GCN Radio - April 25, 2008
Transcribed by Smudge

To listen to this episode, visit http://www.gaychristian.net/gcnradio

JUSTIN: Let's start with a moment of silence.

[Silent pause +/- 10 seconds]

[GCN Radio Intro]

JUSTIN: Well hello everyone and welcome to GCN Radio. I'm Justin, and you can probably tell from the tone in my voice today that this is not going to be a regular GCN Radio episode.

If this is your first time listening to this show by the way, welcome, we are certainly happy to have you listening and I hope you enjoy it, but you might want to listen to one of our other shows first, they are all achieved on our website. Just coz this isn't really going to be a normal show.

I was preparing for this show for today and I have a great interview already to go but I am going to save it for next week. It's a really great guest and it's really great hearing from her but I am not going to play that interview this week. I decided to do something different because as I was getting the show ready today I was thinking about the fact that today is the National Day of Silence.

Now many of you are probably familiar with the Day of Silence. If you are not it is a project of the GLSEN, the Gay Lesbian & Straight Education network and basically the Day of Silence is a day when students both gay and straight all across the country choose to remain silent during the school day. In some cases there's silent evening classes, sometimes it's just lunch, whatever, depends on how to work that out so as not to be disruptive but they are silent in honor of the fact that, or observation of the fact that many students, many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered students are effectively silenced. They're silence because they are afraid that if they were honest about themselves, about who they are, about what they feel, about what they think, that they would be subject to bullying. Not just bullying but harassment, name calling, rejection from their peers.

I'll go beyond that and go beyond that by saying that many of them are silenced by the fact that they are afraid of what their parents would say or what their teachers would say, of course what their friends would say, what the church would say if they knew the truth about them.

I was thinking about what a tragedy it is that so many people in this world not just students, not just youth but so many people in this world are living in fear are hiding because they are afraid. They are afraid of what would happen if they were honest, if people knew the truth. And so I was thinking with today being the Day of Silence I wanted to do something to honor that, to recognize that, and rather do a regular show with music and joking and fun and questions, interviews, guests and all that stuff I'd like to just take a few minutes to think about what this day signifies. To think about the silence that so many people in this country and in this world have in their lives. I say in this country because The Day of Silence, as far as I know is just a US thing although if it is being observed outside of the US, I'd love to know so those of you who are listeners outside of the US, let me know. Is the day of silence something that is going on out there or not.

Regardless, I think it's worth thinking about. It's worth praying about and it's worth talking about. So I was thinking about the best way to observe this day of silence, well, we could not do a show, or we could do a show that was silent for half an hour but I'm not sure that really accomplishes anything. So what I'd like to do instead is give you the chance to break the silence.

So I'm going to talk for a few minutes and as I'm talking I want to ask you, as you are listening to this show, to think about what isn't being said in your life and all of our lives. What silence needs to be broken? What truths aren't being told? The Day of Silence today is in honor of Lawrence King. We have talked a little about his story on this show before. Many of you may have heard a little about him in the media. He was a 15 year old student in California and he was shot and killed while sitting in class back in February. He was killed by a classmate who was 14 years old.

[Extended pause]

Now I'm grateful that many of you listening to this show are not living in fear of being murdered because of being gay, but some of you may be. And those of us who don't live in fear of being murdered may live in fear of other things. We may live in fear of just being rejected. We may live in fear of what other people will say, how other people will react. Some people may be living in fear of losing their job if they come out. Some people may be living in fear of losing their support in the church or losing their parents admiration and respect.

Many of you may already be out and you may not be living in fear. But we need to stop and recognize those of who are not living in fear, those of us who are out who have friends who support us who live in a place where we can be open about who we are and not to have to worry about it. We need to remember that is not the case everywhere that many of our brothers and sisters are living in fear. We need to offer our voices of support to them. We need to speak up, for them, because they are silent. Now I don't mean to get all melodramatic on you here but I have heard from so many people because of doing this show, because I am the executive director of the Gay Christian Network, I've heard from so many kids and adults who are terrified and they are deep, deep in the closet so I know this is a reality.

I have heard from some of you who listen to this show who have attempted suicide in the past. That is never the answer. Let me say right now that it never ever the answer. If you ever find yourself feeling that way, tell someone you can trust. You absolutely must, because I promise you no matter what is going on, no matter how bad it seems, there is something out there that is a better alternative than ending your life. I promise you there is.

So I want to break the silence today and here's how I want to do it. If you listen to this show regularly you know our number - It's 888-GAY-4-GOD (888-429-4463). I'd like for you to call. Just call. Usually I say call or write. But today I want to say just call, because this is about silence and we want to break it, and we want to break it as vocally as we can. When you call, you'll get a menu, hit 3 to take you to the GCN Radio menu, that will take you to the GCN voicemail for the question of the week, and when that question of the week voicemail beeps, I want you to just leave a short message. Don't say your name. Don't preface it with anything, just say what is on your heart that needs to be said, the silence that needs to be broken.

Maybe you are deep in the closet and what you need to do is call and say out loud "I'm gay, and nobody knows". We won't identify you in any way. We're just going to play these later on after I get all of these together, I'm just going to play them to break the silence. So maybe you just need to say "I am gay". You'll just a voice on the radio to everybody else but for you you'll know that you have spoken up. And if you are too afraid to even have your voice out there, you can just whisper it. No one is going to recognize you from a whisper. No one is going to recognize you anyway because if anyone is listening to this show, then they are already supportive, right? We won't say where you're from or what your name is or anything. So maybe you just need to come out and just say "I'm gay". Maybe you have something else you need to say. Maybe you need to say "stop bullying me". Maybe there's somebody in your office or at school who is, man, just bullying you. So say on our voicemail what you need to say to them.

