power of God.

Jesus died for my child, and I'm going to remember, God will not forget my child. And this is going to play out in their life over the long term, potentially. So I'm going to do everything I can in the here and now to set up a positive relationship over the long term. So as they, let's say they were 26, and they decided to get married, you know, obviously be there on the wedding day. It doesn't mean you have to approve or agree with, but be there. Why? Because you want to have a future with your child. And if they have kids, you want to be a grandparent that is trusted in your children's lives, where they know we can leave our kids with our parents and they'll be loved well. And you can share the love of Jesus with your grandchildren, you know,

welcome a gay spouse of your child into your family as a family member, rather than seeing them as an outsider, you know, with inheritance, treat your kids fairly. You know, if you're going to split all that you have and split it among all your children, then don't alter that just because your kid is married to someone of the same sex. So across a lifetime, it's keeping your beliefs and faithfully honoring God in what you believe, oh, by the way, and how you live your life, because all of us are struggling with a lot of sin in our life. Without the blood of Jesus, none of us have a leg to stand on before a holy

God. So we need to be reminded of our own sinfulness and our own need for grace. Well, our children need that too. So I think if we have that humble posture of knowing our own need for grace and that we cannot satisfy God because we are not holy ourselves, it will give us the proper posture for extending the gospel to our LGBT loved ones at every stage of their life, no matter what. That's helpful. I want to ask you, you mentioned several identities, pansexual, cisgender, trans, non-binary, any advice to parents on how to think through those identities? Because I know some identities can become overwhelming, like what's the newest addition now? Or their parents could kind of give an eye roll to identities. How do you counsel parents to respond when your child uses a term that might be familiar or might not be familiar? I, and by the way, you know, like, because every next generation is different, 20 years of experience doesn't mean that I never, you know, hear something

new or, you know, or something that maybe I'm not so comfortable with or what have you. So I'm always, oh, wow, Jeremy, thank you for sharing with me a bit about your identity. I'd love to hear more. What does that mean to you? So it's facial expressions engaged, eye contact maintained. I'm not looking away. I'm not looking down. I don't have evangelical freeze space. I'm fully engaging and I'm asking honoring questions that invite Jeremy to share more. Jeremy is used to telling his story and people shutting down, not being curious to ask anything else. So by asking an honoring question and expressing curiosity, it allows Jeremy to share what that means to him or to

they and their whatever, you know, so I just think maintaining that posture of always having an honoring, curious, objectively stated question that allows someone to further share what the identity means to them is the starting point. And then I might go deeper from there. Like, well, what does that feel like to you on the inside? You know, how does that impact how you experience like security or safety if you were thinking about dating someone? So instead of asking all these questions, how could you possibly feel that, you know, or that's not real. I'd rather keep learning something new. Yeah. That comes from a self report from my child or the young person I'm caring for. Because every word that that kid shares is an opportunity for me to

potentially learn a new way of asking a deeper question that then gets to a deeper question. In one conversation with one of the Jeremy's of the world, we went so deep into it. And at the end, he just said, oh, well, I really don't know what it's about, but I'm just kind of like discovering who I am. That was a very honest, if you think about it, it was a confession. It was a confession that would not have been safe for him to make if I was coming at him from a confrontational or a doubtful perspective. But because we dove into it and I was curious, it actually allowed him to say, even I don't fully understand it. Maybe he's just a straight kid who's just developing, something like that. So that's a huge

blessing of that kind of engagement. I often say with the identities, my tagline is just don't freak out. Identities are a kid's... If we're talking about teenagers, a teenager's attempt to name an experience that might be very confusing, might be new, might be complex, might be unnameable. It might be something they're not sure what to do. And they, they're searching for some kind of term to name this experience that might be temporary. It might be long lasting. Um, and just, so just leave it at that. It's not, I think parents, sometimes they think this is some kind of ontological separate category of humanity. Like I thought my kid was a human male and now there's some other it's like yeah males and females and intersex persons have a wide range of different experiences that doesn't

mean there's some other kind of separate category of humanity necessarily not i mean period the freak out that i hear some parents when they're you know they're like 12 year old said she's pansexual and they're just they're just like have, they're like, their life is just almost like, I'm like, slow down. Like this is. If you think about it in development, probably a lot of us are pansexual at 12, you know, because we're experiencing even as a guy, like I remember feeling all kinds of warm, fuzzy feeling around my guy friends, just because we had what I later would understand to be camaraderie. But at that time, it was so warm, fuzzy that it felt like a love in a sense. You know, it wasn't that I necessarily wanted to date them, but it did feel like it was a love.

was a love and i mean i think this is how straight boys sometimes do things together because they get so close that they're a bit curious something like that doesn't mean they're necessarily gay but so what it means is that in development we can be feeling a lot of feelings and and all of us have gone through that i've met 80 year old men who say that they played with another boy when they were 14, you know, because they got curious about what each other looked like and that didn't make them gay. But so this idea that this generation is somehow different than the rest of us. I mean, yeah, in some aspects, yes. But in many aspects, there's nothing new under the sun. Yeah. I read a book a while back called uh well yeah a little provocative title sex between straight white men or something like that

talked about these throughout the 20th century um they talked about like i didn't realize this but like biker gangs with men they'll engage in sexual activity and it's not an expression of an orient the same-sex orientation uh military college frats and everything some hazing and i mean this it's a pretty i mean i don't it's a pretty r-rated book but i mean and it was by you know a social theorist that's wanted to put you know sexuality and more of a social construct to kind of show that like hey humans do all kinds of wild stuff you know um but But there is some, I don't know. Yeah, there is some truth to that, especially teenagers. I mean, golly.

