Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
With Sam Allberry
108 Plays1 year ago
Kristi and Andy chat with pastor and author Sam Allberry about the primacy of Jesus in our gospel conversations. Sam offers his thoughts on evangelism with LGBT friends, the balance of truth and narrative, and the importance of deep Christian community.
Sam Allberry is a pastor based at Immanuel Nashville and Fellow at the Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. He is the author of a number of books, including Is God Anti-Gay? and 7 Myths about Singleness. Find out more at samallberry.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of Hosts and Guest
00:00:11
Speaker
Well, hello and welcome to another exciting edition of Pep Talk, the persuasive evangelism podcast. I'm Andy Bannister from Solas and I'm joined as ever by Christy Mayer, who is currently at Oak Hill College in London, I guess. How are you doing, Christy?
00:00:26
Speaker
I'm Groovy. Thank you very much, Andy. How are you getting on? I am doing pretty well Groovy. We can't be that. In fact, Groovy is a good segue into our guest today because our guest today is joining us from perhaps the world centre of Groove is coming all the way from Nashville. He's not a singer. He is, in fact, Sam Albury, pastor, author, speaker, many other things. Sam, welcome to pep talk. Good to be with you. I do sing in the shower, so I do sing, but just not in front of other people.
00:00:52
Speaker
We won't ask you to give us a rendition, I reckon. Although, we could get Chrissy to sing as well, because Chrissy sings, I believe.
00:01:01
Speaker
Tries to. Tries to.
Sam Albury's Journey to Christianity
00:01:03
Speaker
So Sam, you may well be known to many listeners to the show, but there'll be other people to whom you are a kind of new name. So why don't you start by telling us a bit of your story. Before we get into kind of your areas around evangelism that perhaps you're known for being a bit of an expert in, it makes sense if we get a bit of your own journey to faith. So why don't you share a bit of your story and then we'll go from there.
00:01:26
Speaker
I became a Christian when I turned 18. I hadn't really had much contact with the gospel before then. It was a significant time of life because around then I was also coming to terms with my own sexuality. I was beginning to
00:01:42
Speaker
acknowledged that I was attracted to guys and not attracted to girls. This was all in the early to mid-90s, so it's a very different cultural landscape at that point. There weren't discussions taking place that we would assume would take place today. I was processing all of that in my own head and then
00:02:02
Speaker
that wasn't part of my plan, but I heard the gospel, became a Christian. And then obviously, when you come to know Jesus, that changes your view of everything. So it immediately gave me an opportunity to think through, what do I do with my sexuality now that I'm a follower of Jesus? And wanting to honor him and be faithful to him, so have been
00:02:25
Speaker
seeking to do that over these years and in the last several years have sort of been speaking a bit more into that particular kind of conversation. Thanks so much for sharing. There's so much that we could ask you about on the basis of what you've just shared. But praise the Lord for such a testimony.
The Gospel and Evangelism to LGBT Friends
00:02:43
Speaker
I think one of the things that comes to mind in
00:02:47
Speaker
probably others might be thinking is, how on earth is the gospel, or was the gospel, is the gospel good news for you when you first kind of received Christ? Yeah, how is the gospel good news for you? Yeah, well, I guess it's very un-dramatic. I knew I needed forgiveness. As soon as I heard the gospel, I had this deep sense that if God was there, I didn't know him. And I figured that was probably on me rather than on him.
00:03:16
Speaker
So I realized I needed the forgiveness that Christ was coming to bring. I wasn't conscious of my sexuality being a particular factor in that. I just didn't know about what Jesus thought about that. I just knew that I needed forgiveness.
00:03:33
Speaker
I knew that Jesus had died for me and risen again. I knew that he had created me and loved me, and I knew therefore that I could build my life on him. I didn't know what that would look like. I didn't know where he would take me in terms of leading me. I didn't know what discipleship involved. I just knew that I knew him well enough that I could trust him with my whole life.
00:03:57
Speaker
So he was good news to me because he loved me with the love that I most deeply needed to be receiving. And Jesus is very honest, as we all know, in the Gospel accounts, he's very upfront about the cost of discipleship. I became aware of that as I took my first steps of discipleship, began to realize some of what that would cost for me, but also could see that that was going to be the case for everyone in different ways.
00:04:26
Speaker
It's interesting there, and I've heard other people with similar stories to your own, so I make that slight time gap between choosing to follow Christ and then discipleship implications fully being worked out.
