One of Annie’s seminary classmates recently shared a blog post that I was so taken by, I have included it below. Like, John, the blog author, my life was changed by getting to know two faithful, committed, church members who happened to be gay. I worked with them for many years at church and Via de Cristo and was inspired by them to head our church’s ELCA “Journey Together Faithfully: The Church and Homosexuality” studies. We spent a year meeting and talking: gay, straight, old, young, liberal, conservative, parents, children, and friends – working through stereotypes and fears – really digging into the Bible and our faith. Special thanks to John for his blog and allowing us to share it. Note, “A” and “B” are not really the persons’ names. I changed that. Read John’s blog below and then read 1 Corinthians 13. Remember, the God of love, loves you unconditionally 

Mike
GO LOVE.

For me it was always simple: God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. Anything outside a relationship of man and women was just not natural. Plus there were all those verses in the Bible to back it up, although I never read them, I knew where they were in scripture, or the context behind them.
Back in my youth director days, I was asked by one of my youth if all gay people went to hell when they died, and I responded, “Well, they probably end up in the same place all unrepentant sinners go. However, we’re called to love everyone regardless of his or her sin.
We’re supposed to love the sinner, hate the sin, right?
Then a couple of things happened that caused me to have a radical paradigm shift in my way of thinking and understanding in regards to the LGBTQ community.
First I met “A”. “A” and “B” to be precise. “A” had a strong calling to be a pastor in the ELCA church. However, he wasn’t allowed because he was gay and in a committed relationship to “B” (they’ve been together almost as long as I’ve been alive). It wasn’t until 2009 when the ELCA voted to allow openly gay pastors as ministers where “A” was finally able to pursue God’s call for his life.
I met them at Church and I shared small groups, meals, beers, and life with them on what became a somewhat regular basis. At first I told myself, “I like them…a lot…it’s too bad they’re gay.”
Then something happened. I began to see them as two people created in God’s image, beautifully and wonderfully made. I saw two people that loved each other and others even more than I thought possible by two individuals. I looked at them and it became utterly impossible for me to see who they were and brand it as sin. I began to ask myself, “How much more does the God of all creation, who loves all relentlessly and unceasingly, care for “A” and “B”?”
Obviously, people of good will can and do read the scriptures very differently when it comes to controversial issues, and I am painfully aware that there are ways I could be wrong about this one.
However, if we all remember, there was a time when we in the Church made strong biblical cases for keeping women out of teaching roles in the Church, and when divorced and remarried people often were excluded from fellowship altogether on the basis of scripture. Not long before that, some Christians even made biblical cases supporting slavery. Many of those people were sincere believers, but most of us now agree that they were wrong. I am afraid we are making the same kind of mistake again, which is why I am speaking out.
Not too many years after I transitioned from youth ministry into new Ministry roles at St. Mary’s, I found out that one of my old youth was now openly gay. Not too long after that, a couple more had the courage to come out. They knew how my heart had been changed and felt confident they would be received in love. They shared with me what it was like encountering a world and a Church that makes them feel like second class citizens simply because they are honest about who they are. As I listened, my heart broke and tears filled my eyes as I thought about the God I had presented to these gay youth – a God that would love them as long as they weren’t honest with themselves and changed who they really were. I was ashamed that I made them feel anything other than absolutely accepted and unconditionally loved.
To those youth, I now say this: “You are beautiful and wonderfully made. God loves you more than you can possibly imagine or know. Right now. Right where you’re at – not some future or altered you. You. Now. Always.”
In regards to the LGBTQ community, I can no longer say, “Love the sinner, hate the sin,” without my heart breaking. I have discovered that God has called us to simply, “Love.”
I challenge you to go and do the same.
Love and Peace my friends.
John
Today’s Reading: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13&version=NRSV