Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1145: How to Be an Inclusive and Biblical Church with LGBTQ/SSA People: Evan Wickham

Episode Date: January 18, 2024

Evan Wickham is a worship leader, songwriter, speaker, and lead pastor of Park Hill Church in San Diego, CA, which he co-founded in 2017 with Sandy, his wife of 23 years (and their five kids).  In addition to helping people encounter Jesus through teaching and meaningful, rooted worship experiences, he has released four albums of worship songs, several of which are sung across the world. He holds an MDiv from Western Seminary and helped launch Searock Sessions, a cohort and growing community for hundreds of leaders seeking renewal in the Western church. Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

Okay, friends, we are having our third ever Exiles in Babylon conference, April 18th through the 20th in Boise, Idaho. You can attend virtually or attend live. Space is filling up. So if you do want to attend live, I would highly recommend registering sooner than later at theologyintheraw.com. That's theologyintheraw.com. We are going to tackle a bunch of really important and tough topics. We're going to talk about deconstruction, reconstruction, and the gospel. Why are people deconstructing from their former evangelical faith? We have Abigail Favali, Amin Hudson, Tim Whitaker from the New Evangelicals, and Evan Wickham, who are going to be dialoguing about that topic. We also are going to cover the extremely important and very sensitive topic of women, power, and abuse in the church.

We have Julie Slattery, Sandy Richter, Tiffany Bloom, Laurie Krieg addressing that super important topic. We're also going to tackle LGBTQ people and the church with Greg Coles, Brenna Blaine, Art Perea, and Kat LaPreri. And we're also, of course, going to tackle politics, three Christian views of politics, where we're going to have a left-leaning Christian, a right-leaning Christian, and a non-leaning and a Baptist-ish Christian, uh, who are going to, we're going to put them in dialogue together and, and, and hash some things out. So we have Brian Zahn representing that middle or non-position or whatever, uh, Chris Butler, left-leaning Christian, Joy Mosley, right-leaning Christian. We're also going to have Max Licato there. We're going to have a joint podcast with Amin Hudson from the Southside Rabbi podcast, along with YouTube

sensation Ruslan. And of course, we're going to have street hymns there throughout the conference, making everybody uncomfortable. Oh yeah. And of course, a worship with Evan Wickham and Tanika Wyatt. I cannot wait. This is going to be a barn burner, folks. I am working extremely hard to get canceled this year. So this might be the last. It won't be. Well, who knows? We'll see. Yeah, it's going to be engaging. It's going to be, I think, helpful and profitable and uncomfortable and encouraging and challenging and convicting and all those fun things. So go to theologyinra.com. Register sooner than later. That's theologyinthera.com. I will see you in April. Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in Raw. My guest today is

my very good friend, Evan Wickham. Evan is a worship leader, songwriter, speaker, and lead pastor of Park Hill Church in San Diego, California, which he co-founded with his wife, Sandy. In addition to helping people encounter Jesus through teaching and meaningful rooted worship experiences, he has released four albums of worship songs, several of which are sung across the world. Evan holds an MDiv from Western Seminary. And I brought Evan on because of all, as I say at the beginning of this conversation, of all the churches I know that are doing a very good job embracing and celebrating the historically Christian sexual ethic and marriage ethic and are very bold about their and passionate about their beliefs regarding

marriage and sexuality. I've never seen, well, I know lots of churches are doing a really good job, but Evan is just doing an exceptional job. Evan and his leadership team and everybody at Park Hill Church are doing an exceptional job at including, welcoming, including, and celebrating LGBTQ or same-sex attracted people within that historically Christian framework. They haven't done everything perfectly. They'd be the first ones to say that. But man, they've done some really incredible things as a church to be a Jesus-centered, welcoming church, an inclusive church for LGBTQ people within a very clear and well-articulated historically Christian view of marriage and sexuality.

So I brought Evan on to talk about that. What does that look like? I get asked that question all the time. Hey, we want to welcome LGBT people in the church. We want to reach out to people who have been especially marginalized and hurt by the church and LGBT people are absolutely within that category on the whole. And we also believe what the Bible says about marriage and sexuality. How do we do both? How do we uphold, for lack of better terms, both the truth about marriage and embody the grace of Jesus towards those who have maybe not experienced that in the church? And that's what Evan's here to talk about. I'm excited for you to listen to this conversation.

Evan's a delightful human being and shares with us a ton of wisdom, pastoral wisdom, from his own lived experience as a pastor of an awesome church. So please welcome the show back for, I don't know how many times you've been on. Please welcome back to the show, the one and only Evan Wickham. Pastor Evan Wickham, welcome back to Theology in a Row. I don't know what number this is for you, but it's been a few times. How are you doing? It's good to be back, my friend. Doing good. You look good. Thank you. You too. You cleaned up.

Yeah, I took the Grizzly Adams beard down almost all the way. You had that going for a while though, right? For a couple of years at least? Yeah. Sandy was like, keep it coming. Did she like it? She did, but apparently it hit a limit. And she's like, it is time. It was really long. You're dragging down on my shirt. It got pretty great too, right? I feel like if I grew a beard, it would definitely age me. It was salt and pepper for sure. Yeah. So I, I get asked all the time, you know, when I'm, I'll, you know, I travel around quite a bit and speak at different churches

on LGBT stuff more and more. I mean, I get that. I've always gotten this question, but more and more I'm getting it. Like, can you give us some examples of churches that are doing it well, who hold passionately and clearly to Orthodox Christian beliefs about marriage and sexuality, and yet also are embodying this kind of radical love, care, empowerment, humble posture, however you want it. A radical posture of inclusion within a historically Christian framework. Do you know anybody doing that well? And your church, you and your church, it's not your church, right? Right.

But you planted it. You and Jesus planted it. And Sandy. Yeah, sorry. I'm working on my... Mutualism? Yes, yes, yes, mutualism. I said Park Hill in San Diego is one of the reasons why I recommend you guys because you and the whole leadership would be the first ones to say,

we've made many mistakes. Um, but you guys are pushing in and unashamed, unashamedly and courageously doing many things to include LGBT slash same sex attracted Christians into your community in ways that are, I think completely Orthodox, um, and also extremely compassionate, gracious. So yeah, that's what we want to talk about. So let's go back to the beginning. How old is the church? When did you guys plan it? And then my follow-up question around the heels of that is why? It's not really the best church planning strategy to be very public and visible about desiring to include LGBT people in your church.

