For many unmarried people, church can feel like an unwelcoming experience. This article addresses some of the features of church life where singles, particularly those with enduring same-sex attractions, can feel marginalised. It explores how the church activity programme, the approach to teaching, and everyday church life, can affect the welcome for single people.
Choosing celibacy over same-sex relationships is a good thing according to the Bible. For me personally, choosing celibacy was like a bereavement. Saying "Bon voyage" to my sexual expression and identity, the hope of finding a long-term partner and physical intimacy. For a number of years, I couldn't help but experience this as a major loss.
TFT has done much in its 40 years to decrease stigma in the church, but we would all agree that there is further to go. In this article, Donald shares some positive experiences of being included by the church, to show what can be done when we aspire to inclusion.
How do we share the good news of Jesus Christ with those who identify as LGBT? Unsurprisingly, the simple answer is in the same way as any other person! The gospel is powerful enough to work in the hearts of anyone, and those who identify as LGBT are not a special subset of people who require a different gospel.
It is almost inevitable that a day will come when an invitation of this nature will drop on your doormat. It’s most likely that you will have been expecting this announcement and now the day has arrived. So, how should a person RSVP to the invitation if they hold strongly to the biblical definition of marriage as monogamous and heterosexual?
This is very much a book for parents of children who have taken what the book calls an ‘unexpected detour’. The author, Lori, has 25 years’ experience working with parents and families and the focus of the book is on her relationship with her adopted daughter Courtney, who struggles with gender identity and same-sex attraction.
In this article Ed and Jonny, two TFT members, discuss the benefits of accountability apps on their smartphones. In particular, they look at the dangers of smartphones and how these apps function and motivate pure online behaviour. There is also discussion of their effectiveness and their limitations.
I’ve always been pretty open about my struggles with sexuality, so I was up front from the start when I arrived at my church 9 years ago. In those days, there were only a few of us and we met in the minister’s house, so it was very easy to get to know people and build positive relationships.
God knits each of us together in a unique and individual way. In a fallen world, this means that a person’s experience of same-sex temptations will be – at least to some degree – unique to them. Inevitably, then, there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to supporting people.