Church's Approach to LGBT Individuals
00:04:40
Speaker
Is one of the issues that we sometimes have perhaps in the church in terms of how we share our faith with our friends in the LGBT community that we sort of expect an immediate
00:04:49
Speaker
transformation. We expect someone to say, right, I'm going to follow Christ, and then everything is immediately sorted. Or even worse, we expect them to sort their lives out before coming to Christ. But I think that process you've described there is actually quite helpful.
00:05:03
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're exactly right. There is a temptation sometimes if we meet, for example, a gay couple who aren't Christians. We feel as though we need to sort of front load our discussions with, well, of course, this is something that we believe is sinful. And as you said, we can risk even implying that that's a condition of even coming into the church is that you need to know that we think this is wrong.
00:05:29
Speaker
I think in my own discipleship, we weren't having these conversations, so no one was sitting me down and talking me through my sexuality. I was having to figure this out on my own, but the key is that someone comes to know Jesus, and Jesus then will change us, will change our affections.
00:05:52
Speaker
The Holy Spirit is given in part to convict us of sin, and the Spirit's better at doing that in people's lives than we tend to be. So it can be tempting, particularly if a gay person comes to Christ, it can be tempting for us to decide in what order their sanctification needs to happen. And I think we want to be helping with discipleship and instruction, but the key thing is helping someone realize that following Jesus means
00:06:21
Speaker
putting him first in every area of life, recognizing he's going to put his fingers on all kinds of areas of our lives that are going to be tender and difficult, areas where we won't want to give ourselves to him. And yet he actually moves our hearts to want to do that.
Engaging LGBT Friends with Focus on Jesus
00:06:40
Speaker
One of the things that I've really appreciated listening to you, Sam, in reading some of your books is how
00:06:49
Speaker
You very often, not always, but in the way that you're speaking at the moment anyway, you put the emphasis on Jesus and the forgiveness that he offers and the life that he brings. I guess what would be some practical tips for someone who is wanting to talk about Jesus meaningfully with their gay friends and who feel that the first thing in the room
00:07:16
Speaker
isn't necessarily the person of Jesus, but everything that comes with gay identity and belonging and culture. How would you go about helping someone to kind of come through that to be able to see Jesus more clearly? Yeah, that's a really helpful question. I think part of it is we want to be those who listen really well. So
00:07:42
Speaker
Again, the more I hear someone's own story, something of their own background, something of the journey they've been on, that will normally give me a sense of where I might start in sharing Christ with them. There's so many things to say about Jesus. We need wisdom to know where to start in that whole process. I think the other thing I've
00:08:03
Speaker
I've learned is that it's good not to say to someone what we can't say to everyone. And particularly in a context like this where people can feel so quickly singled out and condemned or treated differently to everybody else. Just to keep showing how at every point Jesus is doing the same thing with all of us. So all of us have to rethink our identity when we come to Jesus. All of us have got who we are wrong. All of us have to
00:08:32
Speaker
Wrecking with lots of lifestyle changes that are going to come as we follow him, all of us are going to have to reckon with saying no to some deep desires. So I just want people to know that they're on the same deal as everybody else when it comes to this. Jesus isn't treating them any differently to how he treats the rest of us.
Balancing Doctrine and Personal Narratives
00:08:50
Speaker
I think that can help. Now, Sam, that's really helpful. Do you know, I wonder if one of the other challenges that you sort of touch on there is that, of course, as evangelicals,
00:09:00
Speaker
we are, you know, naturally by means of our identity, right, wired to be truth really matters. And so sometimes we can sort of feel, well, if I don't, you know, if I don't, if I don't talk about the Bibles, you know, teach you on sexuality, I'm somehow compromising. And I always almost wonder too, I'd love to get your thoughts on this as well, but that's actually made worse by the kind of culture war moments we're in. Everyone else is building their identity over here. So we feel we've got to sort of set up on the opposing hill with our howitzers on all we end up doing is firing
00:09:29
Speaker
firing shells at each other. And, you know, there seems to be you're suggesting there's a way to engage in evangelism that has an integrity to it, but doesn't necessarily have to lead all the time with the big sort of doctrinal battering rams. Yeah. And I sometimes wonder if in some cases the rush to say all the difficult things to prove that I've, you know, haven't compromised. I wonder if sometimes that's more about feeling good about ourselves than it is about serving the other person and kind of making sure
00:09:57
Speaker
we can pat ourselves on the back rather than thinking of what is most going to help the person we're speaking to.