I'm sure you've taken some hits there. So yeah, how old is the church? And then when did this passion come into view? So we launched on Christmas Eve, 2017, and we were sent by a family of churches up in Portland. The Comer family, John Mark and his dad and mom, Phil and Diane, they planted this church family, gave us a vision for church that just sank deep into our bones. And so we moved up from San Diego to Portland to kind of absorb their vision and DNA for church planting. We came back down in 2017 and planted. We've been going six years. for the way he has used not just our church, but many churches that we are now in fellowship with to be beacons of hope and inclusion for people who experience sexuality in a minority way.

And it's again, it's not just inclusion, but like an invitation into full obedience to Jesus in accordance with historic orthodoxy. And your listeners know how you talk about this. Christian orthodoxy includes marriage, which is a lifelong covenant, whole person bond between one man and one woman, two sexually different persons, and all sex outside of that arrangement. And before that arrangement is what the New Testament and the Greek translation of the Old Testament call pornea, sexual moralities. It's junk drawer words. So everyone in some way,

shape or form has dabbled in pornea, whether in mind or in body. And so the church is a place you come and repent of that sin and receive inclusion in the body of Christ, no matter what your previous identity was. And no matter what identities you bring into the church, they all become secondary to your primary identity as beloved son or daughter of God. That's the new primary identity. Whatever identity you have becomes distant second to that. And so that is what we've preached. And we haven't, we haven't preached that specifically because we want to be like this church for gay people or something. And, uh, it's, it's church for all, like all people, like when we did the

webinar for your center for faith on this, uh, with me and Greg Piken, a celibate gay guy, who's a pastor at our church. The title of the webinar was creating a healthy church for LGBTQ people. And right away, um, my goal in that webinar was to make explicit. What does that mean? Simply put, I believe a healthy church for LGBTQ people will be a healthy church for every kind of person because healthy absolutely assumes orthodoxy. A healthy church is an orthodox church. And then that second part, healthy church for LGBTQ people, LGBTQ people assumes that they exist. Like they actually are, they exist. LGBTQ people exist and are wondering, man, what does the church think of me? What does God think of me?

Hillcrest, one of the gayest parts of America, you know, it was like a 10-minute bike ride from my house. I think you bring up the Marin Project. A disproportionately large percentage of LGBTQ Americans have a history with an evangelicalism in some way. And so, man, how do we move toward them? What does that look like? And I believe it looks like, number one, not compromising on holiness. I love what David Bennett says. It's a tension between radical commitment to holiness and inclusion.

That tension is the sweet spot of Jesus. I mean, that's just Jesus in all four guns. I agree. I think the assumption in a lot of people's minds is if you are radically passionate about holiness and even saying everything you said that, therefore you are going to be a turnoff to LGBT people, you're going to exclude, not include because you're,

um, you're so committed to what some people would say, a very kind of narrow, outdated, somebody would say, you know, homophobic or bigoted sexual ethic, you know? And if you, you can believe that, but if you're like publicly,

like not ashamed that this is what we believe and we're all striving toward this imperfectly, then gay and lesbian people are gonna say, I don't, I don't want to be a part of that. You've, it's been the opposite for you though. You have dozens. I've been to your, dozens of people who are attracted to the same sex have, I like your term, a minority sexual experience or experience with their biological sex. Do you have a number? I mean, I think it's a few dozen. I mean, there's the people that are at least visible and hang out together and have shared their story.

I mean, it's at least a couple dozen. I would say that that's accurate. And the couple dozen part is accurate. I definitely think that there's been both reactions. Okay. Yeah. There's been plenty of LGBTQ folks that have heard us give our welcome to the church class. you got to go through basics class where we are deadly clear on our commitment to the doctrines and ethics of the historic body of Christ. Not just what we believe about God,

like Trinity, Jesus is God, man, crucified, rose from the dead, ascended to the right hand of the Father, but also like the life that that gives birth to in truly saved children of God. And that includes marriage and singleness. And marriage is one man, one woman. Singleness is everyone. I mean, you, I'm literally like your, your, your work has shaped me in so many ways. I'm just, you know, boots on the ground,

pastoring a church with it. And, and so when we give that at our basics class, we've had kind of countless people opt out okay um just because yeah because they feel what's the could you say can you give us some anecdotal like story like is it are they visibly right there like what in the world or are they like oh i'm not sure i can get on board with that is it all the above like wait what's that experience been like when people are like, oh gosh, I don't want to be a part of that. Yeah. Well, we kind of really set up as best as we can, an environment of hospitable safety and like welcome for the deepest, darkest questions to bubble to the surface in that class. So, uh, in our basis class, it's basically three hours with the big break in the middle.

And at the end it's live Q and a, a big break in the middle. And at the end, it's live Q&A. You can text in your questions anonymously to the screen, just Slido. And so people can be anonymous, which makes their questions raw and public. So they're like, oh, these leaders aren't afraid. And so we get all the questions, all the questions you can imagine. And we just answer them pastorally. And yeah, I think people are able to find out what they are, look, find what they're looking for in a pastoral answer and then commit or not show up again quietly.

And so the key is to be clear up front, like, you know, the whole clear is kind, unclear is unkind thing. We just commit to deadly clarity, clarity up front and just honor people's responses. Is that a reaction against the kind of bait and switch? We've seen in the last several years, some very welcoming, a lot of times it's a mega church that it's almost like an over correction maybe of the past where people were like, so in your face about all the minutiae of a lot of times it's a mega church that it's almost like an over, or, um, over correction maybe of the past where people were like, so in your face about all the minutia of all, every belief they have,

you know, and it was just kind of a turn. Like, it's just like, let people experience, uh, the, the kingdom of God, let people worship and,

and, and, and not just front load all this ethical stuff. The counter reaction has been, I think at least several churches I'm thinking of, you know, that like they, you could be at the church for years and not even know what they believe about marriage and sexuality. And then when people get so embedded in the church environment and then

have given thousands of dollars of tithe money, come to find out when they get engaged to their same sex partner and they want to pastor to do their marriage, like, oh yeah, we don't, we believe that's sin, you know, like, wait a minute, I've been here four years and I didn't even... So anyway, there's just been this counter-reaction that has led to this bait and switch, which has really done a lot of damage to LGBT people. Yeah, and that's a mistake we made. And you said four years. That's exactly the mistake that we made. Can you talk about that?

