Feb 19, 2019
So my friend Grant Hartley is a tried and true treasure. He came under more attacks than most simply because of the title of his workshop last year at the Revoice conference, but we finally have here for all to take part in - ENJOY!!!
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So my friend Grant Hartley is a tried and true treasure. He came under more attacks than most simply because of the title of his workshop last year at the Revoice conference, but we finally have here for all to take part in - ENJOY!!!
By Ethan McCarthy, an editor at InterVarsity Press and a staff writer at Christ and Pop Culture. You can follow him on Twitter at @e_mccarth. A Tenacious Witness: Reflections on the Revoice Conference Last Friday night I stood in the sanctuary of Memorial Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, singing “It Is Well With My Soul” …
There are so many things I could say about this conference,but I am still processing and kind of reeling from it all. So for now I’ll let others talk
Revoice — Promoting LGBT Flourishing in Historic Christian Traditions
“Supporting, encouraging, and empowering gay, lesbian, same-sex-attracted, and other LGBT Christians so they can experience the life-giving character of the historic Christian tradition.”
***The first ever Side B focused conference!
Morning thoughts...
For whatever reason the most common thing I've heard people say after having attended Revoice is that the times of worship was what impacted them most. It sounds simple, but it really is profound. We are all meeting for a very unique reason really: to hear a particular set of voices that do no usually share in the priveledge of being heard; yet somehow what sticks out is the praise and worship of our Savior. Obviously, that's how it should be, but when a common criticism towards Revoice (from people who have never gone) is that we are very guilty of self centeredness, that we are gathering to talk about ourselves; but that's not what I want to focus on. Through the years I have been to every Revoice conference in a way; even if for just a day and every time without fail the time of worship really is something that is hard to find elsewhere, and in this past conference I think it dawned on me as to why that is. Biblically all the words we relate to worship often times were just words in Hebrew. For example, "Hosanna" which I always related to a shout of joy or something, is actually a cry for help. It means, "Lord, save us!" So what are sexual minorities saying as we worship at Revoice? I think it's our own way of saying, "No one can take Christ from us." It's almost an act of defiance in the face of those that say our sacrifice is not actually a sacrifice and our worship is less than. We will worship Jesus, our Lord and Savior, no matter who says we cannot.
My Revoice Experience
The time has come to write out my own reflections on Revoice. I am a slow processor in so many aspects of my life that at times it can be annoying and tedious, but if anything I am thorough.
On the one hand it was super fun and encouraging to be among like minded believers when in my corner of the world no one at all is involved in these conversations - where I live these conversations barely exist. I went by myself, but I did know a lot of people who were there online already for the past 2 or 3 years. So in a way it was almost like family getting together. So much so that 16 of us shared an AirBNB and we all agreed it was the best thing we could have done. We didn’t even spend as much time together as we would have wanted but we had some great moments together. We ate together and prayed together and shared our hearts and lives. I was able to hang out with groups of friends that have only ever existed online and like many have said it was in many ways like a family reunion. I was able to meet new people as well and that was also amazing. And I was pleasantly surprised to have a number of people come up to me and thank me for writing or commenting on certain things online and that really lifted my spirit to know that even from my closet God can use me to encourage people on their journey.
On the other hand it was also super convicting and confronting. I can wallow at times that making friends as an adult who just moved back to the country is a lot more difficult than I expected, but at the same time I have almost completely given up in making an effort locally and it was something I was just beginning to think about not long before the conference. It also woke me up to the reasons why. On the one hand my online community is a good one and they have been there for me when I needed it so if it couldn’t work locally I had them to fall back on. On the other hand I realized how much internalized shame I still carry with me that I hadn’t noticed. I can repeat back to you all the discussions and blog posts and lectures we’ve gone over the past few years on deep friendship, but none of that knowledge prepared me for the sinking feeling that I would have during the conference that I was doing something wrong. I was at a Christian conference seeking the presence of God amongst other believers and I felt some weird version of guilt! And I realized that I had buried that notion deep inside of me that I could not be trusted - it had been ingrained in me through experience. We all make mistakes and having messed up and causing people not to trust me in moments when I wasn’t doing anything wrong just led me to always have my guard up. I can be there for people and I can mentor people, but it always had to be me giving otherwise it couldn’t be trusted. My friendships over time (and I mean since highschool til now) went from being there 100% for my friend because she didn’t know how to take care of me and then I made another best friend and we decided that we would take care of each other, but I ended up needing her too much. After that I tried not to need anybody and always be the perfect version of selflessness and it really doesn’t bother me to do that; but I realized how much I can’t live like that forever. I realized that I may talk big talk, big letting someone get close to me scares me because I end up hurt or they end up hurt or it’s just generally unhealthy or people get so paranoid that it will be unhealthy before it even is that the friendship is just too hard. However you wanna put it, I’ve been burned enough. And like a friend of mine said, Revoice invited me to be so open and let my guard down in a way that all of a sudden I realized how open and exposed and raw I felt. Wounds need to air out in order to heal, but man it stings.
By Preston Sprinkle
“ I find it disheartening that fellow Christians would throw such uninformed (and, can I say, biblically unfaithful) accusations at other brothers and sisters in Christ. To say that Christians who still experience same-sex attraction, while resisting lust and sexual immorality, are being “biblically unfaithful” because they use the term gay as a synonym for same-sex attraction is disheartening. Think about this logically: It’s because they love the Bible, it’s because they cherish the supremacy of Christ, it’s because the gospel has so invaded their lives, it’s because they found the pearl of great price, it’s because they are so adamant that marriage is between a man and a woman that many of them are committed to a life of singleness and celibacy. If that’s not the epitome of biblical faithfulness, I don’t know what is. Instead of sitting in the stands lobbing linguistic critiques, we should be rushing to the field to bring them water.”