The San Antonio city council is considering an ordinance that would seem to bar anyone who opposes homosexuality from serving in public office or getting a city contract.

Opponents of the ordinance, some Texas Southern Baptists among them, say it violates the First Amendment freedoms of religion and speech.

“An effort is being made to silence and in some senses violate the civil rights of the Christian community and even the community at large, irrespective of their faith, if they oppose this non-discrimination policy,” Robert Welch, teaching pastor at Parkhills Baptist Church in San Antonio, told the TEXAN. “They will be discriminated against if they have had any association with an organization that has had discriminatory policies.”

A draft of the proposed ordinance prohibits “appointed officials” and “member[s] of a board or commission” from demonstrating “bias, by word or deed, against any person, groups of persons, or organization on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, age or disability, while acting in such public position.”

“Sexual orientation” and “gender identity” are the categories that have sparked opposition. The ordinance draft labels “bias” against homosexuals as “malfeasance” and authorizes the city council, in what would be unprecedented for a Texas municipality, to “remove the offending person from office.”

Businesses that have contracts with the city must include in their contracts a statement that they do not discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity, according to the draft. The measure could come to a vote this month.

Supporters argue that similar policies in Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin lend credibility to the San Antonio proposal. But Jonathan Saenz, president of Texas Values, told the TEXAN that the San Antonio measure goes further than those cities’ statutes and is “one of the most egregious city ordinances of its type,” effectively barring Christians who believe homosexuality is a sin from serving in city government.

The ordinances in Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin deal with employment and housing discrimination and equal access to public accommodations as they pertain to gender identity and sexual orientation, but say nothing about bias “by word or deed” regarding city officials or boards.

It “jeopardizes and threatens religious freedom and free speech and also tramples on rights of private businesses,” Saenz said. “That is why there is a large and growing group of folks in the San Antonio area and throughout the state that have major concerns with this ordinance.” He added that the opposition is an effort by people of “all different political parties.”

Nearly 120 people signed up to testify against the ordinance at a public hearing Aug. 7, and opposition letters are pouring into city hall, according to Texas Public Radio.

Among the measure’s critics is first-term U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

“Any attempt to bar an individual from public service based on a personal religious conviction is contrary to the liberties guaranteed us under our constitution and should be emphatically opposed,” the Houston Republican said in a statement. “It is encouraging to see so many Texans standing up to defend their religious freedoms in light of the misguided proposal put forth by the local city council.”

Even if the ordinance passes, Saenz said it is likely to lose a legal challenge. Cities that have attempted to enact similar measures, he said, “have been tied up for years in legal challenges and recall elections and court cases.”

Welch worries that the ordinance could exclude from public office any member of a church that teaches homosexuality is a sin. He has mentioned the issue in leadership meetings at Parkhills and urges all San Antonio believers to contact city leaders to express their opposition.

If Christians remain silent on this measure, it could hinder their ability to win people to faith in Christ, Welch said. Believers who do not defend biblical standards in civic life appear selective and hypocritical when they call people to repent in private witnessing encounters, he said.

“If we keep silent at this point on a matter that is most clearly revealed in Scripture to be antithetical to the plans of God, then we have no leg to stand on when we call people to repent of any sin,” Welch said.

There is no evidence that a homosexual or transgendered person has ever faced discrimination in the city government, Saenz said.

“It’s very clear that the folks that define themselves by their sexual orientation and behavior and their gender identity want to use the government to punish people that don’t agree with their lifestyle,” he said. “It’s unfortunate but I think it’s very clear that’s why these ordinances continue to come forward.”

SAN ANTONIO – Due to a perceived slight against homosexuality Senior Master Sgt. Phillip Monk is in a fight for his career. The Lackland Air Force base first sergeant was told Friday by his commanding officer to clear out his office. The point of contention is reportedly not about anything Monk said but what he refused to say.

“It’s all because he didn’t say anything wrong. He thought it,” said Steven Branson, pastor of Village Parkway Baptist Church. Monk, his wife, and their three teenage sons faithfully attend services each Sunday the pastor said.

Branson said Wednesday he has been in touch with Monk since the sergeant told him Sunday of the untenable situation. The pastor said Monk feels abandon by the institution he has served for 19 years. Deployed as a medic, Monk devoted himself to saving the lives of his fellow service men and women, according to his pastor.

