“The Dennis Project” 2014… (Part 1)

For some time, it has been my hope to find a way to help mend the rift between the Church and the hurt & mistrust felt by many in the LGBTQ community. I have known gay men & women who have openly attested to the fact that the Church was not a welcoming and caring, safe place for them when, in truth, the Church should always be a safe refuge of peace to all who come to her. Knowing that there are many kind and caring Christian brothers and sisters, within Christendom, who lovingly treat everyone they meet with the compassion and dignity that Christ demands of His people; I knew there must be some way to reach out, in total love & the truth of Christ’s compassion and saving grace, and to show these dear people that there is a GOD who cares for them and who wants a saving and peace-filled relationship with them & that He proved that fact; in the death His Son died for them, on the Cross.

But, the question was, “How?”

The Church is full of well thought out and already-undertaken approaches to this question, approaches that stretch from pole-to-pole with attempts to ‘fit’ such an outreach into various denominational or theological or preferential ministry-boxes:
• Our friends in the über-progressive ‘churches’ believe that affirming & even celebrating all sexual-behavior is the key to breaching the divide that separates.
• At the opposite end of the spectrum lies the group that believes that Homosexuality is so twisted and so evil that there can be no good Christian approach to “sharing the Gospel” within such wretchedness.
• I’ve also come across this odd, “Not in my backyard” approach – The NIMBY approach: This is a group of people who say they would do nothing to harm or demean a gay or lesbian neighbor or acquaintance, but that “it’s not my fault” that some Christians are acting hurtfully to them, so I’ll have nothing to do with ‘fixing’ the problem. This lack-of-an-approach approach is the same tact taken by the majority of the German population as their Jewish friends and neighbors were being carted-off to death, before WWII & the same action-of-inaction that we see in our efforts to help the homeless and those in need, on the streets. People just do not want to get involved.
On this journey to find the right and holy approach, I have been met with each extreme approach… And, both extremes fall way-short of the goal of sharing the true peace of Christ’s love with a people who often feel hurt by the very ones who claim the “Christian” name. There must be a “right” way…

A personal note: Why this subject “hit’s home” so deeply with me runs deeper than just having friends, in the LGBTQ community, who have felt this hurt from “Christians”. This outreach project takes it’s name from a very personal situation. I had a relative who was gay: He was born into an abusive and worldly family and was treated as a burden by often seemingly uncaring parents bent on satisfying their personal hopes and wishes without much consideration for their child’s needs. He was, as a young child passed from relative to relative and was rarely settled in one place for long without being uprooted and passed to another relative in another far-flung place, away from the people he knew or the ones who most cared for his welfare. Eventually, he settled with his mother, after his father left to “take up” with a number of other women. But, by this time, his life was on a destructive path of crime, a number of imprisonments and actions that seemed to scream for the care and comfort of a loving family, that he never really knew. He grew up in a very different world in a very different time. The societal ‘norms’ of that day were much more exclusive and he wound up hiding his sexuality, for quite some time, from nearly everyone he knew. But, “in the closet” at that time, the community was being inundated with a new sickness that began taking the lives of so many gay men. This was a time when retro-viral drugs had not been ID’ed as a reasonable combatant to the HIV virus; and many times, those who were falling ill to the virus had no means of seeking or ever finding treatment. By the time that better medicines were made available, the virus had already ravaged his immune system and there was no stopping the infections and minor illnesses that would eventually take his life. He died in a facility, far from his family and without the care and comfort of people who should have been there to bring peace. A few years before he was diagnosed with the virus, he did find peace, for his soul in a local faith community. For a time, he lived a life dedicated to service and care for others and was a well known and respected member of that faith community. But, as has been said, this was a different time. As his disease progressed, he lost contact with his faith community. I do not believe that he lost faith, but the community in which he found his peace with GOD did not support him as perhaps they would today. And, as stated earlier, he died alone and nearly “put away and forgotten”.

I have to say that I feels an amount of guilt in not having known of his struggles until he had already passed away. I know that, in death, he was comforted by the whole company of Heaven, as he had put his trust in Christ and had the hope of Salvation; that he found in his baptism. But, this does not relieve an uncaring family of guilt, for the way he was treated. The name for this outreach is in honor of him and I so look forward to seeing and getting to know his full story, on day, in eternity; when we are reunited in the glowing love of Jesus, as we gather around GOD’s throne.

So, to conclude this blog entry, I will quote a good friend who so often says, “More shall be revealed!” Getting this story out and inviting other to join us on this journey to bring GOD’s peace to a hurting people is not a small task, so watch for more updates, information about our recent activities and the hopes we have to expand this outreach and to make a real difference.

The peace of CHRIST to you all!