Andy Stanley and Northpoint Community Church are hosting an event for parents of LGBTQ+ children. Four of the five speakers are LGBTQ-affirming, including one speaker who is the founder of the world’s largest LGBTQ Christian advocacy organization that is dedicated to advancing the acceptance and celebration of homosexuality in the church.
On September 28-29, North Point will host the Unconditional Conference, presented by Embracing the Journey Ministry. Embracing the Journey is operated by Greg and Lynn McDonald, ministry leaders in North Point. While they paint themselves as neutral regarding whether homosexuality is a sin, in reality, they are wholly and utterly pro-LGBTQ.
Speakers at the event include Andy Stanley, Greg and Lynn Mcdonald, and pastor John Ortberg, who endorsed the book “Embracing theJourney” but was recently let go from Menlo Church after it was revealed he knew his son was a pedophile, but still allowed him to volunteer with the children’s ministry. Other speakers include Debbie Causey, an affirming pastrix at North Point and the Director of Care Ministries, as well as Justin Lee.
According to Lee’s biography
For the last two decades, Justin Lee has been an influential Christian voice for LGBTQ affirmation, best known for working across areas of theological disagreement to promote grace and mutual understanding. He is the founder of the world’s largest LGBTQ Christian advocacy organization, (Gay Christian Network) the author of two books, and an internationally known speaker on faith, sexuality, and dialogue.
Justin’s first book, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate, has been widely cited for its role in helping Christian parents understand and accept their LGBTQ kids. His newest book, Talking Across the Divide, offers strategies for having more productive conversations on controversial issues in a polarized society.
Justin lives in Orlando, Florida, where he currently serves as the executive director of Nuance Ministries. He makes educational videos on the Bible and other topics on his YouTube channel and blogs at GeekyJustin.com.
For years North Point Community Church, led by Andy Stanley, has been partnering with and promoting affirming LGBTQ+ organizations when desperate parents come to see them for help with their struggling gay children, all done through the Parent Connect Ministry. This is no surprise, as Andy Stanley sets the priorities for his church, as revealed in a private, shocking Q&A where he offered some heretical hot takes on homosexuality.
Parent Connect exists to “inspire parents of LGBTQ+ children to follow Jesus by providing a safe environment where they can experience community and personal growth.” This is done through meetings, get-togethers, mentorship, and curriculum studies with parents and their gay or trans kids so they can work through their issues. Recently, they had Queer Eye for the Straight Guy icon Mama Tammye as a guest speaker and teacher.
Parent Connect is led by Amy Blakeslee, an openly queer woman, and is overseen by Debbie Causey. Causey is a long-tenured pastrix at North Point Community Church and the director of their Care network of ministries. Years ago, after her son came out as gay, she wrote the book The Big Reveal: Loving Your LGBTQ+ Child While Strengthening Your Faith, which details her experiences handling her son’s revelations. Prominent gay activist Justin Lee wrote the forward of her book, and she has his endorsement on her website. Causey speaks at pro-LGBTQ+ events such as Q Christian Fellowships.
One pro-gay organization that North Point leaders highly recommend and refer out-of-state parents to is Embracing the Journey, which we covered in our exclusive article here. That article also details how pastors and church leaders at North Point are board members of another Pro-LGBTQ+ activist and advocacy group called Renovus, including Causey.
But there are more.
In a conversation about her book with Embracing the Journey leaders, Causey gets asked about recommendations for a “safe” counselors, which is a coded word they use to describe affirming counselors. She recommends an organization called ‘The Christian Closet,’ which she describes as a “great group” specifically designed for children and youth struggling with their identity, and McDonald agrees.
Leaders from Andy Stanley's church refer Christan children struggling with their sexual identities, wondering if maybe they're gay, to a collective of open, affirming, all-LBGTQ counselors. See the story at https://t.co/dinJnUfdSbpic.twitter.com/byRGsSX3gb
The Christian Closet is a collective of all-LGBTQ+ Christian counselors that offer virtual mental help on topics like depression, coming out, transitioning, starting your first queer relationship, deconstructing, dealing with trauma, and everything in between. It’s “an online therapeutic resource for people who are trying to work out what it means to have a LGBTQI sexual identity, or gender identity within a Christian context.”
