LGBTQ: The New Mission Field

LGBTQ: The New Mission Field

August 13, 2024

Host: Dr. Jamie Mitchell

Guest: Julie Redmer

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 8/13/24. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Jamie Mitchell:  Well, hello friends, and thank you again for giving us an hour of your time. I’m Jamie Mitchell, the director of Church Culture at the American Pastors Network, and I’m your host today, the late great missiologist David Hesselgrave. In one of his last books, the Paradigms in Conflict noted that if evangelical believers are going to be effective in the coming days, we must constantly reassess the mission field and determine the new people groups that are emerging. The idea of people groups is as old as the Apostle Paul. The book of Acts describes how Paul and his team would enter into cities, great population centers, looking for God-fearing Jews, a specific people group, and tailor the message of the gospel to their needs, their concerns, beliefs, and overcome those roadblocks to the gospel. To this day, we do the same thing, whether it is a specific cultural issue or an age group, geographical location, religious group or stage of life, identifying people groups and then apologetically preparing the gospel and any hindering questions is a strategic and an effective way to impact people with the life-changing message of Christ.

Jamie Mitchell:  The fact is, the last 10 years, some new, and may I admit, some uncomfortable people groups have entered the scene and we as God’s children, as believers in Christ, need to prepare to meet them and engage them with the gospel. Every ante. A mission organization part of ABWE with a rich history in missions is facing these new people groups head on and has developed seminars and training to help God’s people be effective missionaries. One of these people groups is the L-G-B-T-Q culture, and although we know from scripture clearly states that those involved with this lifestyle are engaged in a sinful behavior need to be delivered and come to faith in Christ, their culture has so gripped them that we must help them hear and consider and Lord willing, embrace the gospel. The question is how do we do it? And today we want to discuss that possibility. Joining me is the Director of Heart, mind and Souls Ministries of every ethnic Julie Redmer. And our topic today is L-G-B-T-Q, the new Mission Field. Julie, welcome to Stand in the Gap.

Julie Redmer:     Well, thanks so much, Jamie. I’m just really looking forward to this opportunity to talk about this topic together and to offer a really effective tool for mobilizing church bodies to reach the L-G-B-T-Q People Group with the gospel.

Jamie Mitchell:  Julie, you heard my opening in this idea of considering people groups when taking the gospel to them. Am I wrong in that thinking? And why has every FNA decided to consider all the different or new emerging people groups?

Julie Redmer:     Well, as you and your listeners know Jesus, great commission in Matthew 28 19 says, go and make disciples of all nations. But John, in Revelation seven, nine gets to from there, we get to see the detail of what making disciples of all nations looks like because he sees the great multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people, and language standing before the throne and before the lamb. Reaching people groups is absolutely part of fulfilling the commission the Lord Jesus gave. And as the North American division of A BWE every sees the nations, tribes, peoples, and languages that God has brought and continues to bring to the US and Canada, we see the unique opportunity we have to build relationships with all those different peoples, with them here, growing relationships that show them the love of Jesus and share the truth of the word and the gospel. Our heart, mind soul seminar is called Those relationships, grace and truth Relationships.

Jamie Mitchell:  Julie, let’s start to understand the breadth of the L-G-B-T-Q community. How large and how intertwined is it throughout our nation and the world?

Julie Redmer:     Well, I mean, who can measure, right? We know increasingly we have differing reports from differing sources. We have some light in there where we see that there are movements for people who may have transitioned from one sex to another sex who are now transitioning back and calling for that movement. But then we also see growing numbers in the different organizations that put statistics together, the increasing percentages of people who are identifying as one of the letters within the L-G-B-T-Q acronym. It’s constantly in the media, it’s constantly in entertainment, it’s promoted by retailers. You can’t even go shopping without being faced with the issue. And increasingly it’s being protected in the schools and encouraged in our children, very young children indeed. So all that being said, our heart, mind and soul ministry and its seminars are all about individuals. We’re not about the political movement. That’s not our focus. Our focus is building relationships that lead to gospel conversations with individuals who are part of that L-G-B-T-Q acronym, whichever one they identify as. We are just about being Christ followers who make disciples with individuals who need salvation through Christ.

Jamie Mitchell:  And Julie, one of the reasons we’re doing this today and why I felt compelled to have you on and discuss this issue is really whether we like it or not, as evangelical Christians, we can’t ignore certain things. We can’t hide from them. We are a part of them. We’re around them. We’re engaging with people. It’s just like meeting a Muslim or a Hindu or a person who’s an atheist. These individuals who are in this people group, they’re all around us. We work with them. We go to school, and so we can’t ignore them. Is that correct?

