John Bell pastors New City Baptist Church in the heart of Toronto. This is an edited excerpt of a piece that he wrote for challies.com, reflecting on the joys and challenges of his ministry to LGBT people.
I began this ministry two years ago while working as an intern in a downtown Toronto church. I was told that part of my internship duties would involve three hours of evangelism every week in a coffee shop or pub. This was not happy news. To be honest, I find this kind of evangelism very intimidating. ‘Cold call’ is not my style; I’m too polite! If I approach somebody at Starbucks who is reading a book and drinking a latte, I don’t know anything about them, so how can I interrupt their morning coffee to talk about what I want to discuss? I wanted my evangelism to get off on a better foot—to be more natural; I wanted to initiate the discussion without being rude or using a specious pretext (conducting a poll on spirituality, etc.). I had never been to a gay coffee shop before, but I thought (correctly) that gay men might want a complete stranger to sit with them and chat, so that’s what I decided to do.
Toronto’s gay village is just a 10-minute walk from where I live. The first time I ventured out, I prayed to the Lord that he would show me where to go, what to do and what to say. I was very nervous. I had no plan. I was certain I was going to see all manner of disgusting things, and that I was going to be thrown bodily out of the establishment for disseminating fundamentalist hate. But I had to tell my pastor that I had evangelized for three hours that week, so I was stuck.
The Lord went ahead of me. I stepped into the first coffee shop I saw—a Timothy’s at Church and Alexander. I found out later that this is the gay coffee shop in all of the greater Toronto area. Its clientele is mostly middle-aged men. I bought my coffee and looked around for a place to sit. The tables are very small, and the seats are close together—perfect for evangelism, though I’m sure that was not the original intent!
The gay community in Toronto is very close-knit. Most of the men have known each other for years, and everyone is on a first-name basis. Many men are fixtures at this coffee shop. I have since become friends with four of these fixtures: A, who has severe cerebral palsy that confines him to a wheelchair (that does not impede his sex life, however; he told me he’s had hundreds of partners); D, an HIV-infected drag queen who was molested by a Catholic priest; J, a civil servant, recently relocated from Ottawa; and C, who works in the credit department of a national bank. These men have accepted me as their friend, and have introduced me to other gay men, although they know I’m a straight, born-again conservative Christian who does not condone their lifestyle.
When I first meet someone at the coffee shop and they ask me what I do (which is a natural ‘in’ to introducing the gospel), they assume that I must be a liberal gay Baptist minister, because otherwise what would I be doing in their coffee shop? (The first man I talked to had only just broken up with his boyfriend, a Methodist pastor.) I begin by asking them questions. I get them to do all the talking for the next 45 minutes. I ask them about their job, their background, their family life, their personal life, and what they believe and why so I can get a picture of their epistemology and worldview. Needless to say, I frame my questions in an inquisitive, slightly naïve, polite fashion, not in an interrogative, formal way. Gay men love to talk (at least the ones in this coffee shop seem to), and people in general today enjoy discussing ‘spirituality’. Then, out of politeness, they will inevitably ask me what I believe. So I tell them the gospel, starting with Genesis 1, laying out for them the biblical storyline and worldview.
I have been able to share the gospel with many men over the past two years, even though I am saying things that are highly offensive to the gay lifestyle—which is actually their identity. I base everything I say on the authority of the Word—that is, I make it clear to them that that is what I am doing—that I believe the Bible is authoritative for all peoples in all cultures and times, because it is God’s authoritative revelation to human beings. I stress this emphatically. And I tell them that the Bible condemns me—it condemns everyone. It condemns me as an idolater—someone who is selfish and sinful, who has ‘de-godded’ God and installed himself in the position of ‘The Ruler of John’s Life’. I have done things in my life that I am ashamed of, and oftentimes what I am ashamed of the Bible calls my ‘sin’. (I have found that gay men can relate very well to shame.) I do not zero in on their homosexuality (which is what they expect me to do), but rather on the fact that they are sinners.
Now, more often than not, they will push me and ask if practising homosexuality is a particular expression of their sinful disposition, and I will not hesitate to tell them “Yes”. When asked, I tell gay men that, personally, I have a ‘live and let live’ approach to everyone’s sex life, but my personal opinion doesn’t count for anything if God our creator has declared otherwise. I tell them I know that I sound very intolerant and bigoted when I tell them that they are sinners and that their lifestyle is not pleasing to God. Who am I to tell another human being such a thing on my own authority? But then I explain that it is not on my own authority that I am saying these things. Rightly or wrongly, I am utterly convinced that the Bible is the revelation of God. I am banking my eternal soul on it being so. It condemns me, but I have found salvation in Christ. It condemns you, but I am here to tell you about the salvation I have found in Jesus—salvation that I believe you need—that the Bible says you need.
By presenting the gospel in this fashion (which is the same way I present it to heterosexuals), I have yet to have someone become outraged over my perceived intolerance (though I am sure that day is coming!) In fact, being straight and conservative has worked in my favour, because they see that I must really care about them to come into an environment where I’m a fish out of water to tell them a message that I know they will find offensive. And I do really care for them. Many of them come from backgrounds (often Roman Catholic) where they would have believed something similar about the authority of God’s word to what I believe, but have since ‘moved on’. Perhaps in their opinion, I am young and deluded, but I’m a nice guy, and they put up with it because they can see that I love them, and oftentimes they will say, “We will hear you again on this matter” (cf. Acts 17:32). They like the fact that I am willing to be their friend, even if I don’t condone their beliefs. I think that shows integrity and respect. And they respond to it, and are willing to reciprocate.
I do all this because I love the LGBT community. They are a community comprised of individual eternal souls. Sadly, they are a culture that has almost no contact with biblical Christianity in any form. How many drag queens can count a born again Christian among their friends? Very few, to our shame.
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I’m the pastor of a new church plant in downtown Toronto, and it is my earnest prayer that God will use our people to impact this spiritually needy community. I pray for the day when transvestites can walk through our church doors and be greeted with genuinely warm smiles and Christian love. But before that day can happen, they need a Christian friend whom they have grown to trust—a person they know who would never invite them to a place where they are going to be hurt or embarrassed publicly—and a place where everyone is on level ground before the cross of Christ because all are sinners—a place where no one person’s sin is made out to be more repugnant than another’s—a place where all sinners can sit under the uncompromised preaching of holy Scripture and hear of the world’s only saviour and the world’s only salvation in his name alone.
I pray that we would be more deliberate in this regard—that as God’s sovereign grace works through his faithful witness, the church, we would see more gay men and women come to Christ.
