Tragedy at the Gay Pride Parade

32 CommentsBits 'n Preaches, Gay community

Every now and then something unforeseen happens on an evangelism outing that is so inexplicable and, well, downright tragic, it’s almost impossible to write about….

I was not able to attend the yearly Long Beach Gay Pride Parade with our evangelism team due to other commitments, so a faithful team leader, Tom Nance-Ulrich, took over the demanding job.

Every year, it’s a battle. Every year intrepid Seed Sowers must venture into a community that hates fundamentalist Christians, especially the preaching kind. (Read last year’s report from the West Hollywood Gay Pride report for proof by clicking here.)

It was Sunday morning, and I was at our church’s Men’s Retreat in the mountains, far from Long Beach, Sodom-by-the-Sea. I stopped to pray for the upcoming event under the shade of a magnificent pine and afterward looked up into the brilliant sunlight filtering through the needles. How would Tom and the team fare on this day? I trusted that God would see them through.

Several hours later I could stand it no longer. I pulled out my cell and sent Tom a quick text message: “How did it go 2day?”

His response was wrenching. I had only gotten this type of answer on one previous occasion.  I was crushed. I worried for Tom. I felt his pain. Would Tom ever be the same again? Will he continue to trust God with the outcome of future adventures, no matter how disillusioning?

I took a deep breath and glanced one more time at his message. This is what it said:

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The Wrath of God

61 CommentsE-vangie VIDEO!, Gay community, Steve's Sermons

The 2 minute video below illustrates the current thinking about God from the man on the street. When I asked people on The Strand in Hermosa Beach if God is a God of wrath, people overwhelmingly said no. Surprised? I used this as an illustration from a sermon I preached over the weekend called “The Wrath of God,” based on Romans 1:18-32. When I read it to my wife before the church service, she cried, because it reflects the current dismal culture in which we live (I ended up revising it and wrote a hopeful ending). Nineteen people made some type of profession of faith during the weekend.

If you’d like to listen to the sermon, click here then scroll down to February 5, 2010. You can read it below, too. If you’d like to preach it and want the  PowerPoint presentation, all you have to do is leave a comment.

Sermon: THE WRATH OF GOD (Romans 1:18-32)
2/5/10

A subject that’s rarely talked about in Christianity these days is the idea of a wrathful God; it goes against the wishful thinking of unbelievers (who certainly don’t want an angry God to exist), and most Christians would prefer not to think about him in this way at all.

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