5 Tools Parents Can Use to Build Relationships with Their LGBT+ Kids

May 3, 2019

I have the privilege of talking with many parents of LGBT+/same-sex attracted kids. They come to me humbly, looking for how they can love their LGBT+ children well, while not changing their orthodox, historical Christian view of marriage and sexuality.

After many conversations, I’ve come to realize there are at least five things I consistently say to them. I offer these five tools to you today not as an exhaustive list, but as place to begin.

1. Apologize

What did you do when your child came out to you? Did you thank them for trusting you with their story, ask permission to ask questions to genuinely learn more, and look them in the eye and say, “I don’t see you any differently; I just see you more deeply”?

Perhaps you didn’t. Instead, you reacted. You said something like, “You know this is sin, right?” You cried. You wailed. You made their terrifying conversation with you about you–and you watched your child pull away from you emotionally and physically.

Why did they do this? Because they did not feel seen in that moment. They felt you only saw your own pain and shame of them. And truly? You might have only had eyes for yourself. Instead of caring for their hearts, you asked them to care for you. No matter how old your child is, that’s not their job. It’s your calling to care for them like the Father cares for you. The way to repair this relationship is to apologize–not for your theological beliefs, but for your self-centeredness.

It is also possible that when your child came out to you, you responded as well as you could. However, you may feel confused because they keep saying, “You don’t love me!” You throw up your hands internally and think, “The only way they will think I love them is if I approve of their pursuit of what I do not believe is God’s best.” This may be true, but it may not be true. Again, a way to reconnection of relationship is through apology, but for what?

Before your child came out and you overtly talked about LGBT+ people, you covertly spoke about what you believed about LGBT+ people. How? When you watched a movie or show together and a same-sex, romantic couple came on the screen, did you gasp? Scoff? Sigh deeply about how “depraved this world is”? Or did you see this same-sex couple as beloved image bearers, and use the show-watching as a teaching moment to talk about how some people have same-sex desires, and their job is to surrender their version of sexual brokenness to Jesus (just like you do?).

If you know you perhaps set the tone in your home of othering LGBT+ people, your child who was secretly wrestling with their sexuality or gender picked up on it. Instead of feeling safe to come to you with their wrestling, they became afraid of sharing with you. So even though you say now, “I love you,” they remember the tone set in your home for years.

King David humbly and wisely said to God, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me” (Ps. 139:23-24).

Every parent of an LGBT+ child (every parent!) needs to do this: “God, search my heart and know me. Point out in me any way that I have viewed certain people as less-than.” Then confess what God brings to mind as sin in your life. Why would God ever use you to examine the speck in your child’s eye when you have a plank in your own?

​After confessing to God, confess it to your child. “You may have heard x, y, z about LGBT+ people growing up, and I was wrong.” Apologize. Confess. And do it without also saying, “But I haven’t changed my mind on the theology!” An apology with a “but” after isn’t an apology.

Next Steps:
Read “10 Things I Wish Every Church Leader Knew About Gay Teens in Their Church” (it talks more about this coming out process)
Read “Is the Traditional Definition of Marriage Harmful to LGBTQ People?” by my friend, Dr. Preston Sprinkle
Listen to Bill Henson’s episode with us on guiding families well and read his incredible resource for parents and leaders
Listen to Dr. Mark Yarhouse’s podcast with us on his advice for pastors, parents, and therapists ​

2. Pray and think through: What is God’s goal for my child?

I often hear longing language in parent’s mouths for their children: “I just want them to find opposite-sex Mr. or Mrs. Right.” or “If only they wouldn’t dress or look x, y, z way.” Is this the dream for your child? Is this God’s goal for your child?

What is the goal of life? To love God and to make disciples.

Marriage is not the goal of life. Dressing a certain way is not the goal of life. Loving God and making disciples are our goals. If your prayers for your child and your conversations with them center around getting them to an opposite-sex marriage altar in the right clothes, God will not honor that because it is replacing idolatry with idolatry. It is worshipping the finite instead of the Infinite One.

God cannot use you as a tool in your child’s life if you are trying to make the “solution” to their wrestling anything other than their hearts arrested by the love of the Father.

Next Steps:
Listen to the conversation we had with Kutter Callaway on idolatry of marriage
Listen to the conversation we had with Christopher West on filling the infinite void with the finite

3. Know you need to grieve–just not on your child

I mentioned above how some of our reactions to our children coming forward to us are crying, wailing, and making it about us. Here is the thing: You need to grieve. If your child is not choosing to surrender their version of broken sexuality to Christ, that is hard! Grieve it–just not on your child.

Do you have a small group where you can be real? (Pastors, I’m looking at you now: Set the tone in your church so precious parents can “come out” in their own way and be supported by equipped small group friends.) Ask God to provide one. If you feel there are no spaces to get authentic, start and always go back to your personal conversations with Jesus. Begin by lamenting to him.

Next Steps: 
Read this outrageously rich book on lament by Michael Card and listen to our conversation with him
​Listen to this conversation with Sharon Garlough Brown where she beautifully articulates how we can rail on the chest of the Father (i.e. lament)

4. Meet Core Needs

We all have a God-shaped hole in our heart, and because of the Fall, we are all naturally predisposed to look to the finite to fill this infinite space. We are all born that way.

Instead of staring at the version of brokenness your child naturally runs toward to fill this infinite void filled with good needs, work to practically meet those heart needs. Show them you affirm them, see them, and believe they have a good purpose. ​Not when they surrender all of themselves…but now. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Did Christ die for you after you got it together? Or when you were in your hottest mess? Don’t wait to withhold practical love and need-meeting until your child meets x, y, z standards. Do it now, and represent the One who loves you.

Next Step:
​Listen to our podcast series on Core Needs

5. Know you get the special privilege to share the heart of the Father

Dear, precious parents: You have a special role to play in the midst of this. You get to watch your child go through pain and surrender them.

This is what the Father did with Jesus.

This is what the Father does with us every single day. Every day we thumb our noses at God: “I know better. I think this idol I will hang onto will help me.” And every day He lets us, while quietly, lovingly inviting us to a better way of whole-self surrender.

Next Steps:
Listen to a podcast I recorded with parents in mind with the Church of the City in Franklin, TN. Many have found it helpful (and reemphasizes some of what I say here)
Listen to a conversation I had with my dad about my own coming out experience

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You have so much to hope for. Your child was made in the image of God, and God cares more for your child than you do. Pray, pray, pray, trust Him with them, and then practically love them like crazy.