This is an excerpt from my book from chapter 16 : “Friendships and Discipleship”

I grew up in a “Have you heard of the 4 Spiritual Laws” pamphlet culture where we learned about the Bible with the goal of TELLING people about Jesus and how they can be saved. It was an “ask Jesus into your heart and to forgive you, don’t sin anymore, go to church and read your Bible.” Sound familiar?

As Christians we’re not called to tell people “you’re not welcome here, maybe you should leave.”

Paying attention to HOW Jesus treated other people, WHO He chose to have close to Him and WHAT His relationship to the Father was wasn’t ingrained in me. In the last couple of decades I had come to learn about the awesomeness of a more intimate worship experience, of sensing His presence in worship – but discipleship, true discipleship as it meant in Jesus’ day had never found its way into me.

So I asked Pastor Sharon for some suggested reading on discipleship. Preferring audio books myself I found some on the topic and asked if she was familiar with any. She was with one – “The Great Omission” by Dallas Willard, so I bought it.

I didn’t even make to the beginning of chapter one. I hadn’t finished the introduction when I realized that I and so many other Christians are missing the mark.

Jesus told us to go out and make DISCIPLES of others, not to go out and make people say the sinner’s prayer or a multitude of other things that would in fact be the result of our being a disciple of Jesus. One of the words that Willard used in describing a disciple is “apprentice”.

We all know what an apprentice is. That’s someone who is learning hands on with the guidance of a master until the day comes when the apprentice is no longer an apprentice, but is equipped to go out on his or her own. In Jesus’ day the rabbi was the master. A disciple was a follower of the rabbi, and would follow the rabbi wherever the rabbi went. When the rabbi ate the disciple would eat. When the rabbi would pray the disciple would pray. When the rabbi slept the disciple slept. Day after day after day until the day came when the disciple is ready to become a rabbi himself.

Realizing that I personally had a lot of work to do in this area changed how I saw myself as a Christian. I realized that Jesus would never turn me away as a disciple because I’m transgender, nor would He have allowed any of His disciples to push someone aside because they weren’t the “right kind of person.” In fact when Samaritans refused to welcome Jesus as they headed to Jerusalem, James and John offered to call down fire from Heaven to destroy the Samaritans, and Jesus rebuked them for it. Bringing people closer to Jesus is impossible if you’re pushing them away from Jesus. You can’t have it both ways.

As Christians we’re not called to tell people “you’re not welcome here, maybe you should leave. We hope you find Jesus, just please find Him somewhere else.”

Does that sound like Jesus? Does that sound like the kind of Church God wants us to be? The church I grew up in everyone dressed nice on Sunday. These days many churches are fine with casual attire, realizing clothes don’t make the Christian. At what point does a church say to someone “you don’t fit in”, “you’re not like us and it doesn’t matter if you’re a Christian”, or maybe “you need to change before we’ll accept you here.”

These are messages those who are transgender get from the Church. Now I’ll grant you that’s not necessarily the message the Church is intending to send, but that’s how it’s being received.

When Christian organizations stand up vehemently against legislation allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of their gender as opposed to their biological sex, the transgender folks take that as an attack against them. The argument it’s for the protection of women and children stops there with no proposal for equally protecting those who are transgender from similar attacks when they use the restroom. It would be so easy for Christians to put out their hand in kindness and friendship and love to those who are transgender if they could see how their actions appear. And that’s when I realized someone has to do something.

The message is simple, but people are so busy fighting their social wars that they don’t stop for a minute to look for a solution. It’s all about the war. Defeating the other side is more important than a solution, and a victory for both sides is never even considered.

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