00:10:05
Speaker
It's interesting that the Bible, which gives us such clear moral categories and teaching, also has so much to say about wisdom. And not every true word is going to be a wise word in the moment, which is why there's so much in the Bible about being slow to speak and quick to listen. And sometimes wisdom is knowing in what order
00:10:27
Speaker
to put certain truths. We don't always have to start with the most counter-cultural, challenging point at the very beginning. And so my rule of thumb is I want to start at the centre, which is Christ and Him crucified, and hopefully other things can kind of work their way out from that.
00:10:48
Speaker
rather than starting with the most contentious confrontational part. Because I think the difficult things Jesus has to say are best understood in the wider context of having understood who he is and why he's come in the first place. So I want to kind of put that wider framework in place if I can.
Power of Narratives in Evangelism
00:11:07
Speaker
Could you give us some examples, Sam, of how you've done that in conversations with friends or guests or events that you attend? What does this look like for you?
00:11:18
Speaker
Yeah, it would slightly depend on the circumstances, obviously, but I think of a guy who turned up at church once and he just wonderfully said, I'm here as a visitor. I want to find out more about Jesus. Can we meet up? And I remember thinking as a pastor, I think there's something about that in my job description somewhere in between being on 17 committees and all the rest of it. But I remember having a conversation with him over lunch and he said, listen, I just want you to know I'm a gay man.
00:11:46
Speaker
And so I just need to know where Jesus is on this issue. And I remember thinking, okay, that's not where I would choose to start a conversation about Jesus, but I want to honor his desire to cut to the chase. And I said, I'd love to share that with you. Would you first be happy to share a bit of your own story with me? I'd love to hear.
00:12:06
Speaker
how the journey you've been on. And that just helped me to, again, know what kind of tone and focus I wanted to have in that conversation. He was a very hurt man. He'd been out and open in the 80s and got beaten up for it and things like that. So he was a bruised man. And I wanted to try and reflect to him something of
00:12:31
Speaker
that the Jesus who's about to say the things we're going to talk about on sexuality is the Jesus who also said, you know, you can trust him with your bruises, a bruised reed he will not break. So even then I'm still trying to make sure that he hears what
00:12:49
Speaker
he's needing to hear from Jesus, that there's some frame around it. Jesus didn't just turn up one day and then coldly say difficult things about sexuality. There's a whole context to his coming that will help us with that. Another example might be someone asked me in a Q&A once, do gay people go to hell, yes or no?
00:13:14
Speaker
And no monosynable is going to do full justice to what we want to share with someone. So I just said, if there's no hope for our gay friends, there's no hope for any of us. Which wasn't the question they were asking, but it was the question they should have been asking. But again, it was trying to show this isn't actually about gayness. It's about something deeper than that. It's something that is true for all of us. And there's hope for all of us.
00:13:41
Speaker
So I was trying to show there that being gay is not actually the main issue here. It's something else.
00:13:49
Speaker
Do you know, it occurs to me that somebody once said to me that the right answer to the wrong question can often actually be unhelpful. And I think there's an art, isn't there, an evangelism and sort of discerning and listening to the spirit and going, okay, that's what they've asked, but I need to come at that slightly kind of sideways. You know, one reason I think, too, is sometimes getting to trouble around this issue when we try and engage our friends in the LGBT community is
00:14:15
Speaker
is sometimes there's a sense that for Christians, again, for evangelicals, we're all about truth and doctrine and propositional statements. And then over on the... I hesitate to use the word the other side, but for want of a better word, the other side. It's very story-based. It's a personal story. It's a relationship. It's, you know, love is love and all this stuff.
00:14:33
Speaker
how do we navigate that kind of world where we're trying almost at times to engage the story with truth and those two don't always match and we can end up talking past each other, I feel sometimes. Yeah. I think that's exactly right. That the best answer, narrative is what persuades people. What has shifted
00:14:54
Speaker
popular thinking over the last 30 years from being broadly not in favor of gay marriage to very much in favor of it has been narratives. People have heard lots of stories from gay people. Those stories have been compelling.
00:15:07
Speaker
So if we reply to a story with just a set of bullet points of critique, we're actually missing the point. There's an emotional force that comes with a narrative that we get drawn into. So the best response I think is for the church to tell her own stories and for the church to have... If the church doesn't have better stories to tell than the world around us, then we're not going to be compelling. So whether it's the stories of
00:15:34
Speaker
people in my situation who've come to Christ from a gay background and have found him to be just unfathomably good, whether it's parallel kind of adjacent stories of people who've had to say no to their own sexual desires in other kinds of contexts and have realized how life-giving that has been, or others who've walked through some form of deep suffering. I think we need to make sure we're telling stories and not just giving people kind of bullet point responses.