Julie Redmer:     That is absolutely correct. They’re in our neighborhoods, like you said, they’re in our workplaces, they’re in our schools, they’re in our playgrounds, they’re in our shopping centers. They’re just regular people just like us. They walk around on their legs, they grocery shop, they eat in restaurants, they do all the things that we do, so we cannot avoid them and we should not avoid them. Again, they’re image bearers who are lost and they need salvation through Christ. So not only can we not get away from them, we shouldn’t try, we should move in and try and build relationships with them.

Jamie Mitchell:  We were reminded even through the Olympics the last couple of weeks when in the opening Olympics they had the mockery of the Last Supper, and it was primarily with drag queens and many people from this lifestyle in church. Just this past week, I had the opportunity to lead communion, and one of the things I said was, we are never to be angry or upset or be mad at a certain people group or a community, which they are mocking, they desperately need and really friends, this is why we’re here today. We want to sensitize ourselves to the reality of people without Christ, people who desperately need Christ, that those who are a part of the LGBT community, we want to help understand that to get the gospel to them. When we come back, Julie and I are going to consider this very unique culture aspects about it and roadblocks that we may run into today.

Jamie Mitchell:  We’re sensitizing ourselves to a new people group so that we can take the gospel to them. Join us in just a few moments here at Stand In the Gap today. Well, thanks for returning and being part of this very informative program. Today we’re talking with Julie Redmer from every FNA and the new seminar that they are doing to help believers understand the L-B-G-T-Q community and culture and reaching this people group with the gospel. Julie, take some time and outline for our listeners today a little bit about the L-G-B-T-Q community. Like any people group, there must be some unique aspects and elements that we need to be aware of and if we’re going to reach them with the gospel, we just need to be sensitized to them, inform us, educate us today a little bit about this community and some of the uniquenesses about it.

Julie Redmer:     Well, Jamie, I really think that, and this is what we do in the seminar, we start with our own hearts. When we give these seminars and we have a room full of Christ followers coming to learn how to build these relationships, we start first and say, what’s your heart toward these people? And we give them an opportunity to really identify some of the feelings and the attitudes that they have about believers, own them, compare them to what others are feeling so that they don’t necessarily feel alone in some of those feelings, but at least they identify them, they own them, they look at them honestly, and then we move them into scripture and we show them how God feels about his creation, his image bearers, even in their lost state, how he felt about us who are now believers, but were lost. So we do that first to kind of set the stage and get their hearts aligned with God’s heart for this people group.

Julie Redmer:     Because if we don’t get our participants’ hearts aligned, what follows in teaching them what they believe and then how they can actually build relationships it won’t follow because the heart has to be in the right place. So once we get that out of the way, then we start taking them through just understanding some things about L-G-B-T-Q individuals and their attitudes, the journey, the typical journey that they have been on to get to where they are, the hurt, the fears, the lack of confidence in many ways that can start from a very young age where they feel other than the people around them of their sex. So maybe they’re a little boy and they feel other than the other boys or maybe other than their dad. And then they just go through this typical very, it’s a very common journey that they go through where they start with those feelings and then as they get older, they naturally people do naturally feel attracted to people who are opposite of them.

Julie Redmer:     So if they feel other than the sex that they were born to, then as they start to have feelings of attraction for others, it’s very common for them to feel an attraction for the same sex, which is opposite of what they feel that they are. Then they have a lot of conflict about that, and that conflict manifests itself usually quietly and privately, and they don’t really want to share that with anyone. They try and hide it, and then it just becomes so much and so hard on them that they take on the identity still with all of this internal conflict going on within them. And then once they take on that identity, they feel like, oh, I’m going to declare myself. I’m going to own this. I’m going to tell the world and that’s going to relieve all of this conflict that I have. And it does for a minute, maybe for a while, but they still continue to have that inner conflict even now living in the lifestyle that they believe they belong in, and they just have that continuing inner conflict until such a time as perhaps the Lord will save them.

