"Love Beyond Belief" is the guiding principle for Southridge Community Church

It’s been six months since Southridge Community Church in St. Catharines, Ont. was expelled from the Ontario Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches over its stance on welcoming and affirming LGBTQ+ people and same-sex marriage. 

Since I had done a follow up with Estuary Church, formerly Cedar Park, about how they were doing after leaving the British Columbia Mennonite Brethren Conference, I thought I would check in with Southridge pastor Jeff Lockyer to see about an update. 

“Nothing much to report on our end,” he replied. “We enjoyed a terrific ‘Love Beyond Belief’ celebration service the Sunday after our denominational expulsion, being able to fully and equally include followers of Jesus who hold both convictions on the biblical definition of marriage.” 

Since then, he said, “things have been rather quiet on that front, allowing us to stay focused on embodying Jesus and incarnating His love to a greater degree.” 

“Love Beyond Belief?” I was intrigued. What was that all about? How did they arrive at it? And how has the congregation responded? So I asked Jeff. In reply, he pointed me to a message he gave in February 2023 on this topic. A summary of that message is below. 

In the message, Lockyer began by telling the story of Tony and Michelle, a couple who used to attend another church before coming to Southridge. 

At their previous church, the two were required to sign a statement of beliefs in order to be part of the congregation. 

One of those beliefs was a statement opposed to same-sex marriage. Tony and Michelle couldn’t sign it—their son is gay. 

When they came to Southridge to inquire about being part of that church, Lockyer told them there were members who also believed in a traditional definition of marriage along with those who had an affirming view. 

But that was OK, he said, because the church had worked to create space for both points of view through its approach of “love beyond belief.” 

The two circles were distinct, but through that approach overlapped to stay together.  

That, Lockyer said, “represents the journey our community is on . . . people who hold both views are one family.” Tony and Michelle were invited to be part of it—an invitation they accepted. 

Southridge’s journey goes back early to mid 2000s, Lockyer went on to say. 

We had a problem to solve . . . the negative impact the Christian faith and their own church had, and was having, on LGBTQ+ people

“We had a problem to solve,” he said. That problem was the negative impact the Christian faith and their own church had, and was having, on LGBTQ+ people. 

That impact, he said, was different from the impact “Jesus had on people when he walked the earth.” 

The church committed itself to solve that problem by bridging what it called “the impact gap” between who Christ was and how the Christian faith was experienced by LGBTQ+ people. 

But soon the church realized it had another problem: The  radioactive division that came with trying to talk about these issues among Christians

That seemed all fine and good. But soon the church realized it had another problem on its hands: “The intensity of polarization and the radioactive division that came with trying to talk about these issues among Christians,” as Lockyer put it. 

Christians, he said, were “harshly divided” about this matter, a division that seemed insurmountable. 

“We wondered how God would be able to neutralize these divisions to create a safety of space that we could see the impact on LGBTQ+ people changed,” he said. 

That’s when God directed them to passages in scripture they had not paid much attention to, he said. 

It’s in the book of Romans, in chapter 14, where Paul addresses an issue dividing the church in Rome: Whether it was acceptable to eat meat offered to idols and whether it was OK not to observe the sabbath. 

Those two issues were tearing the church apart. 

Eating meat offered to idols and keeping the sabbath were tearing the church apart. Paul called these disputable matters

Paul’s response was to call them “disputable matters,” not foundational to whether or not someone was following Christ, Lockyer said. 

Paul, he said, was trying to bring together these two independent circles so they could “co-exist as people of diverse convictions in the same community.” 

Paul did not say that people on both sides have to give up their convictions,  Lockyer noted. In fact, he urged them to continue to hold them.  

But he also said one other thing: While it was OK for them to hold their positions for and against eating meat offered to idols and observing or not observing the sabbath, they should not judge those who don’t hold the same convictions. 

“Your job is not to force them on other people, and not judge other people who hold different convictions than yours,” Lockyer said, interpreting Paul. 

“Be a bridge builder, pursue oneness . . . Let us make every effort to do what leads to peace and mutual edification. Don’t destroy the work of God for the sake of food.” 

Those passages in Romans opened up a new way for Southridge to view same-sex marriage

Those passages opened up a new way for Southridge to view the topic of same-sex marriage, Lockyer said. “We see it as a disputable matter,” he said, adding the goal is to “build a bridge of love and oneness” between the perspectives. 

Ah, but that’s the challenge. What for some might be seen as disputable is, for others, a matter of absolute bedrock Christian faith. Not disputable at all, in other words. 

For Lockyer, the answer to that is in the foundation of Christian faith going back to the Reformation. “Our belief is in grace and faith alone, in Christ alone,” he said. “Anything added to that dilutes the purity and simplicity of the message and person of Christ.” 

Southridge also found support in Matthew 22, where the religious rulers of Jesus’ day tried to trip him up by asking what would happen to a woman who married seven times—whose husband would she be in the afterlife? 

Jesus, he said, refused to be backed into a corner. In eternity, Jesus said, people will not be married or given in marriage. 

If marriage wasn't a big deal to Jesus in his reply to the religious rulers, why are Christians today making it a bigger deal?

Or, as Lockyer put it, if it wasn’t a big deal to Jesus, “we wondered if we were making a bigger deal” of marriage than Jesus intended. “It was not essential or eternal.” 

That, he concluded, is the “journey God had us on . . . this is the way we feel we want to be as a community. This is the disputable matters framework. We want to live in peace, not judge each other. It is love beyond belief.” 

That doesn’t mean it’s been easy, he said. But it is doable. “People are not asked to change their views, but they are asked to develop a spirit to live in unity and harmony with people of different views.” 

That goes for people on both sides, both traditional and affirming views of marriage, he said, adding “we feel we have neutralized that polarization in our church by inviting people from both views to a safe environment.” 

For Lockyer, God has led Southridge to a place where they are “one community united around ‘love beyond belief.’” 

Read more posts on this blog about Southridge here.