“Now I’m in trouble and everybody’s leaving me behind,” Monk told Branson.

At issue is Monk’s refusal to reveal his personal views regarding homosexual marriage to his commanding officer. According to a Fox News report, the commander, a lesbian, asked Monk to report on disciplinary proceedings for an Air Force instructor under investigation for making objectionable comments about homosexual marriage during a training session.

According to Fox News Monk interviewed the instructor and determined his comments were not intentionally provocative. But some trainees complained. Monk suggested his commander use the incident as a learning tool about tolerance and diversity. But she would not be satisfied.

“Her very first reaction was to say, ‘we need to lop off the head of this guy.’ The commander took the position that his speech was discrimination,” Monk reportedly said.

Branson said the commander began to press Monk about his views on the issue.

Fox reported, “She said, ‘Sgt. Monk, I need to know if you can, as my first sergeant, if you can see discrimination if somebody says that they don’t agree with homosexual marriage.’”

Having witnessed the commander’s ire regarding the instructor, Monk balked. He also understood Air Force policy demands silence from homosexual detractors. So Monk refused to answer the question.

“She got angrier and angrier with him,” Branson said. “So he got fired for something she thinks he believes.”

The action will be a mark on an otherwise spotless record. Branson called Monk “pure military”- a real “do-it-by-the-book” service man who also happens to be a strong Christian.

It is because of his faith and the lesson he wants to teach his sons that compels him to take action when no one else would stand for him.

Monk told Branson, “I’m going to teach my boys they can’t run from everything.”

The Liberty Institute in Plano agreed to represent Monk should the need for legal counsel become necessary. And although the family is “low key” and not well known among the congregation, help has come from the church. Branson said members who are experienced news media and military professionals offered counsel on how to negotiate the anticipated onslaught of exposure and scrutiny.

“We’re trying to provide him coverage,” Branson said.

He said the Monk family has faithfully attended Village Parkway Baptist for two years. Though a number of military personnel from Lackland Air Force Base attend the church they do not join because reassignments keep them on the move. But their attendance and involvement in the congregation is encouraged and valued Branson said.

It was one of those seminal moments. There I sat on a brick ledge outside the student center at Wichita State University on one of those warm, picturesque spring days you’d like to bottle up and keep. It was the mid-1980s, and a speaker from Brown University named Cliffe Knechtle had jumped headlong into a Mars Hill-style talk on the lawn as passersby stopped to see what was being peddled during the noon hour.

It wasn’t long before a crowd had gathered as Knechtle boldly, intelligently stated why he believed what he believed.

That day—for the first time—I saw in person the power of a well-reasoned, articulate and winsome defense of the Christian faith. I knew what was true and had believed it since the day God overwhelmed me at age 8. But I had never seen it asserted so smartly and confidently and in such a hostile environment.

Knechtle, wearing a button-down oxford with his sleeves rolled up as I recall, paced back and forth, hands engaged, making his case for God and specifically for Christ with skillful rhetoric. I don’t remember many specifics, except that he referred to “Pascal, the great 17^th-century mathematician. …” Frankly, I’m not sure I knew Pascal from Pasteur, but Knechtle had me making mental notes when he said that Pascal believed man had within him a “God-shaped vacuum” that gravitated toward worship.

I went back that evening to hear him speak to the campus InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and taped his presentation, replaying it several times. He genuinely seemed to enjoy the fray, not for argument’s sake, but for what seemed to be his end game. Apologetics was merely a means.

All these years later, I have benefited from apologetical study, driven mostly out of fear of not knowing answers to potential questions. In fact, it’s a biblical command to be able to give an answer for your hope, but always kindly, respectfully (1 Peter 3:15).

Up until that point, however, I was where too many Christians stay, content to swim in the warm, shallow waters close to shore.

Make no mistake: Apologetical argumentation has never converted a soul. The Holy Spirit does that through the explicit gospel. In fact, some who enjoy an argument too much can be a stumbling block. The goal isn’t to “win the debate” but to lay out the answers. That’s why the Word tells us to be ready. Amazingly, God desires to use us in his work.