Yeah. Yeah, I can. I can keep anonymous. But I mean, it's our... I own it as, you know, primary teaching voice in our community. I own my lack of clarity in the beginning of our church plant. Like we, we would say things that were true, like there's a church for all people and all are welcome. Come to Jesus. Let's explore Jesus. Let's be a church in the city. Just broad statements. And in the beginning, we did not have a basics class. We did not have this moment of

clarity where people knew everything they needed to know in order to commit without significant surprises down the road. We didn't have that. And so there was this couple that jumped in in the first couple months back in late 2017, they started serving they would show up for prayer meetings first they would be the last person out of the room tearing down our setup tear down church services and then a couple years in they we were going through like ephesians or colossians where paul has pornea in a long list of activities and mindsets that do not inherit the kingdom. And they're like, oh, I thought this church was affirming. Or just at least squishy, like just kind of work it out in the in-between agree to disagree moments, that kind of church.

And they're like, we can work with that. Because they were affirming from the beginning. I never knew that. And they found out we, the church leadership was not. And so we started putting clarifying systems in place and we introduced that too late for them. And, and we had all our leaders take kind of an assessment that we thought was like

an innocuous, just alignment, like, Hey, where are you at spiritually? Where are you at emotionally? And also, do you still agree with the doctrines of the church? And they answered honestly. They answered with full integrity. And I honored them for that. These leaders that were leading people in their house, they never once taught their affirming position in their church community group. They honored, as soon as they found out the

beliefs of the elders that were orthodox, they just committed, we're never going to teach our unorthodox position. We're going to honor the elders. But they themselves passionately believed in affirming theology. Wait, is this a gay couple or straight people? No, no, they're a straight couple that just are affirming. And so we brought in, we introduced a system like, hey, all our community leaders, anyone that like exercises shepherding authority over people in our church, we now require agreement in life and in doctrine. So belief and practice. And they're like, oh,

shoot. And they're like, okay, well, here's the moment of, here's the watershed moment for us. I wonder if we're going to get kicked out. I wonder if we're going to, what's going to happen to us. But they answered honestly in an assessment that they got three years into their serving, which is so hard for them.

And I own that. That's on me and our team. But it's also part of building and planting a church organically and it grows and it needs a little bit more order. So that's, that's hard, man. That's I, I, yeah, I know several like organizations and churches that are kind of facing the same thing saying, we've always believed these things, but we never made it like a requirement. But now we feel like we need to, as we move forward,

we need to have everybody on staff or volunteering or in leadership position to be on the same page. And so now it's a, it's the same situation. It's like, but we, if we come out with this, there's going to be people that have been leading who are not going to sign this. And then they're in a really hard spot. I don't, I mean, you can always look back in hindsight's 2020 like, well, we should have had this clarified years ago, but we didn't. And now we're trying to rectify that. I don't see

anything. I mean, there, there is no other, you will have people that can't sign it. There will be some fallout, right? Is it, do you recommend, I mean, there's no other, I don't know anywhere else because you can't say, well, if we institute this, then we're going to lose some leaders, so we shouldn't institute it. It's like, well, no, because you're going to have future leaders coming in if you don't have clarifying. So you have to backtrack and do it. And that's just, is that just? Yeah, I think it's a move that it's part of our commitment

to courageous fidelity to orthodoxy in an age of ethical compromise. And so that's the first value of seven. I'm part of a fraternity of leaders, brothers and sisters who lead churches across the West called C-Rock. It started with just 12 of us kind of praying together for a week, and then we invited others on. And we have seven values. And the first one, courageous fidelity to orthodoxy in an age of ethical compromise. And moves like clarifying leadership requirements, doctrinal and ethical alignment require courage like so much. And you can't do it alone. Like you need a team, you need a fellowship of churches around you that are doing similar

things. It's the only way I felt like I felt insane. I mean, it's like, tell me I'm sane right now for all the pain I'm inviting because we were unclear. We're moving toward clarity. And I know, I know churches in our city right now that are just kind of at a stalemate of ambiguity on this issue with pastors, some that are affirming elders that aren't, but some are neutral and they just never talk about it. And I'm like, oh my gosh, like what powder keg is going to erupt when in that situation? How many people are going to be hurt without a formal clarifying moment that is loving and kind? Just being haphazard about it is way worse. Do you recommend posting something on your website, a sexuality statement? I get that question a lot and i can

kind of go back and forth on it something i mean if it's done i think well i think if you just have a sexuality thing you don't have any other things like trinity and poverty and welcoming a stranger and alien yeah that's why i'm thankful for lausanne and the lausanne covenant. We have four things on our beliefs page and it's Apostles Creed and Nicene Creed, and then a link to the Lausanne covenant, and then the practical outflow of the Lausanne covenant, which is the Cape Town commitment. And that Cape Town thing is where we have all of our pastoral posture statements that we share with countless, of all of our pastoral posture statements that we share with countless, literally countless churches on gender roles in the church, pastoring people through different kinds of, you know, different aspects of the sexuality conversation, and all of that is there. And when people ask,

we can link them to the right section. So, I think that kind of thing has been really helpful for us because it's surrounded by other things we value, you know, it's in context. It's not just. You're not singling out like a particular group of people or something. Right. What tangible ways or tangible things have you and the leadership of your church done to create healthy life-giving space for LGBT people who are either curious about exploring or committed to the historic Christian sexual ethic?

