by Brad Duncan

Dear Pastor,

Please invite the gay crowd to our church.  Please invite the LGBT
people.  Please do it soon, and with no reservation. Please love the gay crowd and welcome them.  Don't make their sexuality an issue at all, or withhold acceptance from them, don't criticize or hold back your friendship.  Don't talk to them about sin instead of grace.  Just invite them.

 Please don't delay or discuss it in committee.  Time is running out.

Dear Pastor, do it for us, before our hearts grow cold and hard.  Do it so that we can remember the dank stink that grows in our hearts from the seed of hate.  Do it before we can't love anymore.

Do it before we start to think that sitting in judgment makes us good, makes us better, makes us receive salvation.  Do it before we forget about grace altogether.

As long as we can love to hate a class of people for their lifestyle, we can believe that we are somehow saved by ours.  Maybe we think we are saved by our straightness, our lack of accepting the gay crowd?  Did we already
forget about the blood of Christ and about grace?  Have we already turned stale?  Do we think we're actually ON God's side by not inviting them?  Or are we against him?

Dear Pastor, the gay crowd is not going to corrupt our children, or convince us to be promiscuous or unfaithful.  The gay crowd is not going to make us love sin or the devil.  The gay crowd is not going to make us love God
less.  The gay crowd will not diminish our worship, or reduce ourappreciation for the Bible.  The gay crowd is not contagious or repellent.