Young people are constantly bombarded by culture's views on sexuality and gender. Whether it is school, friends or YouTube the message is coming through loud and clear. To help the church have a louder voice on these issues, Living Out produced Kaleidoscope. Kaleidoscope is a video-based series that brings Bible teaching and personal stories together while also providing opportunities for healthy discussion.

You might think that Kaleidoscope is a great tool for churches where every person is on the same page, but perhaps not so useful where there are differing views. But we have been hearing great stories of how youth leaders have been getting on using the series. I spoke to Katrina, a volunteer youth worker from Oxfordshire, to hear her experience of running Kaleidoscope at her church, where people hold a wide spectrum of opinions on sexuality and gender.

Katrina works mainly with 14-18-year-olds, who meet in a group of about 20 on a Friday night.

Katrina, why did you decide to run Kaleidoscope at your church?

Our young people have been asking us for a while to talk about sexuality, relationships, and gender. We always try to make lots of space to answer big questions each week, but they started to ask us to teach specifically on sexuality and relationships. They wanted to know what the bible actually says about these topics. So we looked around for material to help us and found that Kaleidoscope was the most compassionate and authentic resource we could find – not least because those presenting had personal experience to share.  

Kaleidoscope was the most compassionate and authentic resource we could find.'

Your church is not wholly of one view on the issues of sexuality and faith, are they?

No, the church leadership are fully supportive of a historically orthodox view of sexuality and faith, there is a breadth of views across the church family and our young people have a full spectrum of views, beliefs and perspectives as well. It's not always easy but it works – we really care about honouring and respecting people with different views, even if we don't always get it right.

So, how did choosing a series like Kaleidoscope go down with your church?

It seems to have been very positive. We were committed from the start to being totally transparent, particularly with the youth and their families. We were upfront about the fact that we were using material that was in line with the views of the church leadership, but that we had chosen this material because it was designed to be a springboard for discussion, a bit like Alpha. We were clear that this was about creating a space where we could talk openly and safely about these issues and that our priority was that everyone would feel that they were welcome and belonged, even if we disagreed on specific issues.

We also felt it was very important to have a session for parents before we launched the series with the young people so that they knew what we were going to teach, how we were going to care for our young people, and how we would support those who were same-sex attracted or trans. 

And how did you help parents feel comfortable and confident in the material? 

We reassured them that sessions would be led by leaders who the young people know and trust – we've been meeting together for a couple of years now and have built really strong relationships with our young people. It would also be the same leaders supporting the young people each week.

We also highlighted that we had chosen Kaleidoscope because it presents authentic voices on this topic. Of the six leaders in the team, we are all straight and either married or single, so couldn’t speak from our own experience on some of these issues. Kaleidoscope enabled us to bring people into the discussion who had worked through their own experiences of gender dysphoria and same–sex attraction.

Finally, we shared how we would invite the young people to put their own ground rules in place that would make them feel safe and help them to trust and open up to each other. This has been really helpful in the past around difficult discussions and is absolutely key. They used Jesus' command to ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ as a basis and set the following rules:

• Treat others as you would want to be treated.
• Listen well.
• Be respectful.
• Recognise that others will have different experiences, views and perspectives from you – and that's ok.
• Don't share a story that's not your own.
• Don’t repeat people's personal stories outside of the room.

What shocked me most is that these young people were saying, ‘We feel safer talking about this here in church than we do at school.’

What was the highlight of running the series for you?

The absolute highlight was how well our young people engaged in discussion with each other. We have a real mix in our group, including those who are same sex attracted or are trans, or indeed are still on the journey of working out their sexuality. And we have a real mix of views in the group – and they were so respectful to each other and listened to each other so well.

I was incredibly proud of a small group for whom these are live and personal issues, who asked to go through the material on gender in advance of the whole group discussion. Another leader and I met with them, and one hour turned into two and a half hours, as we explored this together. They were so open with us, and we had a lot to learn about their experiences and the things that they had gone through at school. Following that session, we were even more impressed that they still all decided to come to the session that week and go through the material again with their peers. What shocked me most is that these young people were saying, ‘we feel safer talking about this here in church than we do at school.’ Even though they knew that the church had differing views, they felt welcomed and loved and respected enough to be part of that group conversation. That environment was not just set by the leaders; it was the tone of Kaleidoscope itself and the way the young people looked after and cared for each other.

You can hear more from Katrina in the recording of our webinar ‘I Used Kaleidoscope and This is How it Went...’.