Put Out into the Deep

June 17 2025

In this newsletter, we explore a core element of BCF’s thinking: diversity within unity.

The Armor of the Little Flower

There’s a famous photograph of St. Thérèse of Lisieux in which she’s dressed up in manacles and chains as the imprisoned St. Joan of Arc. Thérèse had a deep devotion to Joan, whose imprisonment she took as an image of her own illness, and she even wrote a play about the Maid of Orléans.

Last week we saw how the “Saints Catherine” can inspire one another. Here we see another example of how one saint can mentor another, even across time—and how this lineage of mentorship continues into the present day.

But one of the most striking things about this relationship between Joan and Thérèse is how different these two young women are! Thérèse in the convent, Joan on the battlefield; Joan in armor with a banner, Thérèse in the quiet faithfulness of the “Little Way.” Joan’s visions and Thérèse’s pensive doubts are equally real, but totally different, experiences of the presence of God.

In ministry with LGBT/SSA+ people, there’s a temptation to seek unity at the expense of diversity. People try to find the best ministry approach, which is often the approach that has helped them or that they have seen bear fruit for others. But this quest for the One Best Way leaves people who need a different approach high and dry.

BCF has found that seeking the One Best Way leads to division, even though it’s intended to foster consistency and unity. And the quest for the One Best Way can sap ministry leaders’ confidence, if they slowly begin to suspect that the approach that makes the most sense to them doesn’t always meet the needs of the people they’re encountering.

Many of BCF’s frameworks, workshops, and tools help people identify their own “starting points” or preferred ministry approaches, develop the best possible version of that approach, and also see the strengths of other approaches.

The diversity we see is a diversity of life paths, immediate spiritual needs, Biblical models, and ways of describing the experience of same-sex attraction. The unity we seek is the same one Joan and Thérèse shared: the Catholic faith.

Your Prayers and Ours
Thank you so much for all your prayers for Eve, her partner, their family, and all of us who celebrated with them. 

Please pray for all those living out a call to be family, including godparents, religious brothers and sisters, spiritual fathers and mothers, and all kinds of “chosen family” who act as kin to one another.

Eve & Keith