Maybe it's your not silence that needs to be broken but its other people's and you need to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves. Maybe you need to leave a message to America on behalf of today's gay youth. Maybe you are not a gay youth but you have a message on behalf of them to say "Hey what you're doing to these kids is not cool". Or maybe you have a message to today's youth. You know what, they don't hear a lot of positive Christian messages. A lot of them think that the last place in the world they would ever be accepted is in a church. They think God doesn't want anything to do with them, at least not the Christian idea of God. Maybe that's the silence that needs to be broken. Then you need to give them a message that hey "God loves you", or whatever God has put on your heart to say.

Right now God may be putting something into your spirit that needs to be said. Something you have not been able to say. Something others haven't been able to say. Something others need to hear. And I want you to take whatever it is and call our hot line 888-GAY-4-GOD, (888-429-4463). I know it may me nerve wracking. Maybe you have never called before and it's absolutely nerve wracking to call and maybe you have been to listening to this show or maybe this is your first time and you are just so nervous but it's not going to be a person on the other end. You don't; have to be nervous about that, it's just a voice mail box. You just leave your message. We won't identify you, we'll just play it. Whatever it is that God is putting on your heart, just call us 888-429-4463. Hit that number for GCN Radio and leave that message, just something short. I know some of you may be listening to this and going "What is Justin doing today?" You know, we do this shoe every week, we got a lot of cool guest coming in the weeks ahead. We got a lot of fun stuff. You know me, I like to joke around. I like to talk about food, music...I like to talk about food a lot! I like to have fun but sometimes I think it's important to be serious you know.

If this show is not your cup of tea, you can turn it off - you don't have to listen to it, but if you feel this is important and if God's put something on your heart to say then call us and say it. What I'm going to do it wrap this show up and after it's all done I'm going to wait and give you a chance to call and leave your messages. Then I am going to collect the messages, and by the way if you not hearing the show on the Day of Silence which is Friday, if you are hearing it later in the week, still call. You have all week to call in from now until next Friday. I'm going to collect all those messages next Friday and I'm going to put them together and play them on a show. Together we're going to inspire each other and break that silence because sometimes, you know, the most powerful thing isn't a law that we pass or some big event that we organize. Sometimes the most powerful thing is out testimonies and how God uses them in other people's lives and you think to yourselves "if I call in and leave this message, what good will it do, no one else gets it. No one else would know who I am and it wouldn't be important to anyone else" and yet it is. You would be amazed. God will speak to other people through what it is you have to say. So call in and leave your message and we'll hear what it is that people have on their hearts.

So I apologize to those of you who think I have like totally gone off the deep end. This is kind of crazy for GCN Radio right, but I don't know, this is what was on my heart today. You know if I can't be honest, if I can't be venerable with you guys and this is what was on my heart and this is God just seem to be saying to me that this was the kind of show to do today, If I can be honest with you about that then, you know, how can I expect you guys to be honest, so this is...I don't, I don't have anything really prepared and you can probably tell that but I felt it was time for a break and today was just the right day so hopefully you're moved to break that silence so just say one more time: if you are still sitting on the fence about whether or not to call in, you think other people will call in, yeah, they may be thinking that too, so you call in. YOU...call in. Come out. Or express that anger if you need to yell, you can yell. If you need to cry, you can cry. If you need to whisper, you can whisper. I am emotional about this and I hope you are too that this is just so wrong for kids to think that God doesn't love them, or for anyone to think that God doesn't love them, or that their family doesn't love them, or their friends don't love them. For people to think that they will be killed, or beaten up or harassed, or made fun of or anything else because of something that they can't help. Because of who they are, because they are gay, because they are trans. That's just wrong. That's not God's best for us. That's not what God's called us to. And we need to do something about it and it starts by just saying "hey this is what's God's putting on my heart". That's not the end of it, it's just the beginning. I think it's a good place to start. We'll talk about it more on a future show but for now call in, say what's on your heart and I'm going to wrap up the show.

Thank you for sticking with me. I know this has been kind of an odd show. Different. Send me your feedback. You can do that through our website which is at www.gaychristian.net/gcnradio. There's a text box there where you can send in your comments. As I mentioned our toll free number where you can leave voice comments and where you can give us your message to break the silence today is 888-GAY-4-GOD.

As always you can listen to this show in iTunes anytime. You can also download all of the episodes we've had over the last few years off of our website. Today if you're not living in fear, if you're reconciled to God, if you know that God loves you, be happy, you're fortunate. You're blessed! Life is good. You know whatever else is going on in life, life is good. Because God has let you know that you are okay, that God loves you and if you have known that for many years or your whole life, it may be hard to imagine how anyone can not know it, yet some people don't. If you are out there and if you don't that, if you don't know God loves you, or you don't know if other people love you and you feel like you are all alone, you are not all alone and God loves you! You need to know that. Thanks for listening guys. And as always....everyone, everywhere, if you're a kid, if you're an adult, whoever you are, Jesus, God's son died for you! I don't care what anyone else says, I don't care if they make you feel like you have to hide everything inside, I don't care if they beat you up, they threaten you, whatever they do there is one thing they cannot change and that is that Jesus died for you and God loves you.br />
[Closing music]