Check out this interview with Nick Taylor, the lead pastor of Calvary: the Hill in Seattle, WA, a church that has partnered with Equip to train their leaders and educate the congregation around vocational singleness. Learn more about Calvary the Hill Church at calvarythehill.com.
For readers who don’t know Calvary: the Hill, can you tell us a little about your church, your neighborhood in Capitol Hill, and why questions around sexuality and gender are such a live pastoral reality in your context?
Capitol Hill is the LGBTQ capitol of the Pacific Northwest, with several gay bars and rainbow sidewalks. Over the last few decades our city has been a haven for this community and has become a cultural hotspot for progressive activism in the PNW. Cal Anderson Park, named after the state’s first openly gay state legislator, sits right across the street from our church building.
Calvary: The Hill started in 2010, and we met in apartments, houses, bars, and dance studios for four years before we settled into our current building, erected in 1906. We were able to purchase this historic building in 2020, following the CHOP (Capitol Hill Organized Protest). Our church has always had LGBTQ visitors, and we have always wanted to be a church that honored the LGBTQ community, even while we offer the historic Christian sexual ethic as part of what it means to follow Christ.
You’ve said your church wants to be a strong advocate for both God’s love and God’s wisdom for LGBT+ people. Why do you think that balance is so hard for churches to embody, and what have you learned about holding both together in real pastoral ministry?
Yes, our very first mission statement was “Committed to Capitol Hill in truth and love,” so we have long felt that desire to hold the truth and the love of God in balance in how we minister to this community. It’s a hard balance in our current cultural climate that demands you choose a “side” for every issue and therefore lose all nuance in the process. Because of that, we have steered clear of utilizing social media as an avenue for speaking about these issues. Rather, we have tried to embrace clarity, both on our website and in our day to day church life. We aren’t “sorry” for our stance, but we recognize that following Jesus will come at a cost, a cost that we are willing to bear alongside you, even as we bear our own burdens.
Part of embodying the love aspect is listening to every person. Not all LGBTQ people are the same. As Preston Sprinkle says, “If you’ve met one LGBTQ person, you’ve met… one LGBTQ person.” We have embraced that in our church. We’re not phased by an LGBTQ visitor. We expect them. And even if they are the most flamboyant person we’ve ever seen, we don’t necessarily address that right off the bat. We seek to know their name and whatever part of their story they are willing to share with us that day. Basically, we invite them into relationship. Now, if they ask us what our stance is on these issues, we will tell them right away, but if they don’t ask, we don’t assume it’s top of mind for them all the time.
You recently shared that one strength of a smaller church is the ability to build real relationships and address tension personally, with a lot of trust already in place. Can you share a recent conversation that captures what that has looked like in practice and what that experience taught you about honesty, empathy, and trust?
We are in relationship with a trans person who once wrote a one star review of our church, and then later wrote a five star review of our church. We’ve been in relationship with this person for years, and suffice it to say it’s been an “up and down” relationship. But we’ve stuck it out, and made it clear to this person that we are for them and we love them. A few of our women visited them in the hospital after a gender-affirming surgery. They know that we love them, and we’ve clearly shown it. So much so that they sat me down after they were dating someone for a while and wanted to know if I would perform their wedding. I told them I wouldn’t and the reasons why.
After the conversation, both this person and their partner thanked me for being so forthright and yet still loving and respecting them. We continue to have a good relationship, even though they know where I and our church stand on these issues. This could not have happened unless a few members of our church went out of their way to display the hospitable love of Christ to them over and over again.
When Equip came alongside your church, what did our team give you that you didn’t have before: language, posture, confidence, structure, or something else? Was there a particular insight or shift that changed how you approach these conversations? And what encouragement would you offer to pastors who worry that clear conviction will automatically push people away?
Clear conviction is necessary, always. It doesn’t matter what the issue is. But clear conviction can be shared and embodied in a loving and patient way. We utilized Equip because we wanted this culture to spread, not just among core leaders, but among the entire culture of the church. Equip provided great language (God’s love and wisdom, for example!) that standardized things pretty well. “Gender incongruence” was another term that Equip introduced us to that I’ve appreciated. After our training, the team shared the entire slide deck, which we’ve kept as a resource and a reference for follow up questions.