And especially like, I mean, I don't want to be two men here talking about female sexuality for too long. But we haven't engaged other people of the opposite sex. And yeah, female sexuality, especially as a teenager, can be extremely complex. And there's fluidity there. And there's interpreting maybe an emotional response as a sexual response. You might feel an emotional spike when you see a beautiful other teenage girl whose body might be more... You might be more jealous of her body and you feel this emotional draw. And you might be forced or encouraged to interpret

that emotional spike as a sexual attraction, you know, or super confusing, man. I don't envy teenagers growing up in the world today. Last question, Bill, and then I'll let you go. Advice to parents. When do we talk theology? When do we say, all right, at the end of the day, here's what God thinks about these things? At both a church level and a family level, I think silence is not the answer. There's churches that decided to be kind by going silent, and it only caused problems. In fact, we've got several churches we're working with that literally have experienced blowups because of the lack of clarity. And I'd say the same thing could happen in families. Like if we never discussed this in this world, we live in our kids could assume that, uh, like everyone is affirming or will be,

you know, and, um, and then they might be shocked later on to find out that we're not. So I don't think we need to necessarily think about this through the framework of that. Oh, we have to pre-educate our kids in first grade or third grade. You know, a conversation doesn't have to always happen. A conversation could come after a child's self-report about them being curious or questioning about their own sexuality or gender. A conversation could happen when a family member comes out and then that requires some explanation. It also could be a planned family conversation. So in our household, what we said is, all right, we're not going to introduce things to our kids before

their readiness because we just want them to be kids and enjoy life and, you know, like going outside and playing and enjoying time with their friends and growing in their faith. But if they don't ask the question by age 10, then we will have a planned family conversation. Well, both our kids came to us separately at age nine and said, Hey, mom and dad, did you know that there's like gay kids in the world? And I'm like, yeah, I know there's gay kids in the world, you know? And, and I said, son, what, what is, what does gay mean? He said, it's when two boys kiss. I'm like, okay, you mean it's like boys like each other? Yeah. And I was like, so, but instead of going through a Leviticus or Romans one kind of conversation, I said, well, what do you think about that? And he said, dad,

I don't think it's right. I said, really? What makes you think it's not right? He said, well, I think it's not right because I don't think God made it to be that way. Okay. By asking him rather than telling him, it was amazing because I said, son, did you know that exactly what you were, I know you love your friends and all of that, but exactly what you believe in your own heart without me ever telling you, that's exactly what the Bible teaches. So in other words, it's like God has already put his word in you without me even teaching specifically on that. And you're able to discern in your own heart, what would God find to be okay? What would God find to be sinful?

So it's very important you understand that what you're reporting you believe, it literally is God guiding you in growing your faith and following him in your own life. And now what are we going to do in regards to our gay friends? We're going to love them. Yeah. Why, dad? Or why, son? Why would we do that? Because God wants us to love everyone?

Yes. Because even if we were super holy, but then suddenly we mistreated our friends, we wouldn't just fail to be loving. We would be unholy because it is unholy people who mistreat others that are different than them. Bill, that's a great word to end on. Thank you so much for sharing all your wisdom. And yeah, so, so good. Where can people find your work? Give us some websites and resources.

Sure. Postureshift.com or guidingfamilies.com. They'll both have a resource tab that you can get to Guiding Families 5th edition. And then we have a September online event for parents. Just a quick two-hour Zoom event to connect parents to parents. We don't do a lot of teaching. A lot of things that parents ask for is we want to be connected to other parents who are going through what we're going through. So we just offer that quarterly platform for parents to connect to each other. And I know you all actually have something coming up this fall for parents as well. Yeah. Yeah. We've got a bunch of webinars on our website, centerforfaith.com. Yeah. It's so good doing this ministry, knowing that people

like out, like you were out there as well. Otherwise it'd feel very, very lonely. So yeah. Thank you so much for your faithfulness, your steadfastness. I can't believe you've been doing this for all these years and you're still, you're still, uh, living and breathing. Cause it's not easy work that you're doing. Let me just say, uh, thanks to our team, Josh, Leslie, Paul, Kong. We are a team and we do the ministry together as a team. And I'm not going to be around forever. So we're trying to build a team that can take this forward into the future. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.