Clearly, apologetical study benefits the believer as much as the unbeliever.

An exposure to the best of Christian apologetics should remove objections that Christianity isn’t rational. If the skeptic is willing to follow the evidence historically and logically, he inevitably will come to a decision: Either he will seek more truth, setting up an encounter with the gospel, or he will opt to “suppress the truth in unrighteousness,” a la Romans 1. 

For the believer, though, he cannot defend what he doesn’t know. It seems logical that apologetical study for the Christian would drive biblical literacy and deeper theological understanding. It’s a natural partnership, holding in one hand the foundations of the faith and in the other an ability to defend its validity against all contenders.

What we don’t know should drive us out of fear onto our knees and into greater study to be certified, unashamed workmen for Jesus.

On this last point, ask any parent or grandparent these days about the terror of answering a 7-year-old who wants to know what gay means, or a 9-year-old who wants to know why a doctor would make babies die. They will talk about anything, and at surprisingly young ages. We live in a culture that lets it all hang out.

So for a Christian adult, this is no time for lazy-minded belief. You must not only know what you believe and why you believe it (a first step), but what they believe, why they believe it, and why Jesus towers above the dead gods of this world. 

Our faith is wedded to reason. Can you provide a reasonable, kindly delivered answer for your hope?

If not, or if you need a refresher, I recommend the Confident Christianity Conference on Sept. 6-7 at Hillcrest Baptist Church in Cedar Hill, with leading thinkers such as J.P. Moreland of Biola University and our own Barry Creamer of Criswell College tackling the skepticism and relativism of the age. For more on that, see our story in the latest TEXAN Digital.

The children have come and gone. The props are stored. And though it took some doing, the glitter is finally extracted from the carpet in the senior adult Sunday School room. Another summer of Vacation Bible School is behind us.

VBS is traditionally the bread and butter of church outreach to children across the nation. Southern Baptists conducted about 28,000 VBS programs in 2012. But desiring to extend their influence in the lives of children throughout the year, children’s evangelism strategies are shifting, SBC experts say.

Baptist congregations are now extending their outreach with months-long ministries that engage children on a more consistent basis. While continuing to emphasize evangelism, many churches are rethinking the way children are led to Christ. A new trend embraces child evangelism strategies that help parents understand their role as the primary instruments through which the gospel must be communicated.

“The evangelization of the children happens in the home over time,” said Donna Peavey, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary associate professor of Christian education and lead professor in childhood education.

While children often “graduate out” of church when they become young adults, Peavey said, families continue to hold sway. “We have them for a season. They will always live in their families.”

Equipping parents to evangelize their own children is vital and necessary, Peavey said.  “We should not assume that the parents who come to our churches regularly know how to do this most basic thing with their children.”

Peavey said even competent Christian parents can feel ill-prepared to answer spiritual questions, especially those related to eternal life, noting that parents have often asked her to teach their children the plan of salvation.

But whereas Peavey once gladly accepted that privilege, she now believes that a third party should not be the intermediary in the most profound moment of a child’s life. Parents, no matter how ill-equipped they feel, should not abdicate the responsibility of leading their children to Christ, she said.

Jerry Wooley, LifeWay VBS ministry specialist, said many parents want a church staff member to do the evangelizing.

“I’ve had too many parents say, ‘It’s the pastor’s job,’” Wooley said.

Peavey recently polled seminary and non-seminary parents to quantify the level of family engagement in the spiritual discipline of children. Parents were asked what they value and how often they transmit those values to their children. And while compilation of the data is still underway, initial results were convicting, especially for the seminarians, Peavey revealed.

“There is a high level of value,” Peavey said, “but not enough follow through.”

Trent Worsham, children’s pastor at Lake Pointe Church in Rockwall, has witnessed similar angst and lack of intentionality among parents. He uses a Lake Pointe-authored material called “The Faith Path” to walk parents through the steps of leading their children to salvation.

Designed to be introduced at age-specific milestones beginning with a baby’s dedication, The Faith Path initiative can be modified by the parents to meet their children’s specific needs.

“We equip and encourage the parents,” he said. “We don’t want to take that from them.”