Yeah. So Greg Piken, who I mentioned, he's a pastor in our church, and he and I put together kind of a three-part framework for this. Like, if we were to communicate to pastors, what can we think about to do? Just like you said, to create a healthy church that's faithful to Jesus and inclusive for LGBTQ people in a way that's orthodox. Foundation, contextualization, and representation. So those three words. And foundation, I think, you know, we just preach the gospel, preach Jesus. I said at the beginning, every identity is equally invited to surrender our whole person and repent for refreshment. We read Revelation chapter 9 with our kids this morning, and it's just full of pictures of locusts with the head of humans and scorpion tails that are going to

kill a third of the planet or something. And my 10 year old girl's like, am I allowed to read this? Like what's happening? And then, and then it gets to the end and it's like, but they did not repent of their worship of demons and the worship of idols. They didn't turn to the lamp basically. And I, and I turned to the kids and like, what was the point of idols, they didn't turn to the lamp basically. And I, and I turned to the kids and like, what was the point of all of that chaos? And my eight-year-old goes, they didn't repent of worshiping demons and idols. Like whatever else happened, that part is clear. And that's, that's right. That's, that's John, the revelators refrain. Like every human is invited to rethink their life and bring their identity. You name the identity, sexual identity, racial identity. I'm a father, husband, straight,

white. I mean, you could list songwriter and any of those can become an idol. And obviously those identities are, they are attached to me in different levels of fixedness. I could change vocations from songwriter, but any of them can become an idol. So I take them all to the Lamb of God who's at the center of the universe, on the throne, in the middle of heaven. And I say, take my identity as a musician, Jesus. Take my identity as a sexual being, as a father. Replace my desires and agendas within those identities. Replace them with your heart and desires. Every human is invited to do that with every identity. And this is all under

foundations, foundational to this move we make when we come to the throne of Jesus, is this idea that our primary identity now becomes love child of God. Evan Wickham, love son of God, Preston Sprinkle, love child of God. But that doesn't erase our other secondary identities, but it engraces them. So, engraced, not erased. That's good. So, that foundation has been very helpful for our church when teaching about sexuality. teaching about sexuality. And then the question becomes, my gosh, how does my experience of sexuality become ingraced to serve Christ and my primary identity as a loved child of God? And that's now the question of discipleship for everyone. And so that foundation has been key.

And then the second part, contextualization, is really, for me as this is for leaders, like in our church, like when I preach and when I talk about marriage, let's say I use marriage as a illustration in a sermon. Uh, I will also use singleness, you know, just, just to contextualize, if we really are a church that is like our church right now is mostly single people, mostly unmarried. And so I'd be remiss not to apply the gospel to single people. If I am applying a text about sexuality to marriage, I will also apply it into singleness. So just staying mindful of those moves I'm making. When I'm listing, you know,

another contextualization move that's been helpful is like when, when we get to Paul's lists of sins and he lists pornea or whatever. And one time it was, it was, it was an Easter season and I preached on first Corinthians six and there was a, a celibate gay guy in our church who brought some of his affirming gay friends to our church. And we happened to be in first Corinthians six, nine through 11 on that day. And, uh, I may have told this story on a previous episode with you, but, uh, he's like, Oh no. And, and, and I thought I was, I think I did pretty good. I, I, I thought I preached like pretty well that, you know, for Nia, it applies to all people. And this is not singling out gay folks and all of that. And I said, if you're gay here and you're hearing this, you're welcome equally with the rest of the church to submit your identity to Jesus.

So I thought I did a pretty good job. really, really nice to hear a sermon that is pastorally orthodox and inclusive of gay people that's not connected to an exegesis of pornea. So like, it'd be nice to hear that in another sermon about family or belonging or loneliness or something, not just pornea. Like, whenever you talk about the gays, you're always talking about sexual morality. You know, don't, it would be nice to hear other, other times. I'm like, Oh, that's interesting. That's a contextualization piece. So yeah. And then, and then representation is a third one. So foundation, contextualization, representation, that's literally, you know,

inviting LGBTQ folks who are faithful to the way of Jesus to the same levels of leadership that, um, folks who are faithful to Jesus are leading in and, and, and let the church know you're doing that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned Greg, Greg is a mutual friend and one of the most delightful humans, uh, I've ever been around. Shout out to Greg. I know a couple of amazing Greg, Greg Pike and Greg Coles. So celibate, gay, um, committed to orthodoxy. Um, and he's on staff here.

He's a public, like you said, he's for lack of better terms, he's an openly gay pastor. I know some people just can't get their mind around that kind of idea, but, um, yeah. Yeah. And well, he, he was, he was on paid staff for a while, but his therapy, his therapy practice has blown up. And so now he's a, he's a lay pastor in our church and in freed up completely to do what he's gifted and called to do. You've had David Bennett guests preach before who's a celibate gay Christian. You've had other, other public people that are just volunteer, or maybe you've shared their story. And I know you've had, you know,

several months ago you had that Sunday evening event where you guys did a whole... That was a big one for us. Yeah. So the Sunday evening event was part of a year-long series we called House of Learning, where we took a really live issue, like a controversial issue, and ran it through the lens of the gospel. And we asked, how can we follow God's thinking into this conversation for the sake of the world? And so, yeah, September was titled How Our Church Cares About Sexuality. And I set up the night, you can actually hear at the podcast, at the Park Hill podcast feed, you can hear the recording of the night. I set it up by just championing orthodoxy, standing firm in historic marriage, Jesus who stood with Moses, all that on historic marriage and singleness.

And then I kind of pivoted and said, having said that, tonight, we wonder where that puts our beloved same-sex attracted slash gay loved ones, family members, people in our church, maybe that's your story and you haven't even told anyone. And you're like, where does that actually put me? And I said, tonight, for those of you that aren't used to talking about this, because it was a very well-attended night. It was by far the biggest house of learning session attendance-wise. People want to know how to talk about this. And I said, hey, so you're going to hear some terms that might be new to you. You're going to hear terms like same sex attracted and gay, and we'll use them interchangeably. And we honestly refuse to be a church that dies on the hill of terms.

Instead, we commit to being a church that dies on the hill of whole person faithfulness to Jesus, both body and mind. Not just body. Like, oh, as long as we don't have sex, we can be whatever we want. No, like an inward cultivation of the mind toward holiness. So committed. And terms are important. We can debate about whether gay or same-sex attracted is going to help someone. And I think that really can be helpful, but it can also be very divisive as we've seen even recently.