Julie Redmer:     So they just continue to have those non affirming people in their lives that are always reminding them that they have that internal conflict. The other thing that we need to understand besides just what they’re going through on an emotional and mental level, is that there are some really common values in the L-G-B-T-Q community and to understand those makes a big difference in how we can approach and reach them. They really value the affirmation of their lifestyle because of that internal conflict they experience. The more affirmation they can get for the lifestyle they’re living, the more that kind of appeases and takes the edge off that conflict. And they really value a sense of community to be part of the L-G-B-T-Q community is to be part of a really close knit community. Now, I won’t say that all the letters in that acronym necessarily get along with each other as much as the political movement would like for all of us to believe, but lesbians have tight-knit groups. Gay men have tight-knit groups and just they really value that community. And so that is something that we need to learn to offer them if we are hoping to show them that we are as Christ’s followers, lovers of people, the way that they find their community to be lovers of them.

Jamie Mitchell:  Julie, one of the things as a pastor over the years, I’ve had many conversations with folks who have been a part of the LGBT community and struggling with their sexuality, and one of the things that I’ve noticed is that one of the driving forces early on in their life was this lack of acceptance, whatever it was from a coach, a teacher, a parent, a friend, but this lack of acceptance of maybe who they were and how God had even designed them and their personality and the things that they enjoyed and liked and the interests they had, and so they didn’t get the acceptance and that drove them then to investigate this different lifestyle. The problem is that now that they’re in the lifestyle, this lack of acceptance even more intense because their family doesn’t accept them, their friends doesn’t accept them, and then all of a sudden they come in and they encounter an evangelical Christian. And Julie, what does the LGBT community think about us? What do they think about evangelical Christians? How do they view us, whether it’s right or wrong from your study and their research? What is their perspective of us as evangelicals?

Julie Redmer:     Well, there’s fear and there’s anger toward us for sure. They feel that we’re condemning, that we’re trying to take away their rights and their freedom to be who they are as a group. They don’t see us as loving. They don’t think that we understand. And so that’s another thing that we work to do in the seminar is once we help people get their hearts aligned and help them understand, as you very well explained this feeling of other than, and a lack of acceptance, then we really go into having corrected their, giving them a correct biblical perspective. Then we move into examining the commonly held beliefs. So we talked about commonly held values, but then in the mind section of the seminar, we talk about commonly held beliefs of those who’ve taken on the identity, and we compare those beliefs with biblical truths, identifying the similarities in the differences.

Julie Redmer:     And in that we use an eight rung word ladder that helps our participants understand the foundation of an L-G-B-T-Q, individual’s understanding about God, about him or herself, about sin and its consequences and so on. So they do feel, like I said, the fear and the anger that we’re condemning. But in the seminars, we are certainly hoping to, and we’re finding a lot of success in educating people about what they believe, not only how they feel, but what their beliefs are and how they compare to scripture. And then of course, we teach practical ways for them to build the grace and truth relationships. So we have an opportunity, like in my own personal relationship, having learned all of these things, I have a six year long friendship with a transgender individual, and we are great friends. We have that one-on-one relationship that makes all the difference.

Julie Redmer:     I and many others have friendships that have provided opportunities to share the gospel because our L-G-B-T-Q, neighbors, coworkers, family members, have seen the love of Jesus in us, and that’s only by his wonderful grace. But our seminars allow people to avail themselves of this information that can give them the heart, the love, the compassion, and then educate them about where things are similar between our beliefs, where things are very dissimilar, and learn how to start that relationship talking about similar things rather than closing the door right away and proving to an L-G-B-T-Q individual that, oh yeah, we are judgmental, we are unaccepting. We start with the easy stuff. And then as the relationship grows, we move to those things that might be a little bit more difficult for a conversation. But again, in my personal experience and many others’ personal experience, when you go about building the relationship that way, it really offers, it really offers just a real confidence and a trust, and the relationship can bear the weight of that truth.

Jamie Mitchell:  One of the things that I have experienced or noticed is that as evangelical Christians, we will say things like this, that we love the sinner and hate the sin, and we can find a way to compartmentalize those things by still caring for a person, but not approving or accepting or making any room for the sin or behavior. But for the L-G-B-T-Q person, it’s one and the same. It’s integrated. It’s so close that trying to separate is almost offensive. Friends, I hope you’re taking notes. My guess is that every one of us have encountered at some level a relationship with a person connected to the L-G-B-T-Q community When we come back. What are some potential roadblocks to reaching this unique people group? Come back in just a few moments for Stand in the Gap today. Well, thank you for joining us again. Julie Redmer is my guest today, and she’s with every fna, heart, mind, and Soul Ministries. They’ve developed a number of resources and training to help reach the new mission fields and people groups that have emerged. Julie, before we go any further, can you take a moment and tell the audience what exactly your ministry has to offer them and their church, and how would they find out about EVERYNE and A BWE and all that you’re doing?

