Over a quarter-century of ministry, Katie Hays has been learning and teaching that orthodox, biblical, Christian faith not only supports but demands the inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons in the church. For Galileo Church, the community Hays founded in 2013 on the outskirts of Fort Worth, Texas, it has been important to help every believer articulate this essential piece of discipleship. A seminar, also called "For the Bible Tells Me So," evolved into this booklet, which is a succinct rendering of a complex theological mystery: God's consistent and surprising embrace of those whom Very Religious People have cast out. Part One is a rapid read of the (very small) set of scriptures that seem to prohibit LGBTQ+ identity. Part Two presents an alternative to fact-checking every individual verse. If we read the Bible as a whole, Hays contends, one unified, unfolding story of the church's discovery of God's generosity, we can track a trend toward the inclusion of all people in God's family of beloveds. Human embrace of the marginalized "other" grows as God's own Spirit appears in the lives of those once thought to be outside of God's amazing grace. This edition also includes an open letter published on social media in 2017, "To the Dearly Beloved Queer Children of God," as an example of how biblical-theological study has provoked Galileo Church to action on behalf of LGBTQ+ Christians who seek inclusion in the church.

For The Bible Tells Me So: the biblical-theological necessity of LGBTQ+ inclusion in the church

Religion & Spirituality

Hays, Katie

Christian Books & Bibles

R.R. Bowker, LLC

Church reimagined for a new day&nbsp; Katie Hays, planter-pastor of Galileo Church, shares the story of departing from the traditional church for the frontier of the spiritual-but-not-religious and building community with Jesus-loving (or at least Jesus-curious) outsiders. Now well-established, Galileo Church "seeks and shelters spiritual refugees" in the suburbs of Fort Worth, Texas--especially young adults, LGBTQ+ people, and all the people who love them.&nbsp; Told in funny, poignant, and short vignettes, Galileo's story is not one of how to be cool for Christ. Like its founder, Galileo is deeply uncool and deeply devout, and always straining ahead to see what God will do next. Hays says curiosity is her greatest virtue, and she recounts how her curiosity led her to share the good news with people who are half her age and intensely skeptical.&nbsp; If you are all-in with Jesus but have trust issues with church,&nbsp;We Were Spiritual Refugees&nbsp;will give you hope for finding a community-of-belonging to call home.

We Were Spiritual Refugees: a story to help you believe in CHURCH

History

Americas

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

A gospel of hope, inclusion, and defiance&nbsp; If God gets everything God wants, and if what God wants is you, can anything stand in God's way?&nbsp; Too many Christians have been taught that core aspects of who they are--their gender, their sexual orientation, their politics, their skepticism--prevent God from loving them fully. For these individuals, church has been a painful experience of exclusion, despite the reality that Jesus was the embodiment of God's radical&nbsp;inclusion.&nbsp; Katie Hays invites weary Christians, former Christians, and the Christ-curious to take another look at God through the testimony of our biblical ancestors and to reimagine the church as a community of beautiful, broken, and burdened people doing their best to grow into their baptisms together. Hays insists that yes, God&nbsp;does&nbsp;get everything God wants, and--even better--we're invited to want what God wants, too, and want it "more and more and more, until life feels abundant and eternal and delicious and drunken with possibility."&nbsp; This is a message of stouthearted faith anchored in wonder--not false certainty. Atheists are welcome. Those who feel uneasy inside a church are welcome. Those still angry at other Christians are welcome. Because no matter what we've experienced, the God who still adores this world is the God of hope, inclusion, and defiance of the powers that be. And for those who are willing to collaborate in "the painstaking work of examining our Christian faith and sorting it out--the good stuff from the harmful stuff, the stuff with integrity from the stuff we simply inherited from family or church or . . . the cultural air we're breathing"--there await life-giving possibilities found nowhere else.

God Gets Everything God Wants

Eerdmans

First-person testimonies from LGBTQ+ Christians about coming out and navigating their family dynamics What happens in a family when one member comes out? How does LGBTQ+ identity affect relationships with parents and grandparents, siblings and cousins? What does Christian love require and make possible for families moving forward together? A social scientist and a pastor, both from Galileo Church on the outskirts of Fort Worth, Texas, asked their LGBTQ+ friends from church to help them understand how they navigate relationships with their affirming, non-affirming, and affirming-ish&nbsp;families of origin, even as they also find belonging in other families of choice. The resulting stories, crafted from interviews with fifteen queer Christians and family members, kept anonymous at their request, are as varied as the colors of the rainbow. Over the years, some grew closer to their families of origin; others grew more distant. Some were surprised by the hardness of heart they encountered; others were amazed by the breadth of their family's love. Most all describe a trajectory, a journey, from the coming-out moment till now and beyond, as their families of origin, like all families, remain a work in progress.

Family of Origin, Family of Choice: Stories of Queer Christians

Politics & Social Sciences

Chiasson, Susan A.

Social Sciences

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