10 Ways To Make your Church safer

by Laurie Krieg

While speaking at a local church on Sunday, we were asked a profound question: “What is the number one thing you wish we, as a church, would do in response to your message?”

I was taken aback. Not every church is so quick to shift from invitation to action. 

“We work with men and women who feel like the worst type of sinner,” I began. “They do not feel safe. They do not feel as though they can ‘come out’ in their Christian circles as a fellow, on-the-journey, broken and beloved believer like you. Please, start with you. Work hard to make yourself a safe person, and spread that to your churches to make them safe places for every type of sinner.”

We are doing our best to help all men and women see how they are beloved by God, but they need a safe place to continue their journey. We are not the only solution. We need you. They need you. 

So, as a follow-up to that question, I am going to offer ten practical ways you can become a safe person, so that our churches can become places of refuge.

1. Educate yourself. Before you speak, please read truthful, graceful, and loving language about God’s heart toward all people. Check out our list of resources here, and read about Jesus' love for the broken here.
2. Don’t assume. I do not look or sound like a stereotypical same-sex attracted person. More than once, ten, or twenty times have people said painfully hurtful things in my presence about LGBT/SSA men and women. “Those people! I just can’t believe it. What’s our world coming to?” There is not one individual with whom we work with who hasn’t had a similar experience. This keeps them in hiding, this keeps them alone with their thoughts, and this shame allows for the enemy to aggravate their struggle. Everyone needs places to share their real-life journey, and feel exhorted to continue.
3. Don’t focus on politics. Raging about policies instead of seeing the people behind them tells your children, grandchildren, friends, neighbors, and church family, “You or your friends are not a person to be loved, you are an issue to be voted on, and I will always vote angrily against you.”
4. Do care about the political side—but with love. I do disagree with the proposed changes to Michigan schools regarding bathrooms (and voiced my opinion on forums)—but with awareness and sensitivity of the real men and women who struggle enormously with gender identity. “There is a word that describes the tension between grace and truth, and I believe that word is ‘love’” author Caleb Kaltenbach recently said. Yes, care about laws and bathroom changes around our country, but with real, 1 Corinthians 13 love. 
5. Rate your reactions. Therapist Ray Kane once said, “Any time our responses are greater or lesser than a situation calls for, there is something behind it. Hysterics implies history.” Whenever I see someone respond red-faced and angry toward something I said in gentleness, I think, “What is going on behind their reaction? Do they have a dad who hurt them emotionally because he came out as gay? Are they afraid for their children’s future? Do they feel an unhealthy sense of responsibility for the state of our nation that is driven from their family of origin?” Angry people are often hurt humans. Yes, Jesus was passionate, but it was never out of fear or uncontrollable, unkind anger. Even in the face of literal demons, he maintained control. “What’s your name?” he asked them with authoritative calm. If we respond to something with emotions greater or lesser than a situation calls for, we need to check if we are reacting out of past pain instead of righteous conviction.
6. Call the right things sin. My attractions are not sin, just as Matt’s attractions toward women outside of our marriage are not sin. (Jesus, himself, was tempted in every way but did not sin.) When Matt or I begin to lust toward or pursue anyone outside of our marriage we are sinning. For those of us with same-sex attractions, the Bible condemns the act of a “man lying with a man” as with a woman. However, the lust and any pursuit I might do toward anyone outside of my marriage also “misses the mark.” If I were not married, my lust or idolatrous, putting-a-person-before-God pursuit of any human would be sin. It is a kindness to call sin, sin. If you were my friend, not to call me out with the grace+truth=love equation is essentially letting me drink poison while you watch me die. 
7. Don’t emphasize the sin. When you first came to Christ, did you know all you did now? Did you give God all your sinful struggles immediately? Or was it a slow transition? Why is it that same-sex attracted or LGBT men and women are expected to break off relationships and stop struggling, while "acceptable" sins are allowed to enter our church doors? Why is it that the man who struggles with heterosexual pornography is welcome to men’s groups and can share his testimony any week, but if that same man struggled with homosexual pornography, he would feel, at the very least, terrified to share? And where is the safe space in our women's ministries for the growing number of women who struggle with pornography?
8. Our job is not to invite non-believers to a life of heterosexuality, but to a life of Christ-likeness. Jesus’ command was not, “Go and make heterosexuals,” but “Go and make disciples.” Jesus did not change me by focusing on my sexuality. He began to change me when I saw he was the true Need-Meeter I longed for. I am on continuing journey of his healing all of my brokenness. 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 (selected) says, “I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world... What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside.”
9. Look at the heart. This is not Fix the Sexual Sinner Ministries. It’s Hole in my Heart Ministries. The reason we named it what we did is because we believe we are all are born with a hole in our heart, laden with God-given core needs (affirmation, worth, love, uniqueness, nurture, God, and safety), which are to be met by God first, and his people as support staff. However, all of us look to other things to try and meet those core needs. We turn our eyes to relationships, food, work, beauty, sports, our kids…but ultimately, they fail us. When talking with someone who struggles with something you do not understand, try to look behind his or her coping mechanism to what is driving them to seek x, y, or z. Chances are you know how to speak truth and understand their core need, even if you cannot relate to the specific way they seek to meet those core needs. 
10. If in doubt, switch it out. Is homosexuality or pornography addiction especially difficult for you to understand when talking with someone? If in doubt, switch it mentally to a sin you can more easily process. If you have already done #5 above, and see that there is no past angst you need to forgive or work through, switch out their struggle with one you better understand. I do this when someone attacks us with a stance that seems prideful and better-than. Just imagine them as gay, I think. (Funny, but true.)

I have written pieces like this before, but it seems as though we cannot speak enough about the practical ways we can love.

So, in answer to your question, thoughtful asker, "What can we do as a church to help?" The greatest gift you can give to our ministry and to those we serve is to work hard to become a safe parent, spouse, friend, neighbor, and one day, whole church.