A lot of my recent work is aimed at a secular/general audience, but I also continue to do a lot of faith-based work in Christian communities. So if you’re part of my Christian audience, here are two cool new resources you might like to know about.
Resource #1: A Year of Bible
Ever wished you knew the Bible better? Have you struggled to find a Bible study group that also welcomes LGBTQ people and their family/friends?
This year, I’m doing a free, year-long Bible study on YouTube. We’re reading the whole New Testament in a year, and I’d love for you to be part of it!
The new study is on a new YouTube channel: @YearOfBible. Every weekday this year, I’m posting a new video where I read a Bible chapter aloud and then discuss some of my thoughts, reactions, and questions to suggest ways of applying the chapter to your daily life.
You can watch the videos at your own pace, and my hope is that you’ll share your own thoughts and insights in the comments so that we can learn from each other!
I’ve already posted almost two months’ worth of videos, and I’ll continue posting until we make it through the whole New Testament. If you start from the beginning and do the studies with me five days a week, you’ll finish the whole New Testament by this time next year.
I’d love your participation and your help getting the word out if you find it helpful. You can find all the videos (and subscribe) by visiting the new YouTube channel at @YearOfBible, and you can see the full playlist of all the videos in order so far by following this link:
So if you want to study the Bible with me, let’s do it!
Resource #2: GayChristian.Net
With my many years of work in LGBTQ Christian spaces, I’m often asked to recommend the best books, websites, videos, etc., on the subject—not only for LGBTQ Christians, but also for family members, friends, pastors, and other Christians who want to learn more.
I also get a lot of questions about theology, requests to help people find a local church or online community, etc.
With all that in mind, I’m proud to announce the launch of GayChristian.Net, a free, mobile-friendly, online resource you can access from anywhere with an internet connection, designed to help you with any of those things.
Know someone whose child has come out and is in need of parents’ resources? Send them here!
Know someone who’s struggling to find a supportive community? Give them this link!
Get asked a question and you don’t have the answer? Check this site first for some expert answers and/or tools to help you find the answers you’re looking for.
GayChristian.Net was, for many years, the home of a nonprofit organization I ran to support LGBTQ Christians, and today, it’s the home of resources, community, church listings, and more to help Christians on all sides get a nuanced perspective of the issues at stake.
Here’s what you can find there so far:
Churches and communities.
We’ve built a database of thousands of welcoming churches and Christian groups from across the U.S. This goes way beyond any of the “welcoming church” websites you may have seen before, most of which are severely outdated and inaccurate. We’ve spent years manually collecting and verifying this data, and we’ve been reaching out to each and every community to ask them to fill out more in-depth profiles on the site. There’s way more to come here; check it out!
Online community and support.
We link to various online spaces for LGBTQ Christians and allies, and we’ve built our own private online community that we’ll be gradually expanding in the months ahead.
Answers to common questions.
We’ve built a database of questions and answers from experts that we’ll be expanding in the weeks and months ahead. It’s also got a place for people to submit their own questions for answering in the future!
Recommended resources.
Need a book to recommend to a parent with an LGBTQ kid? Not sure what resources are best for pastors? Our resource database makes it easy to find just the right kind of resource, whether it’s a book, podcast, website, video, or something else. These are resources recommended by some of the top experts in this field as having been most helpful to the people we serve.
And, of course, it includes the new @YearOfBible daily study as well!
The website is currently in beta, so we’re continuing to add new content to it and we’d greatly appreciate hearing about any bugs you find. But our goal is to make it as easy as possible for people to find welcoming Christian community, resources, and answers in a world that still, so often, pits Christians and LGBTQ folks against each other.
I hope you’ll find these resources helpful. If you do, please help me spread the word about them! In the meantime, I look forward to hearing your feedback on them as we continue to grow and refine them both.
More content for both my faith-based and general audiences coming soon!
