Soul Force

As most of you know yesterday ACU was visited by a group called Soul Force. You can go to their website: www.equalityride.com and read up on their visit here and their journey so far.

Personally I was encourage and heartbroken for a good chunk of the day yesterday. I forgot the Equality Riders were going to be here and so I was thrown in to a minor frenzy when I walked into the campus center after my 9 o'clock class. There was no protesting or rioting like some anticipated, but there was a lot of talk. People just chattering about the presentation. Some in agreement and some not but it was definitly the talk of the campus.

In an impromptu decision I decided to go to the 10 o'clock presentation. I was glad God put it on my heart to go because it helped prepare me for what happened next. But first the presentation.
It was all about violence against homosexual, transgender and bisexual by Christians. It was heartbreaking to see and hear these stories of people, real people who align themselves with Christ, beating and mocking and killing. No one deserves that kind of ridicule, no matter who you are. I do not agree with the beliefs of the Soul Force group but I do believe that they deserve the same respect that any other human deserves. Anyway, the presentation was to raise awareness on the violence issue.

After the presentation I made my way to chapel stewing over some of the things that were said by soul force and by our administration here at ACU and when I got to chapel I met Dr. Mattis and chatted for a minute before he introduced me to his friend, Jaime. Jaime was a rider. I didn't really know what to do at first because, well, I was kind of thrown into the conversation, but I am so grateful I was. I was able to meet Jaime and talk to her about their journey. I got to hear about her life a little bit and some of the struggles she is having. Most of the conversation wasn't even about being gay it was about struggles as a human. Praise God for showing me in a very real way how to love someone so very very different from me. You can read a little bit more about Jaime here>Jaime St. Ledger. In our 20 minute conversation I never felt the need to "confront" anything. All I knew what that she was struggling and putting herself out there to a total stranger who she knows disagrees with her, and that I needed to love her like Christ would love her.

What a blessing for us as Christians to be confronted with the hard issues. I am thankful that our campus handled this situation with tact and class and I hope and pray that the violence will stop and that as Christian brothers and sisters we can begin to have peaceful conversations about what the Bible says about the issue at hand.

If you have any questions about my experience yesterday I would love to talk to you so leave me a message and let me know. The feelings of yesterday cannot be described in words very well at all but I hope you were able to catch a glimpse of the conversation and are maybe evening mulling over these things yourself.

Be Blessed!!!