Andy Stanley’s ‘Embracing the Journey’ Conference: A Full Report and Exposé. Part 1
Earlier this week, North Point Community Church hosted the Embracing the Journey conference, a two-day event for parents who have LGBTQ children or loved ones in their lives. Notably, nearly all the speakers were gay-affirming, including two men who are in homosexual marriages.
We’ve been writing about it for a long time, documenting the theological drift of one of the largest megachurches in America, frequently with exclusive reporting. Some of the stories include:
North Point Church Is Sending Children to All-LGBTQ Therapists: We Profile One of The Counselors
Celebrating Transgenderism?! North Point Church Staffers Rejoice After Man Comes Out as Woman
North Point Pastor Recommends Struggling Christians Attend ‘Queer Parent Summit’
Report: North Point Church Personnel Knew ‘Lap Dance Leader’ Was Gay-Affirming+ Andy Stanley Responds
Exclusive! Andy Stanley’s Children Ministry Overrun and Led by Pro-LBGTQ+ Activists
North Point Pastor Praises Gay Man’s Affirming Org. ‘Lord, Let Him Create More Allies for the LGBTQ Community’
North Point Church Baptizes Openly Transgender ‘Man’, After Giving Blessing to Transition?
North Point Church Staffers Found ‘Liking’ Pride Parade Celebration
Surprise Surprise, Another North Point Church Leader is Gay-Affirming and Wildly Liberal
Dr. Michael Brown Says He’s Spent 8 Years Exchanging Texts and Emails with Andy Stanley, Who Has REFUSED to Condemn Homosexuality
Initially intended to be a quiet event, it blossomed into a significant news story that the church was unprepared for when the conference was conceived 18 months ago. The chatter eventually got so loud that Stanley addressed this controversy from the pulpit yesterday in a sermon that was not live-streamed but that we have a recording of here. In his message, Stanley explained how the conference came to be and insisted that the church’s view of homosexuality hadn’t changed in 28 years.
We disagreed, and that’s why we drove across the country to attend.
When we pointed out to a volunteer we met on the sidewalk that there was more security than we were used to seeing at a conference, he told us, “Yeah, some Christian blogger has been attacking us and blowing the whole thing up.”
The atmosphere inside reflected that. There was a strong police presence during the event, with a cop car parked outside the church the entire time. Inside, volunteers asked attendees to remove their IDs from their wallets and purses to verify it against the name on the ticket, with one volunteer explaining, “We don’t want the wrong crowd trying to sneak in.”
LeAnne Legans and Gregory Cook greeted us upon entering the conference. Legans is the gay-affirming North Point leader who was last seen getting a lapdance at a drag show, and Gregory Cook is the co-founder of Renovus, an LGBTQ-affirming activist group founded and run by Pastors and leaders within North Point Church, whose mission is to advocate for full inclusion of LGBTQ folks within the church. We smiled, said “hi,” received our lanyard, and came inside.
Posters on the church walls and displayed prominently on projector screens warned against recording any of this conference, citing Georgia law which mandates fines and jail time. In conversation with conference organizers and volunteers, they stressed that security officers were in plain clothes, patrolling the halls and watching the events. In one session a man was taking notes on his laptop and within minutes a volunteer told him he needed to put it away because it could record video or pick up audio. During our check-in, we heard security talking, sharing their concerns about infiltrators and protestors.
Later in the conference, we would approach many people we’ve been writing about over the last year and strike up a conversation. We talked with Sandi Harman-Waldrop, a gay-affirming North Point leader and self-professing ‘Pride Mom’ who hosted the gay wedding of Brian Nietzel, one of the speakers. We chatted up Brian Nietzel, one of the gay-married speakers and also co-founders of Renovus. We spoke to Matthew Vines, the author of God and the Gay Christian and the founder and executive director of The Reformation Project, and many others, including most workshop leaders (more on that later.)
Conference organizers Greg and Lynn Mcdonald would reveal that around 500 people were attending the event and that more wanted to register, but they had to cut off registration for space and logistical purposes. They did a show of hands to see who came from out of state, and the majority were, with some folks even coming from other countries to attend. We observed more than a handful of transgender attendees, along with a smattering of pride flags on key chains, clothing, shoes, water bottles, and journals from the regular folk.
There was a display selling conference merch, t-shirts, and books. One of the speakers, noted that he brought 80 copies of his book which calls for the full inclusion and acceptance of LGBTQ theology within the church, and he sold them out in the first 4 hours.
What struck us more than anything, however, is that throughout the conference, homosexuality as a standard, moral, and necessary theological good was assumed—the entire time. Every talk, every breakout session, every conversation we struck up with our tablemates, there was no hint or suggestion that homosexuality was a sin that must be repented of, but rather a good that must be accepted.
The overwhelming message was that children and family members who come out as gay or trans must be loved and supported, and that support includes affirming them for who they are, in order to retain “influence” and a relationship with them. There was no question of “how do we love and support our LGBTQ children well, while still holding to our convictions?” Instead, we were hammered with the claim that if we want to be in relationship with them, we need to lay aside those convictions and pick up more loving ones; ones that better “reflected the heart of Jesus.”
All the speakers referred to their trans children by their trans names and personal pronouns. One session saw a panelist with a tear-stained face insisting that children need gender-affirming care, and another said that she knew/suspected her child was transgender by the age of three. One session saw a speaker explicitly arguing that homosexuality was not a sin, condemning the “clobber verses” by saying that “none of them are taught in a serious exegetical way.” One speaker was asked in a Q&A if he thought Jesus was “gay,” and his answer left much to be desired.
Andy Stanley himself noted that the expression “homosexuality is a sin” makes “no sense” in light of children threatening to kill themselves, which is a concept permeated throughout the event and presented as a binary choice: if we don’t affirm our LGBTQ kids they will end their lives and we will lose them forever.
We attended all the main sessions, as well as four breakout sessions. Over the next week we’ll report on them, starting Tuesday with the conference opener.