Christian ministry in America\u2019s sexual culture calls for both grace and truth, Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore and pastor Jimmy Scroggins said in a conference for Virginia church leaders. Pastors and other leaders \u201cmust be separated from sin, but we can never be separated from sinners,\u201d Moore told an audience at the Empowered Conference sponsored by the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia (SBCV). \u201cBut it is easier in ministry to do the reverse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christians must be willing to endure criticism for spending time with transgender and other sexually broken people \u201cin order to speak with truth and with grace, with conviction and with kindness\u201d to them, said Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.<\/p>\n
In this way, pastors and others must speak \u201cwith the confidence that you are on mission with Christ so you are not afraid of the lost people who are offended by what it is you are saying and you are not afraid of the religious critics who are upset that you are having those conversations with those lost people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Scroggins, lead pastor of the Family Church in West Palm Beach, Florida, told the leaders they have \u201cto be saturated with the grace of God\u201d as they teach on sexuality, gender and marriage.<\/p>\n
\u201cTeaching on this stuff in this culture with a really hard edge, slicing people to ribbons with the Gospel machete, that\u2019s not going to help,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Basing his message on the John 4 account of Jesus\u2019 encounter with the Samaritan woman, Moore said a faithful church \u201chas to be the kind of church that earns the respect of the people around us by speaking and telling the truth. Our neighbors can read texts. They understand what our Scriptures teach.\u201d<\/p>\n
What non-Christians want to know is, Moore said, \u201cDo you really believe this, and do you believe this enough that you are willing to lose my esteem because you hold to these things?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you and I are going to equip people to be able to minister in a world that has much confusion when it comes to issues of relationships and sexuality and marriage, we must be willing to undergo the controversy of being assumed to be bigots, being assumed to be hateful, being assumed to be people who don\u2019t get it when we speak of a vision of sexuality,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Scroggins was asked how to apply grace and truth to ministry to convicted sex offenders or child molesters.<\/p>\n
They should be called to repent of their sins and believe the Gospel, then pursue God\u2019s design, Scroggins said. They will have a \u201chigh level of accountability\u201d in the church, however, including separation from the nursery and children\u2019s ministry, he told attendees. The church should separate the offenders from temptation and children from potential dangers, Scroggins said.<\/p>\n
Moore said a church should have \u201can absolute, zero-tolerance policy\u201d and \u201cnever, never, never cover up anything that even approaches the abuse of a child or a vulnerable person.\u201d<\/p>\n
Civil authorities, as well as church authorities, should be involved in every possible situation of abuse, Moore said. \u201cAnd you cannot substitute one for the other.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the worst and most egregious things\u201d regarding the cause of the body of Christ has occurred when people \u201chave had their entire lives destroyed by predators within churches and within ministries, and those things have been covered over because people didn\u2019t want to deal with them,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is not just wrong; that is an abomination before God, and we have to be the people who make sure it doesn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
During his remarks based on 2 Cor. 5:17-21, Scroggins told the audience \u201cone of the best ways that we can be ambassadors\u201d of reconciliation between God and human beings \u201cis what we do with our gender, our sexuality and our families.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the best ways to be an ambassador is just to have a healthy marriage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Scroggins offered various ideas for church leaders to consider when training others and speaking about sexuality, gender and family structure, including:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Remember it is an ongoing conversation, not just a sermon.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Continually connect sexuality to God\u2019s design in marriage.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Make it clear but not crude.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Encourage, don\u2019t condemn.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Focus on stewarding the gift of sexuality rather than a once-for-all triumphalism over lust.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Christian ministry in America\u2019s sexual culture calls for both grace and truth, Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore and pastor Jimmy Scroggins said in a conference for Virginia church leaders. Pastors and other leaders \u201cmust be separated from sin, but we can never be separated from sinners,\u201d Moore told an audience at the Empowered Conference sponsored […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[585,90,25,335],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6906"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}