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Problematic Church Family Scenario

Eddie42

Member
Long time church family; husband a church officer and wife/mother leads a ladies Bible study group. They have one son who came to them when he was 15 and told them he loved boys rather than girls.

This entailed visits to out of town Pastors, doctors and shrinks, even trying reparative therapy. Nothing helped. The boy having become a young man became bitter, gave up and headed off to the big city where he became involved with LGBTQ. After a couple years of that he felt convicted that it was sinful and returned home.

He repented of the promiscuous life he had lived, but he still only loved other men. He eventually met another Christian man with the same nature and they provided love, companionship and presumably physical intimacy with each other and they committed to each other as friends for life.

The family, son and his friend kept this private, taking a don't ask don't tell approach; thinking that it was a private matter of no one else's business. The young man and his friend share a home alone. The son and his friend started attending the home church together just as any two men friends. They had decided to just ignore the church's view of such a matter, it was the home church.

Then it seemed somehow gossip from somewhere got back to someone in the church. Pastor makes a visit to the home and starts asking personal family questions to which the father informed him it was none of the church or his business. It was implied that the son may be removed from the church membership roll, so the family is about to leave the church and probably have by now. Any comments or views how the son, church, Pastor or family should or could have handled this?

I'll not make replies to anyone nor critique any suggested solutions or ideas, I'm just curious about the input from the Christians here. I'm not wanting to debate this so I'll not reply. The scenario is a composite of a true event mixed with a the plot of a movie.
 
Long time church family; husband a church officer and wife/mother leads a ladies Bible study group. They have one son who came to them when he was 15 and told them he loved boys rather than girls.

This entailed visits to out of town Pastors, doctors and shrinks, even trying reparative therapy. Nothing helped. The boy having become a young man became bitter, gave up and headed off to the big city where he became involved with LGBTQ. After a couple years of that he felt convicted that it was sinful and returned home.

He repented of the promiscuous life he had lived, but he still only loved other men. He eventually met another Christian man with the same nature and they provided love, companionship and presumably physical intimacy with each other and they committed to each other as friends for life.

The family, son and his friend kept this private, taking a don't ask don't tell approach; thinking that it was a private matter of no one else's business. The young man and his friend share a home alone. The son and his friend started attending the home church together just as any two men friends. They had decided to just ignore the church's view of such a matter, it was the home church.

Then it seemed somehow gossip from somewhere got back to someone in the church. Pastor makes a visit to the home and starts asking personal family questions to which the father informed him it was none of the church or his business. It was implied that the son may be removed from the church membership roll, so the family is about to leave the church and probably have by now. Any comments or views how the son, church, Pastor or family should or could have handled this?

I'll not make replies to anyone nor critique any suggested solutions or ideas, I'm just curious about the input from the Christians here. I'm not wanting to debate this so I'll not reply. The scenario is a composite of a true event mixed with a the plot of a movie.
Without actual, concrete proof of sin, they may be Christians who walk in the Spirit and deny the flesh like every other real Christian.
 
The family, son and his friend kept this private, taking a don't ask don't tell approach; thinking that it was a private matter of no one else's business.

This is where they have gone wrong, they have put private feelings of shame, embaressment and personal/family pride be more important than the truth.

Look at Pauls conditions for church leadership, if this was about alcoholism what actions should this family and church take?

As a leader in the church the Father should have talked with his minister and if required resigned, his pride in being a leader prevented him from being honest with the minister and the church.
This sort of attitude covers up serious sexual abuse, financal fraud etc etc etc.

The son attended church with his lover, nominally as two 'friends', provided they were not attending as church members there is nothing wrong in attending church, there is in claiming to be a homosexual christian who is in a same sex relationship.

This is where the pastor and church have drasticly failed in showing practical caring love for this family.

How do they treat the known drunkard or convicted fraudster in there congragation, or do they drive away anyone who is even suspected of committing anything more than socialy accepted sins?


Remember the respectable religous called Jesus a friend of sinners and that they willingly heard him.

Why are we not as attractive?
 
The Pastor was right. The Father was wrong as it is the Church's business. (1 Cor. 5:1-5)

The action of the Church is severe, but the sin is severe. (1 Cor. 5:5)

Quantrill
 
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