Statements
Mission
Local churches are the best place for gay Christians to find the teaching, pastoral care, and community they need to thrive in their relationships with God and others according to a traditional sexual ethic. But most pastors, parents, and Christian leaders don't feel like they have what they need to provide those best things. We equip leaders with the tools and strategy to transform their churches into places where gay people thrive according to God's teachings.
Background
EQUIP was founded in 2014 by Pieter Valk to meet the need for a Church that has the understanding and tools to better love and serve LGBT+ persons.
Impact
EQUIP's staff of three has worked with 36 churches and universities, including a 4,500 student private Christian university and a 3,000 member church in the Nashville area. We've trained over 3,300 faith leaders at 160 trainings for 7,400 hours of training, including pastors, lay leaders, small group leaders, general church members, senior level university administrators, student leaders, campus ministers, resident assistants, university faculty, mission trip leaders, and parents.
Of the Christian leaders trained, 85% say they feel ready to have respectful conversations about sexual ethics, 90% feel better prepared to minister to sexual minorities, and 94% found EQUIP trainings to be effective or very effective.
In the coming years, we look forward to working with more churches, developing new training content for pastors and parents of women as well as parents of young children, adding new members to the EQUIP Team, and ensuring the financial security of the work of EQUIP for years to come.
Needs
Connect with EQUIP to help us meet our most pressing needs this year: New members of the EQUIP Team to multiply the impact of our work, passionate members of the community to help steward the work of EQUIP by serving as members of the Board of Directors, partner churches who want to become churches where sexual minorities can belong, members of the community to host Kitchen Table Conversations in their homes to stir up conversation for the transformation of the culture toward LGBT+ persons in the Church, and members of the community to give to the work of EQUIP so that we can continue to equip the Church to better love sexual minorities.
CEO Statement
Equipping our churches to better love LGBT+ persons is a work fraught with land mines, but we believe its worth the risk. Here's a few more things you should know about EQUIP: (1) We don't tell pastors or churches what to believe. Instead, we want to equip them with the understanding and tools to minister to sexual minorities according to their community's beliefs and the goals of the individual. (2) From my Master's level training in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, EQUIP takes a different approach to ministry. Instead of focusing on what people ought to do, we concentrate on the purposes God created us for and how we all attempt to meet those needs amidst a broken world. (3) We are missionaries sent by friends of EQUIP and partner churches to train new churches free of charge. Would you come on mission with us so that we can serve more churches? (4) Nashville is our laboratory, and we look forward to sharing our model with faith leaders in other cities. (5) Some ministries serve LGBT+ persons directly, and we celebrate their stories every day. We know we have been called to a ministry of multiplication where we equip churches so they can directly minister to sexual minorities for generations to come.
Board Chair Statement
What do we believe? We want to equip you to love people well, not tell you what to believe. We do this by offering church communities a robust theology, awareness of the universality of broken intimacy, and practical tools to transform the way all Christians do relationship. We know that the most goodness can be found in relationship with God and other people and taking part in making the world a better place.God calls the Church to love and serve those who experience same-sex attraction regardless of what their journeys look like.God loves LGBT people and values the gifts, talents, and fellowship they can offer the Body of Christ.God promises a lifetime of sanctification and provision of fullness through Christ to all who seek faithfully.People do not choose who they are attracted to, but they can choose how they respond. While we affirm and teach from a traditional sexual ethic, we respect all people's right to follow their own paths.
Service Categories |
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| Primary Category: | Human Services - LGBT Centers |
| Secondary Category: | Religion- Related - Religion-Related NEC |
| Tertiary Category: | - |
Areas Served
| TN - Davidson |
