Youth Hacks

The following was written by Joel for “Love is An Orientation”, Andrew Marin’s blog. You can see the original post here.

This journey began a few years ago when I was part of a college study group with two other students. There was Mary, a devout Catholic woman, Jennifer, an out and proud lesbian, and me, a youth pastor as a conservative mainline mega-church in Atlanta. Up until this group, I had never hung out, spoken to, worked with, or worshiped with an openly gay individual.

My church and family were very clear of what they thought of the GLBT community. Honestly I had never given it much thought. I just agreed that “they” didn’t belong in the church until they dealt with their “issue.” It seemed like a simple way to deal with the issue.

I had my stereotypes of the GLBT community. Gay men speak with a lisp, and lesbians are mostly butch. And don’t forget, GLBT people have a lot of anonymous sex with various partners. I truly believed these stereotypes among many others. That’s until I began to hang out with my study group.

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