Julie Redmer:     Sure. I’d love to tell you about that. Tom, heart, mind and Soul is a growing seminar series that’s designed to help Christians get out of their pews and get actively involved in the great commission and get involved in the great commission by building grace and truth relationships with unbelieving individuals who are already right around them in their workplaces, in their neighborhoods, at the activities that they participate in and even within their families. So these seminars are one day interactive seminars that mobilize church bodies in the mission of spreading the gospel to the lost souls in their everyday lives. We have the seminar series currently includes the Muslim seminar, the L-G-B-T-Q seminar that we’ve been talking about, and the Hindu seminar to be released in October. Both atheism and Eastern Asian religions are in design right now and more world religions and people group titles will follow God willing.

Julie Redmer:     So just go to every fna.org and slash reach every fna.org/reach and you can learn about our heart, mind, and soul seminars and you can have the opportunity to book one of those for your church family. We do these in a church setting so that church families, church bodies are trained together and can be moving together on a mission with the particular people group or the particular population. And when you book one of our seminars for your church family, we send a team of subject matter experts to present the seminar years of experience, either in the subject matter. So if you book an L-G-B-T-Q, we have somebody who the Lord has saved from that life who comes out and is part of the presentation team. Others might be experts in ministry to those people who are in the L-G-B-T-Q community, and that’s the same for all of our seminars. So we send out these subject matter experts. They present the seminar, they answer your church family’s particular questions. So if we’ve missed it in our seminar and you have a question that you came to get answered, you can ask it and we will right there on the spot answer those questions for you. We also spend a lot of time having one-on-one conversations and praying with the participants, especially those who are particularly burdened and really just have a broken heart for someone in their life who is unbelieving and needs to know the Lord.

Jamie Mitchell:  And Julie, go ahead. I’m sorry, I interrupted.

Julie Redmer:     I was going to say, even after the seminar, we still offer continuing support and those take the form of continuing education classes or support groups, those types of things. So we’re all about helping everyone in your church family to get on mission to reach unbelievers through those grace and truth relationships that can bear the weight of the truth of the gospel.

Jamie Mitchell:  I was going to say that I have spoken in many churches, and I can’t tell you how many parents and grandparents come to me with a broken heart share how their child or grandchild has found their way into the LGBT community and if not themselves, embracing the lifestyle, their friends and their relationships, and they have just such confusion that your ministry and what you’re doing to help equip and sensitize and help people how to reach this community is so important. Julie, no matter what mission field you enter in, there are roadblocks that need to be both anticipated and strategized how to overcome them. In regard to the LGBT culture and community, what are some points of resistance or roadblocks that we might encounter and need to consider when we’re trying to overcome them to reach these folks with the gospel?

Julie Redmer:     Well, some of those roadblocks I mentioned earlier, just they feel that we’re judgmental, that we’re angry toward them, we’re condemning them. Those are roadblocks to be sure if L-G-B-T-Q individuals feel that we’re judging them and trying to control their behavior or condemning their behavior, that is an obstacle to building a relationship just like it would be with any other person who’s not living in accordance to the word of God. That example that you gave earlier, Jamie, hate the sin, love the sinner. Oh, huge obstacle. That is such a door closer on a relationship with somebody in that community. It just really gr on them because all they hear is hate the sin. They don’t hear love the sinner. And so that’s a lot of where we have learned from those people. That’s where they think we hate them is they hear that phrase, but all they hear is hate.

Julie Redmer:     And so that is a huge door closer. Also, just like flippantly telling jokes about Adam and Steve and just some of the really ridiculous and insensitive things that just through the course of our conversation we can say that would be really insensitive, super big door closers. Those are some points of resistance for sure. Participants may and do come to our seminars also. I mean, here’s another big roadblock I would say. They arrive at our seminars with a, they are centered attitude. We are righteous attitudes, and we look at that closely to help them to get to the point where they see an image bearer who is lost and in need of the same grace that we have received from God. So we might be saved, but we’re still sinners, so we can’t be too judgmental or we’ll never open a door to a relationship.