So, so that's, we'll talk offline. Yeah. It's just not a hill. I mean, yeah, I mean, that's good. So, so, so I, so I started the night with that. And then we had three like Ted talk, like 20 minute talks from sexual minority folks. Folks like the first one was Greg Piken. And he talked about how LGBTQ people are uniquely gifted for mission. When we are faithful to the way of Jesus and single and committed to celibacy, that is a powerful message of Christlikeness to a church that is obsessed about getting everybody married

in order to matter. And then the second was a straight pastor and a gay member just celebrating their friendship, almost like on the fly, Stephen Cooper and Paolo Arrico, just celebrating their friendship. And so powerful just to watch them just share their stories together. And then the last one was Gabe and Michelle Conover who are in a mixed orientation marriage. And that term was new for a lot of people that night in our church.

We defined it. It's a marriage between a man and a woman. It is a Christian marriage where one of the spouses experiences a different sexual orientation. Like the husband, Gabe, is a gay man. And just hearing them celebrate their own faithfulness to one another with joy was like the capstone of the night. Just so many, very few dry eyes in the room. Just hearing Michelle explain why it is so good to know

she's not just desired for her body, but her whole person is served and loved by a man who's committed to her like Christ loves the church. To hear her say that was like, Jesus, you can come now. This was an amazing night. And I think nights like that, celebrating faithfulness is key to, to unlocking the conversation for people. Yeah. And there were complaints. There was some people were like, well, what this was, this night was one sided. There's a whole other side. There's like a affirming side.

I'm like, yeah, that we're not going to platform that. Like we're not an affirming church. We're a historic Christian church. So you got some pushback on the affirming side. I'm like, yeah, that we're not going to platform that. Like we're not an affirming church. We're a historic Christian church. So you got some pushback on the affirming side. I was wondering if you got pushed back on the more of the ex-gay side, like, Hey, change is possible. Let's have some testimonies of people that, yeah. Okay. Yeah. We had some, we had one individual who represented a household who came to us and said, Hey, this, this, this night felt like a conversation ender, not a conversation starter. We need to even question the validity of these words to mark identity. And I'm like, yeah, I said that's not what we're going to die on as a church because it doesn't seem to be

something the scriptures do. It's funny. Two weeks after that event, or a week after that event, I had both Gabe and Michelle and Greg Piken and Greg Coles on a panel in San Diego. So it was fresh off of, so I got to almost relive because they shared a lot of the same stuff and it was, it was powerful, dude. I mean, I love them. Yeah. Gabe, uh, the gay guy in the mixed orientation marriage, he is my community leader. Like I go to community group on Wednesday nights and he leads us to the, he leads us through the prayer practices and leads all the kids in the group through, okay, kids, highs and lows. Talk about highs and lows. Then we dismiss the kids and then we have deep dive Bible talks. It's just, I don't know. I mean, seeing their marriage is one of the most powerful portraits of a Christian marriage

that I've ever, ever seen. To see them, their honesty with each other is off the chart. Unique challenges, no doubt. It hasn't been easy. And they were the first ones to say that. But they delight in each other's humanity in ways that I rarely see any kind of marriage do. In ways that are challenging to me, I was like, gosh, it made me want to be a better husband and treat marriage with more theological depth because they've had to do that. I mean,

it was stunning. It was a stunning portrait. This episode is sponsored by Kuva, an innovative streaming service that helps you understand scripture the way it was intended to be understood, complexities and all. Kuva helps you dig deep into scripture, original languages, and the biblical context with series, documentaries, roundtables, and much, much more from experienced Christian leaders and teachers. For instance, they have one series titled Powerful and Kind, a study of Genesis 1-3. They've got another series devoted to understanding the concept of the kingdom of God. There's a lengthy roundtable discussion on discussing the nature of revival. It's titled What is Revival, which seems super interesting, maybe even controversial, and many other topics and passages that they discuss. Honestly,

Kuva resonates so much with the heart of Theology and Ra because they don't just tell you what to think, but how to think. They help you wrestle honestly with God's word for yourself. So Kuva is not going to spoon feed you all the right answers. Rather, they're going to make space for you to ask and contemplate the hard questions of faith and find hope in the waiting. So go beyond Sunday morning sermons with videos that cultivate wonder and delight in God. Start streaming today at kuva.tv. That's Q-A-V-A.tv and get your first month free when you use the code FREEMONTH. So sign up today for free. Being inclusive of LGBT slash SSA, again, terminology is not, I don't want to camp out on

that. It's not just to care for these quote unquote needy people. It actually makes the entire body of Christ look more like Jesus. Because again, I've learned personally, I've learned so much about what a Christian marriage is from people in mixed orientation marriages, because they, they couldn't from day one, they couldn't rely on their sexual attraction to each other to, you know, hold this thing together and realize a few years in that this isn't going to work. And then, you know, seven years in the marriage, you know, most straight people have this kind of crisis of like, what am I doing? How are we going to, you know, and then, you know, half will get divorced.

The other half struggle, you know, from the very beginning, people in a mixed orientation marriage says, what's marriage for? Why did God create this thing? We, we have, we going to, you know, and then, you know, half will get divorced, the other half struggle. You know, from the very beginning, people in a mixed orientation marriage says, what's marriage for? Why did God create this thing? We have to have a more thicker, deeper foundation upon which to base this whole relationship because sexual attraction is not going to hold this thing together. I've learned more about friendship and what it is to delight in Jesus. Like actually get through the day, finding your ultimate delight in Jesus from my same-sex attracted celibate friends, you know, who again, can't fall back on a spouse, can't fall back on the hope of getting married one day or whatever, you know? stories, these alternative or minority experiences of the Christian faith actually contributes in brilliant ways to the life of the body as a whole. Anyway, I'm just echoing everything you're... I mean, just a story, just to illustrate that, like there was a man who is advanced in years,

compared to the demographic of our church. He's a boom he's a boomer. He's a, he's a, he's a beloved wise boomer in our church who has been committed for years. He and his wife are amazing. And when we brought Greg Piken on as pastor, uh, he had questions naturally. Uh, and he's like, I need coffee with you, Evan. I need to work this out. I am struggling here. I don't know what to make of this. And so we had coffee and he whips out this paper. He ordered his questions, A, all the way to double A. He ran out of alphabet letters for his question. He had 27 questions about hiring Greg Paikin. That's a long coffee.

