Pride Month is here…how should Christians evangelize to the gay community? (Essay)

Rainbow flags…everywhere. It’s almost that time of the year: Pride month. A month dedicated to celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community. The media (nearly every form of it) and major corporations will no doubt be marketing pride items and advertising their support for gay people.

For a lot of Christian’s the month of June seems “hijacked” by the Pride movement. The already contentious relationship between the church and the gay community seems to get even worse around this time of year. I’ll admit God has been dealing with me about reading comment sections full of arguments, but I’m drawn to them like a moth to a flame. Every June I see Christians and gay people arguing about Pride month in comment sections on every…single…social media platform.

It’s no secret that there’s A LOT of bad blood between the church and the LGBTQ community. But why?

The Bible has very clear and controversial rules regarding sex, marriage, and gender. (Leviticus 18:22, Matthew 19:4-6) These rules tend to not be taken so well by people (gay or straight), outside of the faith.

The truth is already hard to hear. The truth is already offensive on its own. We as Christians have a bad habit of adding offense to offense, if that makes sense.

So instead of being argumentative, confrontational, or condescending, how do we as Christians who live by biblical truth effectively love AND evangelize to the gay community? (Jeremiah 31:3)

I have a few points on this that I pray help you build bridges this June, instead of burning them.

1. Paint an accurate picture of the gospel. What I mean is the church hasn’t generally done a good job at ministering the gospel in the right way to gay people. We make the draw of the gospel “come to Jesus so He can make you straight, and you’ll marry someone of the opposite sex and have a million kids.” Don’t get me wrong, biblical marriage is wonderful and a truly good God given gift to be upheld and celebrated.

   The problem is that for someone who is NOT attracted to the opposite sex, marriage to someone of the opposite sex is not a selling point. Also heterosexuality is NOT the equivalent of holiness…self control is. There are plenty of straight people who are living ungodly and sexually immoral lives (Matthew 5:28), so to make the appeal of the gospel that God turning you straight is all you need is untrue and unbiblical. God CAN give someone opposite gender attraction. God CAN give someone attraction and desire to the opposite gender spouse. But the point of salvation is to know JESUS! It’s to surrender and fall in love with Jesus (Philippians 3:7-9)!

   Many gay people don’t want to follow Christ because Christians have painted this picture that the only interest God has in them is just making them straight, which is not true. God is not interested in just changing one aspect of you, He cares about ALL of you. Your hopes, trauma, pain, past, present, future, and most importantly your heart! The center of the gospel isn’t what we want Jesus to do for someone, but Jesus Himself! A lot of Christians are more interested in behavior, modification, rather than a true heart posture change for a gay person.

2. See people wholistically. Jesus NEVER condoned sin, but He also never treated people as if they were the sum-total of their sin. We have a habit of looking at people through the lens of either their sin or what we personally don’t like about them. When you only look at someone through the lens of what their issue is, in a way it dehumanizes them. When Jesus encounters the woman at the well (John 4:4-25) , He does expose her sin. He is honest with her about it. But He also clearly cares for her and wants what’s best for her. He doesn’t only focus on her sin but gives her hope and encouragement. NONE of us are perfect.

   ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Although I teach biblical truth and stand on the Word of God it’s never from a place of superiority or piety. I desperately need God every day, in every way. We have to evangelize from a place of empathy and not hatred. From a place of love and not pridefulness.

There’s A LOT more to say but these 2 points are a great starting point for evangelism this June. This month I pray God gives His church love, peace, boldness, and strength to reach out, listen and help a community that He desperately wants to save and set free. Remember God has not called us to argue with everyone or get into heated debates. You’d be surprised at how much just simply listening to peoples stories and being there for people goes A LONG way (and makes them more receptive to the gospel)!

So when you see the pride parades, flags, and corporate posts this June hopefully you can come back to this article and find what you need to build bridges and bring the good news of the gospel to a broken world that needs hope! God bless you all!