“Are You Ready For This Mission Field?”

A guest submission from our friend, Drew Berryessa, founder of A Living Letter, a ministry in Southern Oregon

I recently had the opportunity to speak to a group of senior pastors from Oregon.  During this speaking engagement, the denomination's District Superintendent asked me questions and then discussed my answers with me while roughly 300 pastors listened in.  Most of the questions I had answered dozens of times before in other Q and A’s over the last decade of traveling and speaking; however, near the middle of our time together, my interviewer asked a question that no other pastor or leader had asked me in a setting like this before. “Drew, you have been ministering to this issue for almost 20 years.  What shifts are you seeing in our culture that you feel would be helpful for us as pastors and leaders to know?” 

Although I had never been asked a question like this as directly as he asked it, I immediately knew how I wanted to answer.  Here is the “edited for print” version of how I responded:

According to a report by the Barna Research Group and the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, approximately 30% of Millenials and 39% of Gen Z identify in the LGBTQ community.  What that means for the Church is that if these statistics are accurate, then roughly 1/3rd of your domestic mission field currently under 40 will be, at different degrees, coming from histories shaped by LGBTQ ideology, identity, and experience.  That is a significant statistical increase from previous generations.

We also have to keep in mind the families that this 1/3rd belong to will also need to be ministered to.  This may impact the ministry more immediately. For example, how would you counsel fathers and mothers who are trying to figure out how to parent a child who announces that they are no longer identifying as their birth gender or by their “dead name?” Or how about those who are trying to untangle the arguments saturated in pro-LGBTQ theology? What about those navigating complex relational scenarios when the choices of a loved one come into direct opposition to the faith and convictions of the family? These scenarios are getting more and more consequential and more complicated, as the majority of parents that I minister to have children and adult children who are coming out as trans or genderqueer.  This starkly contrasts with just 15 years ago when, in my experience, the majority would have identified as gay or lesbian. Trans or genderqueer Identity was much rarer.

We also need to understand that all of this is happening in a culture that is growing more hostile to biblical views on these issues and continuing to villainize and criminalize both therapeutic and pastoral attempts to address these concerns. Earlier this year, here in Oregon, we barely avoided a law being passed that would have complicated things much further.  This law would have banned professional therapy for those struggling with their gender identity or sexual orientation and wanted help to resolve these issues while remaining consistent with their biblical convictions.  Currently, in Oregon, this type of therapy is already banned for minors, but this law would have applied to all adults.  There is a much bigger discussion that needs to be had about what has been coined “conversion therapy,” but for the time being, keep this in mind: the way cultural opinion is going, legislative trends are following. It may be very soon that the only place in our culture that is protected where those wanting to leave LGBTQ identity can go for any form of help will be the walls of the local church. Our culture is at war with a biblical view of sexuality, for sure, but it is also at war with anyone who stands to help or parent a child through these struggles to a biblical understanding of their gender or identity.  Pastors, do you feel equipped and ready to minister to this mission field?  

In a room of around 300 pastors, you could have heard a pin drop after I asked that last question. 

Let me give you a real-life example of what families are facing. 

Just this last week, I was meeting with parents from Washington State.  Their child, 14, had recently come out as trans and wanted to immediately begin transitioning socially and medically.  These parents were devastated, not just by the disclosure but also by the utter lack of help or support that they were able to find for their situation.  Fifteen years ago, this reality would have been hard enough for a family like this, but today, the stakes are much higher. 

Currently, 28 states have either complete (23) or partial (5) bans on “conversion therapy” for minors. In 2018, Washington State passed its ban into law, which prohibits licensed healthcare professionals from practicing therapies on minors that seek to "change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity.” However, laws to enshrine and promote “gender-affirming care” have proliferated in the state, including SB 5599, which “removes barriers to safe shelter for youth seeking gender-affirming or reproductive health care.”  SB 5599 helps create a path and financial means for minors who have left their home because the family of origin did not support their trans identity to not only seek state-funded “shelter”, but also state-funded “gender-affirming care.”

Not only is there no professional help available to this family that would offer care that affirms their faith and convictions, but laws are in place in the state of Washington that potentially threaten their custody of their child if they refuse to affirm their 14-year-old child's wishes concerning their gender identity.  What is a parent supposed to do in this situation? If you were their pastor, how would you counsel them, knowing they could potentially lose their daughter if they held to their convictions?  

After I was finished speaking to that group of pastors (the one where you could hear a pin drop), I spent the next hour talking individually to pastor after pastor as each wrestled with the implications of what I had shared. Over and over again, I watched these pastors come to two conclusions.  First, they were not ready to minister to this new mission field, and second, the church can not stand silently and passively by while culture enshrines ideology into law that threatens our ability to parent our children in accordance with our faith.

Not only must the church wake up to the reality of where we are currently, but we must stand up and fight like it is our own family facing this terrible situation because spiritually—it is. 

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Drew Berryessa is the Director of A Living Letter, a para-church ministry that helps equip the Church to engage with LGBTQ people and issues with Truth and Love. He has been involved with Changed since 2018.  Drew surrendered a gay relationship and identity 27 years ago and has spent the last 20 years in ministry to those impacted by LGBTQ issues. Drew lives in Southern Oregon with his wife and 3 daughters.