And like all the way from, you know, how does this, how does this follow scripture to what, how are our kids in our church going to be safe now? To like, like so many just, he's like, you need to have grace for me. I'm struggling. I need help. He was humble, but he was scared. And, and I said, okay, we're not going to get to all these questions in one coffee meeting. He's like, totally, totally. I said, can we take a 30,000 foot step back? Greg Pin and the elders are in full agreement that marriage and singleness are equally celebrated in the scriptures and in the church. And marriage is one man, one woman, exclusively whole person for life. And guess what? Greg, as a same-sex attracted man who's celibate, fully is on board with Jesus in that. And then this man goes, every one of my questions is answered.

Are you serious? No way. That was it. He just couldn't get his mind around somebody who is gay, uses that term, and holds to a historic sexual ethic. He just, like so many of us, hasn't been brought to a place where he has to think biblically and critically about a real life situation and apply theology to practice. Like he just hasn't, and he got scared. He got, it's like, how do I even talk about it?

I gave him words and he's like, oh my gosh, I'm so on board. I will have questions still, I'm sure. But I'm, I just processed so much in five minutes with you. And I think that's the gift. What a beautiful moment of like, I mean, I, I'm sure, but I just process so much in five minutes with you. What a beautiful moment. I mean, I'm not quite a boomer yet, but I'm getting there. And so I get some of the, like, I look at the younger generations and I'm like, whoa, why are you doing that? I get the kind of like, oh, wow, I don't know.

I got so many questions about what's going on here. To have the humility to come to you and honestly to say, I don't think I'm on board, but I want to listen. I want to meet with you and learn. That's awesome. Anyway, hats off to... Tell him I'm very impressed with his posture. Yeah, me too. I mean, he's kind of an anonymous textbook example I like to share. It's beautiful humility. So you've had fallout. What does that look like? And how would you encourage... So I would imagine a lot of pastors listening would resonate with everything we're saying. They might be in a church context where it's like, I don't know, man, if I did everything Evan's doing, I'm going to have some fallout. I'm going to backlash. I'm going to have key donors leave, or it's just going to be, I don't know, like how you've had fallout. Um, you've had backlash. You had sleepless nights. I'm sure like, talk to us about how, what that has looked like and how you have managed that and your advice to others who might be a little bit scared,

rightly so of, of the backlash they might have if they start really pushing into this conversation. Yeah, I think, yeah. You know, I heard all my life, I've been in pastoral ministry for like 23 years or something. And even back in my Calvary Chapel days in the office, nine to five with those guys, it's like leadership is lonely. Remember that? Leadership is lonely. I'm like, I don't know. I think you can do it in community. You can do it with a team. You can do it with the brotherhood. If you have spiritual fathers and mothers in your life, you have a family,

but at the end of the day, if you're the tip of the spear in your community, making these decisions, there will be a loneliness factor that you can bring into your community of trusted counselors and spiritual directors. If you don of trusted counselors and and spiritual directors if you don't have trusted counsel and spiritual directors that is first order of business is to surround yourself with people you can submit to when they tell you you're nuts but when you do bring it to those people you can just kind of fall on the rock you can fall fall on Jesus in your community and let him keep breaking your heart. We're coming up on seven years as my wife and I leading this church. We're entering our seventh year. And honestly, it feels like we need a year of Jubilee. It would be nice to have a sabbatical.

And we're planning that in 2025, where we're just going to kind of detach and get open-handed. It's been hard. We've taken hits from every side, and we're not playing the victim at all. But it's part of the task of leading is to take these hits. And I'm feeling like rest and a restart and a reorientation of my identity in Jesus is required. Otherwise, there will not be another seven years. One pastor kind of spoke over me a couple years ago, five years ago now, when we started. He said, Evan, your audience totally know who he is. Your audience will totally know who he is.

Just an absolute brilliant man who is very prophetic. That's not the side of him that people see. People see this guy as like a brainiac theologian, but he actually operates in the gifts of the Spirit, is prophetic, shares visions for you in the moment, lays hands on you and prophesies. He's an incredible man. And he said, Evan, I just get the sense in the next five years, you're uniquely in a position in the spiritual climate of our moment where you're going to take a disproportionate amount of hits. And he's like, you're going to laugh, but I get the picture of Tony Stark and Iron Man. And Tony Stark could never do what Iron Man is called to do. Tony Stark would die instantly in any of those fights. He'd just be just a mess on the pavement. And so will you. You have to sink back into the identity in Christ, into the Iron Man suit of

your identity in Christ for this. Otherwise, you'll be an absolute mess and hurt people that you're supposed to protect. So make this your prayer. Maybe this is for your listeners today, leaders that are struggling with courage in this conversation, struggling with the idea of being courageously faithful to orthodoxy in an age of ethical compromise when neither side will be on board fully with you. The prayer he gave me was, my life is Christ, nothing else matters. My life is Christ, nothing else matters. And a couple of years later, I had a therapist, godly man, who added two more lines, nothing to lose, nothing to prove. My life is

Christ. Nothing else matters. I have nothing to lose. My primary identity is love child of God, just like I'm preaching to everyone else. I have nothing to lose and I have nothing to prove. Some hacker could take over all my social media feeds today, and I have no more social media influence. It actually started happening a couple of years ago. And I'm like, whatever. I have nothing to lose, nothing to prove. My life is Christ. Nothing else matters.

Yeah, nothing to lose, nothing to prove. Just pray that for 10 minutes, breathing in and breathing out, leaning back into the identity in Christ that we're given through the spirit from the heart of the father. When those spiritual formation practices are in your life and in my life, I have joy. Like joy is reality at that point. Like that's Mary. I mean, this week, the reading from the lectionary

for the third week of Advent is Mary's Magnificat. Like, think of Mary. Like, she has some really controversial news that her town is going to reject her for hardcore. Like, she's a virgin, pregnant, betrothed to a pretty cool guy. You know, he has the lineage of King David. And, and so she's set up in a culture where your protection provision and position come from the man. She's like, I have a man now. And then a night angel comes to her and freaks her out and says, actually, you're going to get pregnant before you get with that guy. And's like she naturally how can this how can this be this requires so much courage and he's like the power of the most high will overshadow you your life is christ and nothing else matters and uh and she and her reaction is the key to joy

like let it be to me according to what you said according to the word of the lord m. Mary, you know, her, her whole, her whole thing. And she leads the way for the rest of the gospel of Luke, you know, Luke, Luke has, Luke has this addiction to showing how God works to the marginalized and Mary's the first in line of these marginalized unlikely heroes, the anti-heroes. And she's at the end. It's like the whole gospel is like enveloped.

