Welcome to the Derey podcast with Matthew Stephen Brown, where we take your real questions about faith, the Bible, and culture, and give you honest, practical advice you can trust.

This episode contains mature themes and may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

You guys, today's questions, though. Yeah.

Are you ready for this?

Yeah, I am.

We are going to talk about the church handling someone pregnant out of wedlock.

We're going to talk about porn and dating and homosexuality.

So I'm just going to, I'm right with you guys.

I'm going to be like, how do you answer these, Pastor Matt?

Very closely.

First question. Comes from Sierra in Clovis, California to our central California and friend there.

I am currently seven months pregnant and have felt, have really felt God pushing me to service in my church and to join the leadership team.

When I reached out and asked to serve, I was very caught off guard being told no.

I'm curious what makes my sin different from all other sin to the point that I'm not qualified to serve in the church.

And why do women get asked to

step down when they sin and become pregnant out of wedlock? Yes, Sarah. So I'm going to assume

you don't go to Sandals. So thank you for listening from whatever church that you go to. And obviously,

I can't speak to the leadership of your church, the theology of your church, or the experience of

your church. What I think is important here is not to be critical of the church, but just to understand,

leaders are thrust into a position where they have to make decisions. And by definition,

every decision a leader makes is controversial. And here's why. We wouldn't ask them to make

decisions if we had consensus. And so this is just something that we have to understand.

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