Jamie Mitchell:  Julie, I have learned, especially with just being with anybody who doesn’t know the Lord as believers, we use phrases, we use words, we use ideas, we say things, and sadly to say, sometimes our words exposes our prejudices. And in some respects we don’t mean to do that, but we use some words so carelessly that we’re our worst enemy when it comes to trying to reach folks. Julie, one of the things that I’ve noticed that those who have friends in the lifestyle, many people who may be not practicing gay lifestyles, but they have a relationship, I have found that some of those folks, they’re not in the LGBT community, but they know people, they will be more resistant and even more outright hostile than some who are in the lifestyle, especially when you begin talking about the Bible and about what the Bible says about homosexuality. Has that been your experience and why is that? Why is it that they seem to pick up more of an offense than even those who are actually in the lifestyle?

Julie Redmer:     I’m so glad you brought this up because yes, we see that. We see that on a personal level. Those of us who are part of the team, we see that in our seminars sometimes, sometimes professing Christians or people who aren’t even Christians, but even professing Christians, they just have a real heart conflict. So you love that individual so much or they love the freedoms that they enjoy. So we hear things like, I can’t believe that God would judge or send to hell my son or daughter or my friend just because they are gay or lesbian or transgender. So what they’re doing is they’re building their own God. Instead of going to God’s word and seeing who God is, they’re really creating an idol God who is kind of at their their mercy. This is the God that I believe in. It’s the one who doesn’t do this, and it’s the one who does do that, and there’s just no place for that within Christendom.

Julie Redmer:     Right? And for those who are doing that, who aren’t Christians, well, they have their own, have their own lostness that we have to help them through and help them to see who God really is. So when we help them to see God as he is the holy and righteous one, who even as holy and righteous doesn’t wish that any would perish, but that all should reach repentance. And then we help them to see their loved one who for they are those who are seeking and they don’t obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness. They’re a person deeply in need of Jesus’s savior, not because they’re L-G-B-T-Q, but because they’ve sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So it’s sometimes we have to spend a lot of time with people just destroying, tearing down the idolatry that they have built, the God that they have built and want to believe in, and replacing that God with the God of the Bible who is again, holy and righteous and loving, but does also judge sin.

Jamie Mitchell:  But what you said there, Julie, he is the true and living God and he is the God of the Bible. And again, it’s fascinating to me that I have had more conversations and more difficulty convincing believers that God’s word needs to be trusted. If this is what God’s word says than that’s it, that settles it. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still love these people and care for them and try to reach them and share with them. Matter of fact, if we don’t believe that the Bible is true, then I guess we don’t even need to reach them. That’s the conflict. And equally so, the roadblocks that we face are not just with those in the LGBT community, but their friends, their family, their loved ones all around this community. I have so many more questions and probably you as listeners do when we move into our last segment with Julie, we’re going to conclude, learn a little bit more about this seminar and how to be effective to reach the LGBT community.

Jamie Mitchell:  Come back and join us in just a few moments. Well welcome back to our final segment. Julie Redmer is our guest today. She is from every FNA mission and they do a series of workshops under the label of Heart, mind, and Soul Ministries, and they are focused on identifying different people groups, whether Muslim Hindu is coming out this coming year. The one we’re talking about today is the L-G-B-T-Q community, and they will bring that seminar to your church. Maybe you can gather up a number of churches together if you’re a smaller congregation and host for their region, and they will train you and they will help you understand how to reach the people who are a part of this lifestyle and this culture and this community. Now, Julie, I have not been able to get to this seminar. I keep looking and waiting, hoping that it comes into my region, and hopefully in the next year or so I’m going to be able to go.

Jamie Mitchell:  Can you unpack a little bit about the seminars so people understand what would be in store? And one of the things, maybe you address it, I’m not sure, but one of the things is if you do enter into a relationship with a person in the LGBT community and you build that truth and grace relationship somewhere along the line, it’s going to become uncomfortable. Either Christians are going to question you or you’re going to be put in a place where maybe have to say no to your friend, maybe like if they’re having a wedding or they’re having some kind of event and you just don’t feel comfortable as a Christian, do you help attenders to your seminar grapple with some of these issues?

Julie Redmer:     We do. So yeah, we absolutely. Again, like I said, if people bring questions and we don’t cover things, we try and cover all of those common things. And of course, the more seminars we do, and we’ve been doing this for a number of years, the more we understand what it is people are looking for. So we’re able to continually hone and implement those things. But yes, we absolutely help them grapple with those things after we go through that heart section that I talked about where we align our hearts with God’s heart, and then we get through the mind section where we teach the participants what it is that the L-G-B-T-Q community believes and what they base all of their understanding about God and man and sin and death and Christ and the cross and faith and life. And once we go through all of those things, then we start having their hearts aligned and their minds informed.

