Nobodies and Neighbors

The post you’re about to read started as a Facebook status. Shortly after, a local newspaper wanted to run it as an op-ed, and now, it’s on this blog. I point that out to express my intentions behind it. My hope is that this post is an expression of me. Where I am, and how I got here. I wrote it for folks that know me, both in Young Life and outside. At its core, it was meant to be personal. A statement from me to my people. I feel fortunate that it has resonated more broadly and I hope that’s true for you reading this. Because this is for the #dobetteryl blog, I wanted to start by talking specifically about my experience with YL and why I left before you get to the post itself.

I’m a person who needs simple truths to help me unravel complex situations. I left staff because of a simple truth: In any conversation about LGBTQ people in YL, the starting point is exclusion. I’ve served in YL as a volunteer, a staff person, and for the last year of my time on staff as a member of the National Healthy Sexuality Task Force; a small group of people far more important than me, designed to address a few different sexuality topics and how they play out in the mission. As you could guess, LGBTQ was most of what we discussed. I would never say I was a person of great power or influence in YL. In fact, if you recognize my name it’s probably because I prefer to be behind a guitar generally speaking. However, I would say that because of the task force, there aren’t many people in YL who would have had more of an inside look at the conversations going on surrounding LGBTQ and YL’s policies regarding sexuality. I already knew the policies going into my role on the Healthy Sexuality team and I think if I were being honest I knew those policies weren’t going to change. But I also knew a few close friends already who had experienced the heartbreak of being rejected by YL and I was desperate to try to find a solution if there was one. I jumped at the chance to be in “the room where it happens” for all my Hamilton people out there. The task force is where I found my simple truth. It was a realization from conversations with people I regard as friends, but also folks who hold the highest titles you can garner in YL. Our approach to the LGBTQ community will always start with exclusion. I was on call after call with the most powerful people in the mission where it was affirmed again and again: ‘we are not changing our policy, so with that in mind, where do we go?’ There wasn’t a soul among us who didn’t desperately want to change YL’s track record with the LGBTQ community. The meetings were full-throated and wholehearted. We all knew that LGBTQ people were not being served well in the mission. That’s why we were there. We were all aware of the trail of broken LGBTQ hearts YL was leaving behind. We all read the stories coming in from Do Better or other sources but we weren’t going to address the policy itself. We were sidestepping the core of the issue. Who among us on the team or above, doesn’t know what exclusion breeds? “Every kid”, is Young Life 101. We know what belonging is and why it is critical to YL’s mission and to the gospel itself but when it comes to LGBTQ we were boxed in. Our job on the task force at times felt like: ‘how do we do exclusion more kindly’, ‘how do we soften the blow of discrimination’, ‘how do we make people feel heard but also keep them silent’, ‘how do we tell someone we’re with them but they can’t be with us’, ‘how do we make this seed bloom but not give it soil’?

I’m no different than anyone else on this account. I loved YL. Even as I type that I’m not sure if I should have put a ‘d’ on the word “love.” I go back and forth between “we” language and “they” language when I talk about YL. It’s a big part of who I am today. Leaving staff feels like I am selling everything in my house. I’m somewhere in between redecorating, mourning the loss of my old stuff, and wondering what I do with all the pictures on my wall. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that I did the right thing by leaving, but YL was a place of profound comfort, meaning, and joy for me. Some of my favorite people in the world remain on staff. Some are in total alignment with YL, and some are in constant tension and internal conflict. All have cared for me in innumerable ways. My goal is not to malign or demonize anyone, but rather to express a simple truth. Our policy discriminates. Anything we do after the policy will be rooted in discrimination. If discrimination is at the root then only bad fruit can come from the branches. It doesn’t matter if you’re the most hateful bigot YL staff has ever seen, or the most loving person in the mission. It doesn’t matter if you’re one of my beloved friends or if I’ve never met you. It’s not about who the staff are and what they do, it’s about discrimination and what it does.

I can only speak for myself, but I knew how much I loved the college students I had the honor of serving in YL. I knew that the day would come when I would have to look one of them in the eyes and tell them they couldn’t lead on my team, or be on staff in my area. I knew I would leave staff 1000 times if it meant I didn’t have to reject someone I loved. And I knew, firsthand, from the very top of the YL pecking order, that that reality wasn’t changing for me or anyone else. I decided that YL didn’t need a change from inside the system. Anything that changed from the inside would still be rooted in discrimination. Instead, my wife and I decided to create a new system entirely. That’s why we made Neighbors and that’s why I wrote this post.

Nobodies and Neighbors.

I recently left a job at a faith-based non-profit (Young Life) after being involved in it for over half my life. It came down to two realities for me.

Reality one: My old job and large portions of Christianity discriminate against LGBTQ people. The LGBTQ community are considered “nobodies” in most places of faith. Whether it’s intentional or incidental, it’s real, and I think it’s helpful that we acknowledge that in a black and white way.

Reality two: History tells us that telling someone you love them, while discriminating against them, doesn’t work. Especially when the thing you’re discriminating them from is “good”. We’ve used discrimination a lot in our history and religious institutions are a serial offender. It never makes people feel loved. It always puts someone on the margins. It makes them feel“less than”. It destroys their dignity and self-worth. It makes them “nobodies”. It always has, it always will.

The whole Christian faith is centered around this guy Jesus, being God, in human form. I may have already lost you there, but stay with me. If that’s true, then it would be really interesting to see what that guy would do right? Well, one of the things he did most was hang out with the real nobodies in society. The marginalized people. Blue-collar workers, poor people, the disabled, ethnic minorities, prostitutes. That was his crew, and that was who he picked to lead his mission. Nobodies. It’s one of the things I like most about the Christian faith. God would have to be the most important “somebody” a person could think of, and the “nobodies” were the most important “somebodies” to God. The world keeps trying to push people down, give people shame, and put people at the bottom and Jesus keeps building them up, bringing them love and putting them first. Since this is about faith, after all, I’ll tell you my favorite bible story. Someone asks Jesus what the most important commandment is, and he gives them two tied together. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself. God’s world doesn’t have “nobodies”. Only neighbors.

The problem with discrimination and discriminatory systems is that they require us to choose our neighbor or ourselves while love requires us to choose our neighbor as ourselves.

That’s why my wife and I decided to create a new non-profit serving young people in our community called Neighbors. It’s not the most complex idea. We just wanted to make a space where no one was a “nobody”. We use volunteer mentors to give belonging to every young person we can, regardless of faith or background. We explore faith with whoever wants to, in a way that’s inviting, approachable and non-judgemental. And we actively love our literal neighbors through service to our community.

We hope that Neighbors is a place where all young people know they are loved by us and by God and that we are with them. Full stop. We hope that they grow in love and service for all of their neighbors. Full stop. We hope that they know equity and justice just as much as they know fun and adventure. We hope that every young person finds a home at Neighbors not because they’ll believe something of value one day but because they are someone of value today. We look forward to loving without condition, explanation, or qualification. We can’t wait to make a neighborhood out of a bunch of “nobodies”.