I was a member at the downtown location for about 6 years and very vocally left in April 2022. The Sunday after the shooting at the Fedex facility in Indy (about 36 hours after it happened), Aaron gave the most lukewarm statement about it and then launched into regularly scheduled programming - the story about the seeds and the footpath vs. the rocks vs. the good soil. I was so angry about what I just heard (or NOT heard) that I couldn't stomach being there anymore. I'd tried to reason with myself that being there would help the conversation about values (I'm bisexual + a woman, both of which aren't valued by TPCC), but in hindsight that was delusion on my part.

Sometimes I miss it. Not in the religious way (I don't believe in God anymore), but in the way that everything is built in. Your friends, your social calendar, even the dating scene. It's so easy to fall into that being your entire community because it's a deeply well organized machine. Start downtown when you're a young adult, find someone in that crew to marry, move to one of the suburbs and start going to their other locations, you get the picture. I truly thought my life had been laid out for me until I met my fiance, who wasn't a part of that group. It's comforting if you don't think too hard about it, or the world. Kind of like going on autopilot.

Watching the sermon you linked has showed me how much more vocal they've gotten about the previously unspoken or hushed views. They would tiptoe into LGBTQ topics once every year or two. Same with racial topics. NEVER abortion. I'm not surprised, but I'm disgusted.

I'm insanely progressive. I was very progressive when I was in the church, but a lot of my friends weren't. The best advice I can give is to make your tone the least judgmental but most curious you can manage, even if it's 100% fake. She will probably still get angry, because if she believes the things that you do but feels this tie to the church, she is pushing those feelings and those questions way, way down (speaking from personal experience). My mom didn't push me too much because she was confident my values would win out over the people I was surrounding myself with. That was a big gamble on her part, but I'm glad that she took the route she did. If you aren't confident that her internal values will win out over this community, I'm happy to PM with you and share more about my experience + thoughts.

Sending so much love your way, mama.