This is not to say that some of the counselors are gay or that a majority are gay, but rather that all of them are gay.
Their website reads:
It’s a rare thing to find a therapist who personally understands the intersections of faith with sexual and gender identity. When most people find us they exclaim with relief “In finding TCC, I’ve found a needle-in-a-haystack.” When you choose a Christian Closet therapist, you don’t have to choose between someone who gets your faith or sexual orientation. That is why all of our clinicians identify somewhere on the LGBTQ+ spectrum and have done the work of reconciling their faith with that.
By doing the work of reconciling, they mean that they are all affirming in their theology and believe that homosexuality is something to be celebrated.
Once you are ready to commit, you can peruse through the bios of individual counselors to see who you mesh well with. You can pick Karen Pace Poland, an ex-Southern Baptist who shares:
“I also began to experience shifts in my beliefs which caused tension in our marriage. When our marriage ended I had become gay affirming and embraced that my gay friends and family members could be both Christian and gay. Since that time I’ve made peace with those two parts in me, which has been a beautiful journey. Today, I am in a loving relationship with my partner, Kim. We are both really late-bloomer lesbians.”
I identify as queer, lesbian, and genderfluid. I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California, with a specialization in LGBTQ+ Affirmative therapy from Antioch University. I am passionate about working with LGBTQ+ individuals, particularly those of you whose multifaceted identities include an important, central, faith practice, and/or relationship with divinity. My work is relational and client-centered, guided by anti-racist principles, and the belief that we can deconstruct harmful stories and co-author new ones for the betterment of ourselves and our communities.
Or a dozen more options, whose price per session ranges from $130$/h to $245/h
But what if you’re not LGBTQ+ but are a parent or sibling trying to relate to their gay family member? The Christian Closet offers those services through Progressive Christian Counseling, which they describe as their “sister site” with all the same counselors.
Here we read: “We believe in an inclusive, transformational God who’s more interested in a “soft and open heart” versus a prescriptive way of living.” and “We’ve seen the link between shame and the requirements to work to be like Christ’s perfection. And we’ve seen the damage that comes to someone’s life when prescriptive ways of living lead to feeling worse about one’s humanness.”
We further read that: ‘We believe that you were born into original goodness and that even pain from a focus on purity comes from a beautiful place inside of you,” where “All of our therapists come from Christian backgrounds and now identify as progressive Christians themselves” Then we get this banger:
There is no hope for children struggling with their sexuality if they’re going to these places to get this sort of help. The adults have stacked the deck against them. All the paths to freedom and deliverance have been taken away.
North Point Community Church leaders, when faced with a family who is struggling because their 13-year-old daughter or 10-year-old son says they think they might be gay or non-binary, and is looking for some sound, biblical counseling and resources, directs the parents to pro-LBGTQ+ organization Embracing the Journey, and the kids to pagan pro-LBGTQ+ counselors at The Christian Closet.
North Point Community Church pastor Andy Stanley decided to respond to critics and church members dogging him for his decision to close his Church until at least 2021, though at the rate things are going he’ll be well into 2022 by the time he opens the church doors and welcomes his little goatlings back into the pen.
During his November 29 service, however, Stanley expressed his gratitude for his flock, or at least the ones who haven’t gone feral from being away from the body for so long. Because of continued financial support, he stated that no staff jobs were lost and the bills are continuing to be paid.
He emphasized the generosity of spirit of the congregation proven by a record-breaking tally for their to their “Be Rich” campaign, no mean feat in the midst of a pandemic. The “Be Rich” campaign is an “initiative to partner with life-changing organizations in our communities and around the globe.”