Yeah. So she's this, she's this sexual marginalized being. She's a woman who's a teen who's now pregnant out of wedlock or whatever. And, and, and she, she carries with her the literal identity of Christ in her womb.

And, and so that this is, this is what we carry with us. I'm guessing it was, uh, John Tyson who prophesied over you. It sounds like John. It wasn't. John was one of the, it was Greg. Yeah. Okay.

It was one of those two guys. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Greg's pretty charismatic. People don't know that about him. And he's insanely pastoral. Greg Boyd. He's known for this like controversial theology or whatever, but what about this, Greg? I don't think you're right on this. And then 30 minutes later, we're just calling on the name of Jesus, asking the Holy Spirit to fill

us for another season. Let's go back. I want to summarize. So things that you have done pastorally as a church to be more inclusive and welcoming toward LGBT slash SSA people. Um, I mean, first of all, you have, you've, you have had a pastor now he's volunteer who is gay. Um, you did the Sunday evening event. You've had guests speakers like David Bennett. You've preached on it. You haven't shied away from it. You've integrated it naturally in the sermon.

Sometimes in ways that maybe were less than helpful. And you've learned from that, which, which is amazing. Um, is there anything else, uh, you did, is there a group, a formal or informal group that gets together of people who are, um, have a, yeah, who are LGBTQ and are committed to the church? Is that something you guys organize, or can you tell me about that? Yeah, well, we just, we just, uh, have, we just invited a revoice to do a chapter in our building. So the third Sunday of every month, there's a revoice chapter that meets. It's not an official ministry of Park Hill Church because it's literally a parachurch organization that exists to do this. So any church that has

space can say, hey, we have an onsite pastor who really has a heart for LGBTQ people to have a place to process how they can be faithful to Jesus while also being a sexual minority. What does that look like? And so they have a pastor onsite that can call Revoice and say, hey, I'd like to host a little chapter here. There's like five people that would love a connection point. And that's what we do. Third Sunday of the month in San Diego. But yeah, from my vantage point, I talked to you about this when you were prepping for your San Diego forum. There are a few things we do that come to mind.

Number one, we talk freely about same-sex attracted people. We talk freely about sexuality and gender stuff. Like we include gay slash same-sex attracted in nonchalant mentions of things that people wrestle with, along and gender stuff. Like we include gay slash same sex attracted in nonchalant mentions of things that people wrestle with along with other things. And we platform LGBTQ people who are following Jesus and the church's ethic. Like there's no glass ceiling at our church just because someone is gay. Uh, and, and we say that that's not surprising to people that are listening to Sunday mornings, you know? Um, and a big one, we don't police people's language, you know?

That's why, you know, I said at the beginning of our forum that we did that we're just not going to die on the hill of terms, but instead we're going to die on the hill of whole person, body and mind faithfulness to Jesus. And then, you know, have open churchwide conversations about the topic and then help connect people with others who are gay or same-sex attracted in the church that want to follow Jesus. And so, and there's pastoral challenges that flow from that.

Like I mentioned, the guy who's in his 60s who had 27 questions, helping the really conservative church members feel safe. And there's plenty of people in their twenties. There's we actually get more freshmen in college coming with conservative concerns than we do older folks. Really? So it's not, it's not just an age issue. Not at all.

No, there's conservative, conservative, more conservative Gen Z. There's a lot. Yeah. There's a lot of conservative Gen Z folks that are at our church that are always asking clarifying questions in good faith.

And that's beautiful. The church. Actually, my main concern with having a forum on how our church cares about sexuality and platforming LGBTQ people who are side B or whatever. My main concern was that we'd suddenly create a less safe space for conservative people. Like people that, like the guy who said, this felt like a conversation ender. Can I ask questions about identity and language anymore? Like, I'm like, yes, you can. Of course you can.

We, we need, we need to be family in this. And I think it's important not to lose that, like to honor people's desire to conserve orthodoxy, um, who haven't educated, who haven't educated themselves in the language. So don't, don't lose those folks in the rush to just talk freely with all the new vocab, you know, acknowledge that there's going to be new language while we stay committed to the unchanging truth of scripture. And yeah, that's the hardest part in my experience for the majority of people who've been Christians for a long time. And it's, I think that's why a lot of pastors get stuck and scared because honestly, they're the givers and their supporters and the ones who were bought in early on and rocking the

boat doesn't seem advantageous for the organization. So we just, we just err on the side of silence. And then the last thing really, truly honor singleness. Like we, there's a guy in our church, he's a same-sex attracted guy who leans maybe more affirming than the average non-affirming Christian. So he's like right on the, he's like, he's like side A plus B or whatever. I don't know what that is. But he's at our church. Yeah. He's, he's like a strong B plus and, and he's, but he's like a strong B+. But he's attending and he's just attending. He knows that a requirement for leadership is passionate commitment to orthodoxy. So he's kind of just like, he's just attending and taking communion and worshiping and really discerning. Just beautiful.

Just beautiful. And he said the reason why he's discerning at our church instead of an affirming church is because he's just not interested in marriage idolatry, just affirming version. He loves how we emphasize singleness. We actually celebrate singleness in our church, in our preaching, and those that we platform as leaders. We have single female pastors. We have single folks who are leading community groups that lead married folks in their groups. So that's a big reason why we don't do couples retreats or marriage ministry in our church, like an ongoing marriage ministry. Because the second we do that, we'd have to do like a single celibate ministry or something. Cause that's not just a gay thing.

