Cross Ministry - Wake Forest, NC

I was fresh out of seminary and pastoring a church plant which, within its first few months, had outgrown our rented facility and was moving to two Sunday morning services.

At Stonegate Fellowship, we told people Jesus Christ changes lives and it appeared the message was connecting. We told them Stonegate was a place they could bring their ‘baggage’ and we would love them and walk with them on a journey to new life through a personal relationship with Christ.

We told people all of us had a story – which included good and bad, but what really mattered was knowing and loving Jesus personally and loving one another. For the most part, outside of the many struggles inherent in starting a new church, we were excited and expectant about what God was doing among us and in our city.

Then, as if God had planned for our church to take it up another notch, Mike and Stephanie Goeke visited me in my study and a new day began - not only for Stonegate, but for me, the pastor.

Many people in our church and city of Midland, Texas knew some of the Goeke’s story. Most knew about their separation a few years prior, their impending divorce, and their miraculous restoration. But what most did not know was the full story this upper-middle class, white collar couple had never shared with anyone—especially anyone inside the church. But this afternoon meeting in my study was about to change all that.

With fearful voices, they began to ‘take me at my word.’ They heard what we believed and proclaimed as a church; now they were going to see if we meant it.

Mike and Stephanie sat across from me. Mike calmly told me how he had left his wife. He shared with me his life story - a story known by few –of his almost lifelong struggle with homosexuality.

He reflected on the first time someone called him “gay.” He described the confusion he had had all through high school and college - confusion he subsequently buried and carried into his marriage. Perhaps most discouraging, he told me about his loneliness and fear, especially in the local church. He shared the details of how, in the very place he should have been able to find help, he found mostly hate, indifference, fear, and foolishness.

Mike and Stephanie even shared their fear of telling me because they were almost certain that, with this new revelation, their days of volunteer service at Stonegate were over. But quite the opposite occurred. Following a few weeks of much excitement and a little apprehension on my part, I asked this precious couple to share their story to our entire church family - a day I’ll never forget.

The auditorium was packed with church members and with the Goeke’s friends throughout the community. Our people thought they were about to hear a “normal” story of how Jesus saved a marriage. No one knew they were about to experience a “marker day” for Stonegate Fellowship.

I was amazed at what happened that Sunday morning. After the service, people would not leave. Many stayed to talk with Mike and Stephanie about family members and friends struggling with same-sex attractions. Men, whom I knew to be opposed to what the Goekes were going to share, were now in tears - asking for forgiveness from Mike and Stephanie. And the hope I saw on the faces of so many was astounding; their faces radiated an unspoken message, “If Jesus could do this in Mike and Stephanie’s lives, then He can change my life too.”

From then on everyone knew we were serious when we said, “We know Jesus changes lives. And we want you, and all your baggage, so we can journey with you to a new life in Christ.” Not only was our church’s heart changed, my heart was changed as well.

My characterization of homosexuality had been wrong. My ideas about homosexuality had been formed from the harsh rhetoric of evangelical speakers and the images of mainstream media. I never once thought about white collar professionals like Mike Goeke suffering and struggling with this issue for decades and drowning in a sea of anonymity right under the nose of the church. Men and women, desperate for help, but not finding it anywhere they looked.

After all, homosexuality was the “worst” sin and surely of a different sort than “normal” sins like drunkenness, cheating on taxes, lusting after women, breaking the speed limit, or failing to tithe! I had bought into a ‘way of thinking’ that set homosexuality apart from other sins. It was the leprosy of the 21st century rather than your ‘typical sin’ used by Satan to steal abundant life from followers of Jesus. From now on, at least for this pastor, homosexuality would never again be the ‘worst sin’, but rather another sin which invades every socio-economic class of people - seeking to rob them of God’s joy in Christ.

I also learned my words hurt those most needing the Savior’s healing touch. On a Sunday not long after the Goekes spoke, I was waxing eloquent about a well-known couple who were conspicuously proud lesbians. I boldly dubbed them as “perverts” and continued without skipping a beat. Within days, Mike stopped by my office to say that when I used words like pervert and queer, I further alienated those so desperately desiring help from the local church.

As much as I wanted to defend myself, I could not. By my harsh, ‘churchy’ oratory I was damning the very ones Jesus died for. Moreover, I realized Jesus never resorted to name-calling - except the religious elite of His day. He did not call the woman who washed His holy feet a whore! (Luke 7) He did, however, teach Simon the Pharisee a humiliating lesson that day.

As much as I hated to do it, I stood in the pulpit that next Sunday and apologized to our congregation for labeling sinners rather than just labeling sin. I vowed to never make that mistake again.

I was learning new truths about confession and community as well. Jesus can change a life in an instant, but becoming like Christ requires walking with fellow believers in a community of faith called the local church. Many, like me, have grown accustomed to portraying ‘transformed people’, while deep down we die a slow death - afraid to talk about our struggles, fearing we will be perceived as spiritual losers.

After Mike and Stephanie’s story, the gauntlet was thrown down in my life and the life of our church. That gauntlet represented the fact that Stonegate would be no place for fakers. We would lean heavily on each other with our deepest struggles so that, as a community of Christ-followers, we could share the life of Christ with each other.

To this day, the greatest reward for me and Stonegate Fellowship was the privilege of modeling restoration and transformation when we hired Mike as our executive pastor several months after that extraordinary Sunday. Mike has become one of my most treasured friends in life and partners in ministry, and none of this would have happened had Stonegate not chosen to be the community of Christ it was called to be—a place where baggage can be dropped off and a new life taken up -for everyone.

Note: Pastor Payton wrote his article a few years ago, before his church made another significant step in reaching out to homosexuals- a ‘step’ you are about to learn. Though he preferred anonymity, I insisted on telling the “rest of the story”- and he relented.

While Payton’s church had “thrown down the gauntlet” on homosexuality, they took another step by opening their wallet. In the summer of 2007, Stonegate mailed a check to the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) Task Force on Ministry to Homosexuals (TFMH) in the amount of $21,000.

The TFMH develops and provides resources on reaching homosexuals with the gospel. A member of that task force, Rev Bob Stith was named the SBC’s first-ever National Strategist on Gender Issues in May of 2007. Previously Stith served as longtime pastor of Carroll Baptist Church outside Ft Worth, TX.

Payton and Stith, who had met a few years ago, became reacquainted at the 2007 Exodus Conference. Exodus International (www.Exodus.to) is an umbrella ministry of more than 140 US ministries proclaiming freedom from homosexuality through Christ. When Payton learned through Stith what Southern Baptists were doing to reach homosexuals for Christ, he knew he had to take another step.