00:16:06
Speaker
And then there's obviously, there's the bigger story of the Bible itself. I mean, that the gospel, again, is not just a set of bullet points. It's a narrative that we're being caught up into and that it's good to share that as well. Thank you so much, Sam. There's so much wisdom there. I was just thinking about that bigger narrative that we're all swept up into as
00:16:31
Speaker
as Christians and as those who kind of come to know Jesus.
Supporting Singles in Church Communities
00:16:35
Speaker
One of the costs that you mentioned earlier on for many is lifelong celibacy, singleness. For some, not all.
00:16:46
Speaker
And just thinking about how the church often responds to singles, just generally, you know, heterosexual or not. What do you think the church and we can do as individuals to help brothers and sisters and those who are seeking the integrity of the gospel lived out in community to better
00:17:14
Speaker
a better bear that cost, really. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah, it's such a key issue because Jesus says, by this we'll all know that you are my disciples, by your love for one another. In other words, Jesus is saying that the kind of what is going to make the gospel plausible is seeing it socially embodied. That there's to be a quality and presence of love among the people of God that is
00:17:43
Speaker
is otherworldly is not standard issue. That is going to be ultimately what pushes people over the line into realizing the presence and reality of Jesus among us. So that's such a significant passage Jesus gives us there, such a significant truth he gives us there. But one of the things that is reflecting is the church is not just to be a new community, it's to be a new kind of community. And if we're not offering rich
00:18:13
Speaker
community and love and family and healthy forms of intimacy within the church, we're actually not going to be plausible. The truths that we are communicating will not be plausible. So this is obviously about more than just singles and those who are celibate because of sexuality. It's far broader than that. But it's an example of why the message of the church sometimes has sounded completely implausible because people can look into the church and think, yeah, but if you're not
00:18:42
Speaker
if you're not coupled up, you're going to be very lonely here. In which case, we're not being the kind of community Jesus is calling us to be. It's interesting, isn't it? That just reminds me of another person who's written on these issues and his story has some slight overlap with your own, I think of Rosario.
Hospitality and Commitment in Church Communities
00:19:02
Speaker
Butterfields who, you know, who, who had a sort of a journey to faith through some of these issues, because then she went on to write that incredible book. The gospel comes with a house key on the importance of hospitality and actually, you know, creating, as you say, church communities where people are welcome, where there's genuine hospitality, genuine community actually covers a whole multitude of problems. Actually, it doesn't say I think if people see there's an integrity there, but even though they may disagree with us on some things, if there's a real welcome,
00:19:31
Speaker
that gets you over quite a lot, right? It is, and I think sometimes we take that and think, we've just got to be a bit nicer. As long as we're a bit nicer than the world is and we're doing fine. But that's not what the Bible is calling us into. This is not a superficial, it's not even just warmth. It is a deep,
00:19:51
Speaker
core commitment to one another that we're actually doing life together and loving each other in deep, practical, week-to-week, 24-7 profound ways. But hospitality, it's unsurprising then that hospitality often becomes one of the ways in for people to really come to faith in Christ.
00:20:16
Speaker
Fantastic. Well, I can't believe it's been 22 minutes. It's gone really kind of quickly as it often does on pep talk. Sam, thank you for so much of what you shared sharing your own story and just years of reflection and just practical wisdom too as well. It's been really, really helpful. Thank you for taking the time to be with us. It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me. And for people who've been intrigued by the conversation and want to hear more and discover more, where's the best place where they can find you?
Online Resources and Presence
00:20:45
Speaker
Yeah, I've got a slightly out-of-date website. I'm just not very good at updating it, but samulbury.com will have some of my things there. The books I've written are all on Amazon or places like that. Excellent. Well, we'll put a link to your slightly out-of-date website on the show notes. I've got an out-of-date website, and I don't think Christie's even got a website. Have you got a website, Christie? I've got a personal blog, but again, I don't use it. Oh, you'll save a hundred times, mate.
00:21:12
Speaker
Anyway, I hope you listening at home or wherever you've caught this podcast have enjoyed it and join Christy and I in two weeks time for another episode and another guest and we'll see you then on pep talk. Thanks for listening.