Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 What Questions Should I Be Asking about LGBTQ Youth Ministry?
2 What if I Encounter Resistance Establishing an LGBTQ Youth Ministry?
3 Should I Set up a Program Exclusively for LGBTQ Youth? Or Just Practice Inclusivity?
4 How Much Should We Focus on Issues Other than Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity?
5 How Jesus-y Should Our Program Be?
6 What do LGBTQ Youth Want to Be Called?
7 What Is the Big Deal About Names?
8 How Can the Church Help Youth Wrestle with Identity Questions?
9 What Holy Days and Rituals Do LGBTQ Youth Observe? Are These Even Christian?
10 What Rituals Exist for Personal LGBTQ Milestones?
11 When Should We Be Serious and Heavy? When Should We Be Fun and Campy?
12 What Part of an LGBTQ Youth's Story Do I Need to Believe?
13 When Should I Keep Confidence and When Should I Report?
14 What Kind of Adult Should Lead LGBTQ Youth Ministry?
15 What Relationship Guidelines Can the Church Teach LGBTQ Youth?
16 What is Faithful LGBTQ Sex Education?
17 When Is It Important to Know a Person's Gender? Why Would It Be Necessary?
18 What about Sleeping Arrangements?
19 I've Divided Youth into Small Groups by Gender. What Should I Do Now?
20 How Can We Queer the Youth Ministry Experience?
21 What about Queering Youth Ministry Songs?
22 How Might LGBTQ Youth Influence Bible Study?
23 What About Working With Other Ministry Organizations That Don't Share My Values about LGBTQ People?
24 What Happens To LGBTQ Youth outside My Youth Group?
25 Now What?
Appendix A Resources on the Christian Argument for LGBTQ Equality and Acceptance
Appendix B LGBTQ Christian Organizations
Appendix C LGBTQ Holy Days
Appendix D Other Helpful Resources

About the Author

Ross Murray is the founding director of The Naming Project, a faith-based youth ministry and summer camp for LGBTQ youth and their allies. He has worked with youth and families in a variety of settings and presented LGBTQ youth ministry around the world.


In his day job, Ross is vice president at the GLAAD Media Institute, providing activist, spokesperson, and media-engagement training and education for LGBTQ community members, corporations, and advocacy organizations desiring to accelerate acceptance for the LGBTQ community. Ross has secured national media interest in stories that bring examples of LGBTQ equality across diverse communities in America, with a specialty in the relationship between religion and LGBTQ people.


Ross is an ordained deacon in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, with a specific calling to advocate for LGBTQ people and to bridge LGBTQ and faith communities. He is a producer for the Yass Jesus podcast, a faith and sexuality affirming podcast that believes you don't have to pick between gay and God. In 2014, he was named one of Mashable's "10 LGBT-Rights Activists to Follow on Twitter."