Our call is to be celebrating more than complaining. What opportunities has God given you recently to celebrate His gift of gender? Here are the public ones for me…
This Spring saw a fruitful time of speaking at several school venues, specifically to help parents and teachers navigate trans with their youth from a Christian (read that Biblical) perspective. As I tried to bring a pastoral-Scriptural voice to the issue, people responded with great questions and stories. From the interactions, I learned a lot about how parents and young people are coping—or not coping—with the trans phenomenon. It took a few years, but no one is now not interested. I am very grateful to God for this opportunity to celebrate His gift of gender publicly. The activity there has birthed another project that I will be announcing soon.
The next stop for the 2023 Gender Victory Tour is THIS Sunday, at my church in Phoenixville. Iron Work Church’s Women’s Ministry is running its Pop-Up Sunday School over the next few weeks, and I have been asked to start things off with a talk on trans. (That my wife, Mary K., is organizing the series, likely had something to do with that.) That will be at 9:00am, if you want to get up. Come to Franklin Commons in Phoenixville to talk about how to talk about trans with your teen (or younger child). And bring your questions!
After that, comes a stop in Loysville. Where is Loysville, you may ask? It is pretty near the center of this great commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Its claim to fame is being home to the Church of the Living Christ, who hosts an annual apologetics conference. For this year, on May 19-21, I will be presenting the Made in God’s Image Conference. It will be another of these wonderful opportunities to slow down and lay out the Bible’s principal principles on gender, and to explore how they answer some of the most pressing questions of our lives: how to understand trans and gayness, what makes a true woman, or a real man, what solidifies a marriage, why differentiate women and men in a church, why did God make His image (that would be us) gendered? In other words, what is the meaning and purpose of being men and women?
I would love to have you join us in this truly central (at least, for Pennsylvanians) location. This conference promises to become one the reasons Pennsylvania is as great as it is, besides being able to burn your trash outside.
We are also making progress on our counseling center, to provide biblical counseling and licensed counselor referrals. Check out the updated page on this website.
These are ways Christ is allowing me to publicly celebrate the precious gift of gender. What ways have you had, publicly or non-publicly, to give thanks for this great gift lately? I’d love to hear.