Julie Redmer:     We start getting the participants familiar with a four phase relationship building roadmap, and it begins with prayer. That’s the first spot on that four phase plan for building relationships. So we help them to move into prayer and several ways both for the LGBT individual in their life or the one that they’re hoping that God will now bring across their path, and also for themselves, just several different ways that those prayers need to lay the foundation for what will follow. Then we help them to move to understanding what the initiate phase should look like. Maybe just get out of your chair and you walk across to another cubicle and you say, Hey, you want to sit together for lunch? Or maybe a family member that you have been at odds with. You call and you work to bring a reconciliatory bunch or dinner or just coffee, something like that.

Julie Redmer:     Just initiate that relationship. And we give all sorts of ideas, all sorts of starter ideas for initiating these relationships. Then we move to the invest phase of that four phase roadmap, and that’s where those individuals, those relationships with the individuals, we can show ourselves as loving and faithful Christians all along the way, but also just really good friends. So we don’t hide our Christianity as we invest. We talk about how God is working in our lives, or we can even talk about his word, but we show ourselves as we’re investing as believers and lovers of the soul of the person. I remember as I was mentoring a transgender student at our local high school, there were just several times that she made statements about God that were just false, and I was just able, she wasn’t even necessarily being confrontative or anything like that, but she just had false ideas, and I had the opportunity to just gently and lovingly in that friendship say, oh, actually, this is how God feels about that.

Julie Redmer:     This is what God’s word says about that. And it was just a time to invest and to show myself a spiritual person and to bring light to her misunderstandings or her ignorance of who God was. Then once that investing has gone on long enough, we’ll see, almost without question the Holy Spirit provides opportunities to intensify. So again, I’ve experienced this myself out to lunch with my transgender friend, and she said something about, oh, Christians make me nervous. I think they’re judging me. And I was able to say, well, I’m a Christian. And she’s like, yeah, but you’re different. And then I was just able to move into why I was different, and it was because Christ had mercy on me. I told her about the person I used to be and how I was a sinner, still am, but I was a sinner without a saving.

Julie Redmer:     Grace told her how Christ worked in my life, how he brought me to himself, and how now I want to live for him, and I want that for her too. And we’ve had that conversation at least three times together. We still have a great relationship. We’re still in that fourth stage of relationship building in that intensified stage, but she doesn’t walk away from me. She continues to contact me and I continue to contact her. So we teach that in the seminar so that this can really be feet to the street, not just theory, but really help people to be able to walk out and have a plan for how they’re going to proceed to pray and initiate, invest and intensify their relationships. And all that learning happens through small and large group discussions and lots of fun reinforcing activities. Our seminars are just really unique because we, again, start with getting our hearts right, and then we move to teach equipping with information and insights, and then provide those practical and actionable plans for building relationships that lead to gospel engagement.

Jamie Mitchell:  Julie, we got about a minute left. Could you just speak to the pastor who’s listening or the church leader of why they need to consider having this, and if they’re nervous or hesitant or they think, oh, this is going to be too hot of topic for my church, how can you help his fears to overcome that and to think about having this seminar?

Julie Redmer:     Sure. To host a seminar, again, just go to every fna.org/reach and let us know you’re interested. We have team members who’ll answer your questions and help you all the way through booking and planning your seminar. We understand that the L-G-B-T-Q subject is a controversial one, and that can draw the wrong attention from outside your church. So we even help you promote it in a secure way within your congregation, or as Jamie mentioned, if you need to team up with churches, we have a very specific way that that needs to be done in order to provide the security and avoid the wrong attention being brought to your seminar. Now, if your concern is controversy inside your church about this subject, just please know, we take all of the controversy right out of it. Our heart, mind, and soul, L-G-B-T-Q seminar is all about unbelieving L-G-B-T-Q individuals. It is not about the L-G-B-T-Q movement or its political agenda. Our hearts are for lost souls. The seminar is biblical and uncompromising, but you can bring it to your church without fear that it will generate controversy, rather, I mean, count on it, amen. Count on it to generate broken hearts in your congregation for those lost L-G-B-T-Q individuals.

Jamie Mitchell:  Julie, thank you so much for today. Thank you for listening today. Listen, to have the kind of impact we need courage. So live and lead with courage wherever you are today. Join us back here tomorrow. See you tomorrow for Stand In the Gap Today.