Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. – James 1:19

On June 12th, a gunman entered an Orlando homosexual bar and opened fire killing 49, and wounding dozens more before being killed. When that happened, my first instinct was to write on it, but James 1:19 kept running through my brain. I decided to wait and listen to what everyone else said before writing anything, and to be honest, I almost deleted this. In my mind, there is already a plethora of voices speaking on this, and I though what good would it do for me to add my voice to the chaos. Then a lady from church emailed me and asked why I had not said anything. What follows is from a pastor’s heart and from a pastoral perspective. Because it is from a pastoral perspective, this will probably make all of us uncomfortable at some point. Whether you are a Christian, claiming to be a Christian, or a non-Christian, odds are this will touch a nerve at some point. As a pastor, I am charged, along with the other elders, with the responsibility and honor of caring for the people of God that He has entrusted to us. That means, on the front end you should know that no matter where you come from, or what brought you to this blog, my intention is to speak the truth of Scripture in love. To that end, I ask that you read this completely and judge the merits of what I have to say against Scripture. I have no interest in adding my own opinion. My opinion doesn’t matter for anything if it is out of step with the revealed Word of God. That is my authority and that is what Christians submit to. This is aimed specifically at believers.