You know, that's like a Jesus thing. So we just do things as a whole family, old, young women, men, children, all together,

single marriage. So that intentionally so, so that we can be this kind of church so that's not to say we don't do break off marriage like we do like we did we did the individual talks all through last year this past year on different issues one of them was adoption and orphan care and so we singled that out for a bit and thought about it anyways ongoing ministries, we're very, very careful about what we kind of baptize as an ongoing ministry in our church. There's going back to the fallout, people that get upset, accuse you, whatever, something, and then end up leaving. Like that's as a pastor, that's

all, well, I bet it's mostly hard. There's maybe some cases where it's like, oh, this is kind of nice to not have this person here anymore. Um, so I bet, but it's a both and, um, there's certain fallout where it's like, you look back and said, like, I, I think we did everything as best we can. And that's just, what's going to happen. Have there been times when you look back and say, ah, man, that, that fallout, we,, we could have done something better and it could have actually prevented this person from, you know, leaving or getting upset or, yeah. Does that make sense? Like looking back, is there anything you could have done different to prevent non-essential or non-inevitable fallout? I'd have to think about that for a while. If you're asking specifically

as it relates to sexuality, reasons people have left for the sexuality conversation. Yeah. I mean, I already mentioned the biggest one, just long time trusted leaders that felt bait and switch. They felt baited into a affirming inclusive kind of thing. And as we got slowly clearer, And as we got slowly clearer, they felt less and less. Anyways, that one, we had a whole system restructuring where at basics, I mean, that solves so much when the entry point, you just have slides up. We have a slot. It's really cool.

Actually, we got it from Dan Kimball at Vintage Faith Church. He does this thing for his leaders that we totally ripped off with his permission. And we have concentric circles with the gospel in the middle. And then the next circle out is essential doctrines and ethics. Like in the language we use, everything inside this circle is everything Christians have believed and done. And if you remove any one of them, you will no longer be recognizably Christian by 1800 years of Christians who wrote anything down. So that's what we say. And I mean, and people, we preempt the question,

how do you know? Like, how can you know that? Well, we have a two-part answer to that. The whole of the canon of scripture. And they're like, which canon? Well, 66 books of the Protestant canon are in all the other canons too. So at least we know we have that. And then, and they're like, well, how do you know that we're reading it right? Well, we actually have a paper trail.

It's called historical theology. And we have a paper trail of how the whole church has read all the passages. And none of those readings are as authoritative as the originals, has read all the passages and none of those readings are as authoritative as the originals, but they give us a family tradition. I love what Beth, I love what Beth Felker Jones said on your, on your podcast recently. I'm an avid fan of Theology and the Rock. And so she's like, scripture over tradition. You're like, yeah, but the scriptures come through a tradition. And so acknowledging, acknowledging that is like how we know how our family has read these things. And so those are the circles, gospel in the middle. And then the first circle out is how the family has always described the family.

When you say gospel, you're saying like 1 Corinthians 15, like Jesus died, rose again. Like the bare minimum a human being has to like asscent to with their person in order to be saved. Well, got the thief on the cross into good favor. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like, like help, like help. You're the God I'm asking for help for help. And, and, and that's gospel. And obviously, you know, if you, if you know, it's Jesus, you should, and he will, he will introduce himself as Jesus. You recognize him as Lord. That's gospel. The essentials are more like, you know, maybe Trinity and things that are unpacking.

Yeah, exactly. The essentials are once you say Jesus is Lord, then your life is open to learning about him. That's the proof of a life that is actually under his lordship. So like, you're like, oh my gosh, Mike, this God who saved me has a family who has been telling their story for 3000 years. I want to look into this story. And then he reveals himself to you. Then at boom, you have apostles created Nicene Creed. Um, and then you have, you have that. So that's the doctrines, but the ethics are in the circle too.

You have love God you have that. So that's the doctrines, but the ethics are in the circle too. You have love God, love neighbor. You have fruit of the spirit. Like you can't take out patience from the fruit of the spirit and say, no, you know what? I don't think God wants me to be patient. No Christian for 1800 years will recognize you as a Christian if you condemn patience. And, and, and then the third one one we have on the list is marriage. Marriage comes to us through the family.

And then the fourth one, we have the Sermon on the Mount. And the fifth one, we have all of human life bears the image of, is the image of God, womb to tomb. And the last one, every identity is welcome to become secondary under the primary identity of Jesus. So all of that is the ethic. And then I look at the basics class. I look at all the new members and I'm like, I think I know where most of you are going to have

your questions. You're not going to be asking whether joy is Christian. You're going to be asking whether opposite sex marriage is the only kind of Christian marriage. That's what you're going to be asking. And so we're going to talk about that. Save your questions. We're going to have Q and A. So that's that, that kind of clarifying moment early in someone's journey with your church will solve so many, so many problems down the road. So clarity is kindness, clarity up front, clarity up front alleviates pastoral, um, situations down the road in my, in my opinion, as a non-pastor, like if things are clear up front and people agree on that, or at least are aware of that, you don't, you, you alleviate stuff down the road when people say, you know, are living in a way

that's contrary to the vision of the church. Like, Hey, you signed up for this ahead of time. Like all that is go back to the original, you know, conversation. But when things aren't clear up front, then it just leads to a lot more pastoral work. Yeah. Unnecessary work down the road. Because of this, we've had a lot more fallout about other things. Like poor conflict management.

We recently had a tough situation in our church, unrelated to sexuality, where it's just, you's just, you know, church is messy. Leadership is messy. I love hanging out with you. You have an open invitation to come on Theology Round anytime you have a thought you want to tease out. So just shoot me a text, let me know. And looking forward to Exiles in Babylon. Let's go.

April, third time. Yeah. Yeah. April. Yeah. It's one of my favorite things one of my favorite times of the year is uh hanging out with you for a few days at the conference i wish we could actually hang out more we're both kind of like working at the conference but uh um yeah yeah appreciate you

park your joy yeah your joy appreciate the friendship if people want to look you up uh i mean parkhill.com what's the church website if they want to check out um yeah park hill sd.church park hill sd.church and then you have a twitter account that's who you're mainly active on twitter or x whatever you want to call it are you or not i'm less active than ever yeah pop in once in a while yeah yeah okay awesome man well hey we'll uh we'll stay in touch all right we'll, uh, we'll stay in touch. All right. We'll see you. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.