Are your views now different to the ones you grew up with? Can there be beauty in losing everything? Do you use your privilege to be an ally for marginalized groups? In this podcast episode, Billy speaks to Pastor Israel Hogue about his evolving faith journey and becoming an LGBTQ ally. Meet Pastor Israel Hogue With over 30yrs experience in ministry, Israel Hogue brings both wisdom and experience to Simplicity. Israel joined the Simplicity Church community in June of 2018, and he’s been shaking things up ever since. Through scripture, stories, humor, and emotion, Israel’s sermons are educational, meaningful, and offer practical lessons and teachings for real-life application. Visit Israel’s website. Connect on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. In This Podcast Summary * Israel’s move to Oklahoma * Having a different view * Going from Side A to Side B * The beauty in losing everything * Having the privilege to recover * The inspiration to be better and keep on going Israel’s move to Oklahoma Sometimes you only learn by doing. You only learn by making the mistakes because you just don’t know where the landmines are until you step on a couple. In 1992, Israel chose to leave BIOLA (Bible Institute of Los Angeles) and return to Oklahoma. He knew that he had a call to God, he knew that he wanted to be in ministry, and he didn’t want to wait until the end of school to start doing something. Israel knew that he would be able to get a job at the church that his dad had started, and was very excited about the move. He started out as an associate, helping out the youth pastor at the time. That youth pastor then moved on to another position and Israel took over. He and his family were going to make things right that were wrong in their own lives and in their family. As he looks back on it, Israel realizes how naive he was. He has changed so much since those moments but they were still exciting. Having a different view Israel’s sermons talk about social issues, marginalized groups, LGBTQ, Black Lives Matter, etc. These aren’t things that were being worked on when he moved to the very conservative Southern Nazarene University. Israel remembers a particular class in Biology Psychology that made him realize that some people are born gay and the whole argument from the religious fundamentalists that you can’t be “born that way” was thrown out for him. This took Israel to a place of “What does that mean?” Israel calls this going from side A to side B (a phrase he learned from other LGBTQ sibling and allies): * Side A – The Christian fundamentalist thing that says gay is a sin and an abomination. * Side B – Being open and affirming that it is not a sin. God makes you that way and He loves you that way. You can be a full member of the Kingdom of God even in your LGBTQ’ness Going from Side A to Side B And what our business is, as God people, Jesus people, is just to love people where they are and let them love God where they are. And we’ll all just go together and make a giant, big, beautiful family. How Israel changed his way of thinking and moved over to Side B: First move Understanding that God makes some people this way but some people who are gay or lesbian are like that because of trauma and they’r...