The Faith Path curriculum provides parents with resources on how to begin enduring spiritual conversations with their children. In an introductory video, Lake Pointe Pastor Steve Stroope said Christianity is not a one-time event taking place at a certain age but a “journey that begins long before your child invites Jesus Christ into their lives to be their Lord and Savior.”

But when the Holy Spirit appears to be moving in the life of a child, what is a parent or church member to do? The answer is more easily answered by what not to do.

Most children’s ministries lead children in groups as small as a Sunday School class or as large as Lake Pointe’s 10,000-student VBS program. But Worsham, Peavey and Wooley all believe the group dynamics for children during “come down front” invitations can evoke emotional, rather than eternal, decisions. One-on-one counsel is the most effective tool in determining a child’s readiness to accept the gospel, they say.

During the course of any children’s ministry program, Peavey and Worsham direct children to fill out cards if they have questions or believe they are ready to make a profession of faith. The parents are then notified about their child’s inquiries. But all of the Christian adult leaders in a child’s life must be prepared to lead a child through the plan of salvation when the moment presents itself, they said.

With respect to a determinative “age of accountability,” each of the experts agreed that preschoolers are generally not intellectually and spiritually mature enough to understand the plan of salvation. Therefore, presenting the gospel must be couched in age-appropriate dialogue. The Passion story is a violent one, Peavey said, and it must be tempered so as not to “frighten children into the arms of Jesus.”

“For the youngest preschoolers we’re just trying to introduce them to who Jesus is, not have them walk down the aisle,” Wooley said.

He said children in second through fourth grade begin to demonstrate a grasp of the gospel and prefacing any salvation conversation with questions helps determine if the moment is right.
Worsham asked, “Do they understand what Jesus did? Why do they need salvation? Do they care about spiritual things? Are they mature enough to make a life-changing decision?”

Introducing children from a young age to key words in the plan of salvation prepares them to fully understand them in a gospel presentation context. Peavey said she intentionally used the words “obey, disobey, confess, repent, and forgive” when disciplining her daughter as she grew. Inculcating these words into a child’s vocabulary from an early age deepens their understanding of the gospel, she argued.

But the children’s ministry leaders say they are attuned to changing cultural dynamics in which many families appear too busy to attend church. An increasing percentage of children are raised in one-parent homes. If the parents are neglecting to tell their children about the Lord, churches must do so.

“VBS is the single largest outreach event that we do collectively,” Wooley said. “These families give us a gift with their kids and contact information.”

The follow-up after VBS is the beginning of the evangelistic work but most churches don’t use the opportunity to connect with children and their families. Wooley said, “If we, as Baptists, don’t know how to do evangelism, then who does? Man, we’ve got a big problem.”

LifeWay has since changed the “Follow-Up” portion of its VBS curriculum, calling it “Continued Connections” and recommending VBS directors recruit a team of workers—separate from those who work the VBS program—to commit to contacting children who attended the event and their families.

Peavey said some churches, though not abandoning VBS, are moving away from ministries targeting children toward those that meet the needs of the entire family.

Once a church determines what is needed by the surrounding neighborhood it can design an outreach. Addressing the needs of the ever-changing family structure has proven quite popular and effective.

Some initiatives popular with her church, First Baptist of Kenner, La., focus on empowering and encouraging parents. By enriching the marriage, parenting is improved, she said.

A Parent’s Night Out program gives parents down time while their children are cared for in a Christ-centered environment. Other events like a family movie night and fall festival serve to introduce families to the church in a non-threatening way. And a potty training class drew 75 parents who heard a Scripture-oriented lesson.

Worsham said Lake Pointe shares the same idea of drawing families to one of its four campuses as a way to introduce the church to its neighbors. Members are encouraged to invite unchurched friends to events—a tactic proven to be the impetus for church growth and a means to demonstrate its care for community.

Ultimately, child evangelism is the role of all believers, Peavey said.

“All of this goes back to the Shema” (in Deuteronomy 6:4-9), she said, adding that all believers share a responsibility to ensure the following generations know and love the Lord. “When we invest our lives in them, genuinely, that’s a powerful relationship. You never know the impact you are having on the life of a child.”

For more information on Lake Pointe’s children’s curriculum, The Faith Path, visit lakepointe.org/faithpath.