How should the church reach out to the LGBT+ community?

                I recently got into a rather heated discussion posted by a priest who wrote an article for TIME magazine that was saying that we need to accept the LGBT+ community in the church. I disagree with it based on the implied idea that the word accept brings to the table, that the church would be signaling that homosexuality and those forms of sexual immorality are ok. While the article itself was only talking about reaching out and welcoming the LGBT+ community into the church instead of excluding them like some churches are accused of, I doubt people were reading it fully and just running with the headline, much like I did in the first part of this paragraph. The question I want to pose is, how should the church reach out to the LGBT community? What I want to do here is to look at some scripture in the old and New Testament to show that homosexuality is indeed a moral sin, and not just a ceremonial law that was fulfilled when Christ came and that Christians are picking and choosing. Next I want to show that we can reach out the same way that we reach out to everybody else, because homosexuality is a sin just like every other in the eyes of God.

                First we all are probably familiar with Leviticus 18:22 “Do not lie with a man as you would with a woman, this is an abomination to God”, but there are also references in the New Testament that also forbid homosexuality and other forms of sexual immorality. Romans 1:25-27 says “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created sthings rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise! Amen. For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and reveived in themselves the due penalty for their error.” 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 says” Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolater nor adulterers nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

                So we see that even in the New Testament homosexual acts are sinful. However, we also see that you can turn from that, much like all the other sins listed in the 1 Corinthians passage. We also see that the scriptures speak of the homosexual acts. I think that even if the “born this way” argument proves true, one can choose to be celibate so as to avoid sexual sin. So how does this come to reaching out to the LGBT community? I think that they aren’t already condemned and that we have shown that above is a place to start from where the church has left off, in that the LGBT+ community is supposedly beyond saving. Now then, there are plenty of us with friends or acquaintances in the LGBT+ community, so we can start there, and live as Christ did and be a holy example so that they can see the true love of Christ, not the hate that the mainstream media wants people to believe that we are spreading. Anything that I have missed? Any other thoughts? I would love to have a discussion so we can start building some relationships and bringing Christ to everyone. May God bless you and have a good rest of your day.