Serving God's Kingdom with a Bold Step
Introducing you to... Pieter Valk
Over the next six posts, I want to feature the work of friends. When I look back at the last 20+ years of my life, I am shocked by the people the Lord has put into my life. Incredible people doing incredible things; people I’m humbled to say I even know. Some of these people you know, and other are more hidden. I’d like to introduce you to some of them now.
What do you do if you’re gay, want to live a Christian life, but know that it is not good for man to be alone? What do you do if you read the words of St. Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 7:32-35, 38) and feel the pull of your heart to serve the kingdom of God in the way he’s describing, but feel the church has no place for you?
You step out in faith. You answer the call. You take a risk.
A few weeks ago, I watched with pride (the good kind) as a friend stood in front of a full church and made a lifetime commitment to vocational singleness. The witnesses were gay and straight; Protestant, Catholic, unbelievers; married and single; clergy and laity; young and old. Pieter promised to refrain from romance, dating, and sex. He promised to steward his finances with modest and generosity. He promised to live according to the covenant of the Nashville Family of Brothers Monastery (more about them in a bit). And he promised to love them as his family–whomever they might be someday.
All of that is a risk. And all of that is only possible with God’s help. And so at every commitment, he promised, “I will, the Lord being my helper.”
I met Pieter four years ago when our paths crossed in the ministry world. He asked me to be on his Pastoral Advisory Board, and after some discernment, I accepted. If I’m going to be honest with my initial thoughts about the invitation, they went something along the lines of: “Can I do this? Am I allowed? I'm a female, and everyone else is clergy in their church. Is this okay? Pieter is gay and ministers to gays. Is this okay?”
Sometimes it takes a lot of prayerful discernment to clear through what is in your heart and mind validly, and what is there mistakenly. My friendship with Pieter has been a gift; it has helped me sort through what I believe because of truth, versus what I believe out of fear or misunderstanding.
I think that’s what the Holy Father is getting to with all this talk of accompaniment.
I can’t and won’t claim to have accompanied Pieter–not like some have. But in many ways (he might not realize), Pieter accompanied me. It was an honor to serve on his pastoral advisory board and to encourage him in the very difficult work he had undertaken to fill gaps in ministry that are only getting wider.
Pieter has founded the Nashville Family of Brothers, an ecumenical monastery for men called to vocational singleness. While Pieter identifies as gay, it is not an intrinsic part of the brotherhood. Rather, it is a family so that those who feel called to vocational singleness can live it in a healthy way.
In NFOB’s own words, “We pray that brothers would find stable, life-giving family in our community, serving as a physical embodiment of God’s love and drawing brothers deeper into relationship with Jesus. In turn, right relationship with God and right relationship with each other will empower us to leverage our singleness for the sake of the kingdom. Brothers commit to vocational singleness: a lifetime calling to abstinent singleness for the sake of kingdom work with undivided attention. This includes permanently giving up romance and dating in order to leverage one’s availability to do kingdom work parents struggle to find the time, energy, focus, or financial freedom to do.”
Pieter’s kingdom work includes Equip, the non-profit that he founded to train (and equip!) churches to minister to gay Christians who desire to live according to a biblical sexual ethic.
During my time on the pastoral advisory board, I had the opportunity to lead part of their spring silent retreat for current Brothers (who take 1-year and 3-year commitments before taking lifetime commitments) and men who were discerning joining the Family. It was an honor to pray with those men and to lead them in reflection. They are wonderful guys who are striving to serve the Lord and do his Will. I’ve had the pleasure of sharing dinners with them and playing boardgames with them, and their joyful witness of family life is a testament in a culture that lures them to live life differently.
I’ll be honest (again). When I look at Pieter’s work–both with NFOB and Equip–it grieves me as I wonder if there’s actually a place for him in the Catholic Church. It’s not that he doesn’t believe what the Catholic Church teaches. He does–more than some Catholics I know! But I’ve worked in and around the Church long enough to know that many in the Church are ruled by fear. And fear breeds distrust and hesitation. If you’re ruled by fear, you will run from Pieter’s work, not support it.
And in doing so, you will ostracize countless people. People who find themselves unable to get married for various reasons, and yet in need of intimacy and love (because we’re human, and that’s the way we’re made).
During the ceremony, Church of Christ minister JP Conway spoke about what Pieter was promising. We all knew that it is foreign to the culture–life without sex, dating, marriage. But he reminded us that it has also become unfamiliar to the Christian culture to which most of the people sitting in the pews belonged. He admitted that most preachers simply ignore Luke 18:28-30 or 1 Corinthians 7:32-35. Marriage has become an idol, a given, a sign of maturity. (This is something that is addressed very well in Equip’s course for parents.)
While JP joked that a friend asked him, “Is Pieter Catholic?” I had to sit there, as a Catholic, and admit to myself that what Pieter was doing would look odd to most Catholics, too. We would try to put him in the priest box, until we found out he understood correctly that celibacy requires community. Then we’d try to send him to a religious order, until we found out he was gay. Then we’d say… I don't know. Go make some nice friends with some other single people?
As we prayed together that evening–reading Scripture, praising God in song, praying the Our Father and professing the Nicene Creed–the words of the Psalmist rang true: “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!”
If you would have told Joan ten years ago that she’d be worshipping God in the Historic Epworth Methodist Church, now the home of the Luminous Anglican parish, with two Anglican bishops and a couple of Church of Christ ministers, witnessing her gay Christian friend commit to celibacy, she might have been a little scared.
But perfect love casts out fear. And when I saw those seven men promise to receive Pieter as their brother and love him faithfully, tears came to my ears as easily as goosebumps appeared on my arms. Pray for Pieter. May God who has begun the good work in him bring it to fulfillment.
This is BEAUTIFUL.