Imagine that you are a parent of a teenage son, and one day he comes home from school and blurts out, “I’ve started doing drugs. Am I going to hell?”

How do you answer?

What if he said, “A few years ago, someone at school gave me a Playboy, and I been masturbating to it several times a week. Am I going to hell?”

Or, “My girlfriend and I have been having sleeping together for about three months now. Am I going to hell?”

Most Christian parents, I think, would rightfully be alarmed at such confessions, but few would tell their son that he was going to hell. Most parents would seek to help him through these

But what instead, your son said, “For a few years now I’ve been attracted to other guys, and over the last few months, I’ve started having sex with another guy at school. We love each other very much. But someone told me today that unless I change, I’m going to hell. Are they right?”

Now how do you answer?

Most evangelical Christians, when confronted with this hypothetical scenario, respond by saying, “Oh, that would never happen with my son. You see, he had involved father, a mother who wasn’t domineering, and he was never sexually abused as a child. Studies prove that most gay men have had at least one of these things happen to them.”

This, of course, is not an explanation of how you would respond if your son “came out” to you, but is rather a denial of its possibility. It is a non-answer.

Which is why, I suppose, most Christian families are shocked and completely unprepared when such situations do happen to them. We have been caught unaware and unprepared. We never thought it would happen to us, and so we didn’t think about what we should do or say if and when it did.

However, in a world that increasingly welcomes and accepts those of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual (LGBT) orientation, Christians must open their eyes and ears to what LGBT people are saying about God, the Scriptures, the church, and human sexuality. This is especially true if we want to minister among them.

Furthermore, the LGBT issue is increasingly being brought up on television and in politics. Numerous states are passing laws legalizing same-sex marriage. Therefore, it is vitally important for Christians to know how to respond to these situations, not only in truth, but also in love.

Andrew Marin is one Christian who is pioneering the way.

In his newly released book, Love is an Orientation (IVP, 2009), Andrew Marin provides an excellent overview of the absolute necessity for Christians to build bridges to those people who are in the LGBT community. As Christ took the initiative and came to us, we must take the initiative in building bridges of hope and love to others.

Thankfully, Andrew Marin is not writing theoretically, but from yeas of experience from living among the LGBT community as the “gayest straight person in the world.”

The book provides excellent insights and guidelines for working alongside and developing relationships with people in the LGBT community. For example, Andrew advises the four of the most important things Christians can do are (1) love, (2) listen, (3) don’t judge, and (4) seek friendship and conversation. Also, he recommends we stop saying “Love the sinner; hate the sin” and referring to those in the LGBT community as “homosexuals.” Both, he explains, are derogatory.

One helpful feature of the book is the answers to the five main questions that are on the minds of most Christians. The questions are:

1. Do you think that gays and lesbians are born that way?
2. Do you think homosexuality is a sin?
3. Can a LGBT person change?
4. Do you think that someone can be gay and a Christian?
5. Are LGBT people going to hell?

I imagine that as you read this short review, one or two of these questions crossed your mind as well. I believe that Marin provided some excellent answers to these questions in his book. Sadly, I don’t have room to reproduce the answers here…so I guess you’ll just have to buy and read the book for yourself.

This post concludes my “What if…” series. I am sure I will have more questions in the future as I try to seek answers to those already asked, but that’s what this process of reimagining church is all about.

I know that most of these questions will come back to haunt me in the future….

What if Prayer were different?

What if when we prayed for something, we concluded every prayer by asking, “How can we ourselves be an answer to our prayer?”

What if we didn’t feel the need to bow our heads, close our eyes, and fold our hands when we pray?

What if prayer was more like a conversation with God than a strange, wordy, repetitive incantation?

What if we stopped saying “Father” after every phrase? (I thank you, Father, for this beautiful day, Father, and for the opportunity to be here, Father….). He knows we’re talking to Him. He doesn’t need the constant reminder.

What if we didn’t backtrack on our prayers of faith with the statement “…if it’s your will”? (I know Jesus prayed this way once, but that’s a subject for a different study.) 

What if we stopped using prayer as an excuse for gossip?

What if strategies for getting money were different?

What if we didn’t pass tithe plates?

