18 Ways to Love Your LGBTQ Siblings in Christ

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You’re a Christian pastor or campus ministry leader. You hold the traditional (sometimes called Side B) view of sexuality, but you want to be a safe person for LGBTQ folks. You want to know how you can show love to minority people like myself. Here are 18 suggestions.

  • Ask me questions about my life experiences, then listen.
  • Validate my existence and my experiences.
  • Encourage me.
  • Tell me I’m special.
  • Tell me I have a purpose.
  • Be at my side as I go into the deep.
  • Ask me why my people feel unwelcome at church.
  • Include me in your sermons/testimony.
  • Let me talk about what life is like for me as a gay man, rather than you—a straight person—talking about what it is like to be a gay man.
  • Defend me when you witness others judging me.
  • Be sincere.
  • Be respectful.
  • Tell me when you feel uncomfortable with something I say.
  • Ask me what we can do as a family to work through our differences and disagreements.
  • Don’t avoid me.
  • Include me in your conversation about gender and sexuality.
  • Love me unconditionally.
  • Love in action, not words.

 

Logan Paiste is an undergraduate student at Penn State University studying Ancient Mediterranean Languages and Jewish Studies. At the age of 19, he had a personal encounter with Jesus and has never been the same since. Logan desires to connect Christians to the LGBTQ+ community and create safe spaces at the university for everyone to gather as one.

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