My Talk from Q Conference 2010

So a day after I land from England I had to speak at the one-of-a-kind Q Conference, which was being held in Chicago this year (I took the picture above from my phone as I was about to go on stage). I was very humbled that Q’s founder, Gabe Lyons, asked me to share some thoughts in front of 600 of the most proufound influencers in our faith. I only had 3 minutes to speak, so I made the most of this short time by giving a very important message that I felt this particular audience needed to hear. As far as I am aware, my talk is the only one in Q’s history to not be posted on their website for viewing. You will find out why when you read this. Here is the text from my talk…

I opened by staring at the audience, silent, for a full 45 seconds to set the somber tone in which I was about to humbly proceed in a slow, soft spoken voice. Then I said the following:

I stand silent to give dignity to a moment many Christians take for granted.

There are only a few sacred moments in one’s life—one of them is when you know in your heart that you’ve been set apart to dare to be remarkable by doing nothing other than believing in a just and powerful God.

The last great Roman satirical poet, Juvenal, commented about power by saying:

“But who is to guard the guards themselves?”

I am standing in a room with 600 gatekeepers to our faith. 600 influencers. 600 people that stand amongst and above the rest.

Maybe you don’t feel as such in your own mind.

But the Christian hierarchy proves different.

Jesus said that: “wisdom will be proven right by her actions.”

Well, our actions have only proven that ‘wisdom’ must be an elite group of predominantly white upper class individuals who care about their “Christian brands.”

I don’t care about your Christian brand, and neither does the Lord.

God says to Isaiah:

“These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.

Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder.

The wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.”

You all are the best; you are all the brightest that our faith has. And yet where are your hearts with the gay community?

How have your tangible actions proven the Lord’s wisdom right?

Is the culture war it too political? Too divisive? Too scary? Too unknown to stop us from changing our medium of engagement with gays and lesbians.

In his famous speech apologizing to America after his sex scandal, Bill Clinton said:

“This has gone on too long, cost too much and hurt too many innocent people.”

Friends, I plead with you today that you stop being a gatekeeper and start acting like Jesus.

Much love.