Essentially, they raise money to give to primarily secular organizations, from The Drake House where “These funds will go toward creating a dedicated space for the students of The Drake House to either complete their homework or do virtual learning should the need arise” to Atlanta Habitat for Humanity.
Stanley, who oversees six churches with nearly 40,000 members all spread across the Atlanta Region, quoted Ephesians 1:15-16, as the text he built much of his sermon on . “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.” He says:
We have not met in the church building for nine months, and you gave more to ‘Be Rich’ than you have ever given before – over $7 million, and that is, well, I don’t even have words for that.
Stanley recounts how a “high-profile media person” who had been taking some potshots at him and his decision to close asked him how his megachurch was “doing spiritually’ given that they’ve been all-virtual for the better part of the year. Taking this to be a little dig at him and a backhanded way of suggesting that something was amiss in the congregation, he responded:
Well, they gave over $7 million in 39 days to support the local charities and our communities. And if Jesus was serious about that ‘where your treasure is there your heart is,’ then I think we’re doing pretty good.
…When someone takes a shot at us on social media for not being ‘open’ [Editor’s note: he uses finger quotes on the word open] I’ve been sending them the four minutes video of our ‘Be Rich’ celebration. And I’m always tempted to add ‘hey, our closed church just did a thousand times more for other people in 39 days than your open church has done in the past 10 years. So shut up with all that, right?’ But I restrain myself and do my best to walk in the way of love. But when people who don’t know you take a shot at you, it is difficult to restain my evil thoughts.
During the rest of the sermon, Stanley also thanked his congregation for allowing him to remain apolitical during the election, and showing grace for his decision not to bring up political topics, but rather remain focused on other things.
It’s not the first time Stanley has been outspoken at critics who questioned his decision to cease in-person services. Several months ago he said during a broadcast that there was no command to actually meet in person as a body, saying:
People on the other end of this argument, I keep hearing them say over and over ‘the Lord commanded us to meet. The Lord commands us to meet.
He does not.
Studies and surveys have shown that the rate of which people congregants actually tune in live church service broadcasts has dropped precipitously, with only around 25% participating.
In a panel at Liberty University, David Nasser spoke with Andy Stanley about the theological basis for being closed while other churches in the area, including Grace Community Church, stay open. Stanely responds:
There is a theological basis for this (closing down church until 2021) and this is where I part ways with some of those folks, John in particular, perhaps. I’ve never met John MacArthur, so, you now…all I know is what I’ve read, I guess, like most people.
“You should go to his home,” interjects Nassar, to a visibly surprised and uncomfortable Stanley who seems horrified at the idea
John said some not so nice things about me, not by name, but he’s made some comments about those who have decided not to meet for the rest of the year. He said that we aren’t really a church and we don’t know how or don’t care about shepherding our people, so I’m like ‘wow that’s a lot from someone I’ve never met’. but that’s ok.
Stanley goes back to the theme of ‘what does love require of us’ which is the basis for them shutting down. Stanely argues that ultimately it requires sacrifice for the community.
“So again, I think the church always looks better when we are defending other people’s rights, rather than defending our own. The church always looks better when it is giving away, rather than demanding our way, and this is what Jesus modeled.
People on the other end of this argument, I keep hearing them say over and over ‘the Lord commanded us to meet. The Lord commands us to meet.’
He does not. He commands that we lay down our lives for our friends, that we do what’s best for others.. even the apostle Paul said this when describing Jesus in his letter to the Philippians, he said he who was equal with God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. In other words Jesus, this is amazing…Jesus never played the god card. He never said ‘ok by the way, I’m god’? Right?
And again to quote peter who dedicated his experience with Jesus to mark ‘for even the son of man- and we’re his body so remember this- even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life for ransom for many.
So the local church as a representation of Jesus, this is a premier moment. this is a premier moment for the local church in America culture, and the question is what are we going to do with this moment?
And demanding our way, demanding our rights is antithetical to everything Jesus taught an everything Jesus did. So we think (not gathering until 2021) is an expression of Christ’s likeness.