What if, when someone wanted to give a large sum of money to the church, we had them sign a document saying that they understood this did not entitle them to any sort of recognition in the church, or any power or say over where/how the money was used?

What if we didn’t take “special offerings” multiple times until we got the amount we were “praying” for?

What if we didn’t pressure people into giving “10%” (which is a misunderstanding and misapplication of the Old Testament principle of tithing)?

What if fellowship were different?

What if believers actually cared for each other?

What if we wanted to spend time together? How would we encourage this to happen?

What if we were more interested in loving and serving each other than in being served?  But HOW?

One big issue with church today is where, when, and how we meet. So as we think about reinventing church, there are several questions that need to be asked.

What if the meeting times, places, and format were different?

What if the best time for a church to meet is not on Sunday morning?

What if the best place to meet is not in a building?

What if the best format is not song, announcements, songs, prayer, sermon?

What if believers realized that church has nothing to do with the building on the corner?

What if we didn’t have the financial black hole of a building?

What if when we had “service” we actually did some service?

What if our only “service” of the week was service? (Meet. Eat. Teach. Serve.)

Ministries
What if we started ministries based on what spiritual gifts were present in the church, not based on what the church down the street was doing?

What if we didn’t feel like we had to offer all things to all people?

What if we had fewer ministries, and did not expect people to be involved or present in all of them?

Church Planting
What if our goal for church planting wasn’t to plant churches, but to make disciples?

What if our goal wasn’t to get a crowd together, but to change the world, to turn the world upside down?

What if our way of “doing church” was so simple, basic, memorable, easy, reproducible, that anybody could do it, no matter how long they have been a Christian, or how much they know, or how much training they don’t have?

When it comes to church, I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard people tell me, “Don’t reinvent the wheel.”

I imagine back in cave-man history when they had square wheels, a certain caveman— we’ll call him Firestone—noticed that square wheels didn’t roll too well, and so started asking some “What if” questions. His first was probably, “Square wheels are easy to make, but those corners sure cause problems. What if we rounded them off?”

Probably the other cavemen came around and, through a series of grunts and club beatings, told Firestone, “Don’t reinvent the wheel.” He especially got grief from the wheel cutters, because they had been making wheels like this since their great, great grandfathers developed opposable thumbs. “Besides,” the stone cutters said, “if we have to round off the corners, it will take us a lot more time to make wheels. Right now, we can cut two square wheels a day. If we have to round off the corners, we can only make one wheel a day.”

For a while, Firestone was a little discouraged. But then one day, he came across a wheel cutter named Michelin who shared similar ideas. They sat for long hours into the night, talking about round wheels, and that even if it took longer to cut round wheels, it would save everybody a lot of time, because now the wheels could actually be used. “Why doesn’t everybody see this?” they wondered.

So one day, they stopped talking about it, and actually made a round wheel. At first, people made fun of them. Firestone and Michelin were scoffed at and ridiculed. “A round wheel,” they were told, “doesn’t look right on a square cart.” But then people noticed that the carts were actually moving and transporting things, and so the criticism shifted. “All that rolling,” they were told, “will cause the wheel to crack. Square wheels are better because they don’t roll, and so don’t crack.”

But Firestone and Michelin just kept making round wheels. After a while, they even had a few disagreements with each other on how to make the best wheel, and so agreed to go their separate ways. At first, the naysayers cheered, and said things like, “I won’t say ‘I told you so'” even though “I told you so” was exactly what they were saying. However, wheel production actually increased. Instead of one group making round wheels, there were now two. And the competition caused both cutters to continually refine and redesign their wheels.

Today, both Firestone and Michelin continue to “reinvent” the wheel, adding treading that sloughs off rain, traction that handles curves better, and studs for driving on ice and snow. A day may come when they will reinvent the wheel again, so that all of us can do life faster, smoother, and more efficiently. Maybe, eventually, they will get rid of wheels altogether, and we will ride on air.

I want to reinvent church. Why? A lot of it has become square and isn’t going anywhere. People come week after week, and work, and serve, and sweat, and teach, and give, and pray, and the church doesn’t go anywhere. There’s lots of lights and big, white-toothed smiles, warm handshakes, and media glitz, but the people aren’t going anywhere.

Don’t reinvent the wheel? Sorry. It needs to be reinvented.