Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Ethics: Pastor Admits to Homosexual Orientation

My friend JohnMark runs hereiblog.com and hosts a weekly feature called Ethics/What-Would-You-Do Wednesday.
I emailed him an idea I had and he graciously put it up on his site today, as follows:

Your main preaching pastor is about to offer a Sunday morning pastoral prayer. Before praying one of your associate pastors steps up to the pulpit to make an important announcement and asks everyone for prayers on the issue.

He begins.
As you all know I’ve served as a pastor here for several years. You also know that I have remained single the whole time. What I am about to tell you is not easy to openly admit. The fact is that my sexual orientation...is...homosexual.

But please hear me out. I am fully convinced, and profess to you now, that the only justifiable and acceptable sexual expression is heterosexuality within a heterosexual marriage, one man and one woman committed for life.

I have put specific guidelines in place to protect myself and the whole congregation. For example, I always leave the door open when counseling people. I am accountable to other pastors about this issue and I even have internet filtering software on my computer.

Finally, it is important for you all to know that I have not engaged in any illicit sex and have no plans to. I also meet with a Christian counselor about the same-sex attractions.

Please stand with me in prayer on this issue. Thank you.
This pastor serves the church faithfully and has a great relationship with everyone.