Should a church have allowed a homosexual to sing before the congregation?
Question:
On Mother's day, our church leaders allowed a young gay man, who had never attended our church before, to get up and sing a song to his mother and Grandmother. The grandmother requested that what she wanted for Mothers' Day was for her family to attend church with her. The grandson wanted to sing a song to his mother and grandmother if he came. The grandmother is a Christian and has been attending our church for a good many years off and on. The mother of the young man has been in a lesbian relationship for a long time and has never attended before. The woman she is in a relationship with also came.
Some in the congregation believe he should not have been permitted to sing. Others thought differently and we were told we are called to love them, not judge. Are we wrong in saying and believing that he should not have been permitted to get up front and sing? We are torn over this. Our desire is that unbelievers would come and be saved. I think they believe they are saved.
He sang about God in the song he wrote for his mother but nothing about Christ.
Thank you for being able to ask this question. I would like to hear from you.
Answers:
There are multiple problems presented in your note.
The singing in a congregation is to each another. "Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord" (Ephesians 5:19). Here you had someone singing to his mother and grandmother. It is not what singing in the church is about. This was nothing more than entertainment.
Those who participate in worship are representing the church; yet, the church had invited a non-member whom everyone knows to be living in sin to stand before the congregation. The claim is that they did not want to be seen as judgmental, but they did make a judgment. The decision announced to the world that this congregation sees nothing wrong with violating God's laws regarding sexual relationships. "And although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them" (Romans 1:32).
Somehow people have come to the false conclusion that just because someone attends a church service that this will save them. Revelation 2-3 lists out several churches whose members were clearly not saved. Saved people worship God together as a church, but being in a church service or even being a part of a church does not make you saved. Unbelievers are saved by teaching them the truth (Romans 10:17) and helping them see that they much change their life, leaving sin, and joining themselves with Christ. Instead of helping these people see that they need to seek forgiveness of their sins, they were told that they are acceptable while remaining in their sins.
There was a case of a man in I Corinthians 5 who was having sex with his stepmother. Paul was clear that such blatant sin was not to be tolerated within the church. "You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?" (I Corinthians 5:2-6).
It seems to me that you have a group of people who are more interested in being accepted by the world than accepted by God. "For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ" (Galatians 1:10). If the group isn't interested in changing, it is time to find a church that actually claims Jesus as Lord.
