GLOWcircle is intended to be a place where Christian families and friends of gays and lesbians can share experiences and convictions and ask questions without fear of condemnation or ridicule. It's a safe place for fathers and mothers of gay children, fur husbands and wives of gay spouses, and for brothers and sisters of gay siblings to share their concerns and support each other. Subscribers may not agree on all issues but can support each other while seeking to understand children, siblings, or friends and learning how best to help them to meet the challenges of their situation. 

Homosexuality is an isolating influence in the lives of families -- isolating children from parents and friends and siblings from each other. Often our loved ones draw back from us because they fear our reaction to them, and they sometimes draw back from God for the same reason. But God actively seeks out those who are wandering in stray paths, far from the Father's home. And He can give us the love to bring to life the words of Edwin Markham in the poem below:

In order to join our online community, you are invited to tell a little about yourself so that we may introduce you to other list members, and we may be assured that your goals are sympathetic to ours. You may subscribe to GLOWcircle by clicking on the YahooGroups icon at the bottom of the page, and you will receive an email asking you for further info. You will be notified by a moderator as soon as your address is subscribed to the community. 

Please be sure to read our Posting Guide lines and Dreams and Convictions. (below)

1. God has shown unconditional love to us long before we responded to Him, and His grace enables us to reflect that unconditional love to each other as well as to our gay husband, son, or brother or our lesbian wife, daughter or sister. 
2. God alone is competent to judge the heart of another. 
3. We believe each of us has but a dim and partial understanding of God’s truth, and He guides each of us in individual ways from our unique starting points toward the center of His understanding.
4. Because we realize that in order for us to demonstrate the love of God to our friends and family, we need to maintain our own relationship with the Savior, that this community will help to sustain and nurture such a relationship.
5. Personal testimony is God's chosen method of communicating the gospel, and we believe that the most effective way to persuade others to allow God to work in their lives is to testify of his power in our own lives. 
6. We understand that same-gender attractions are real and not just a chosen behavior. They are an integral part of an individual and morally neutral. 
7. We believe that God designed sex to be a component of the life-long bond between one man and one woman. Thus the main thrust of this mailing list is to encourage the support of gay people in our lives but not of gay sexual activity. However, we deplore the attitude that gay sexual activity is somehow worse than heterosexual activity outside of God's plan. It appears to us that heterosexual promiscuity and serial marriages do much greater damage to the fabric of society than gay people could ever inflict. Thus persons involved in gay sexual activity should not meet with condemnation, but with love and compassion, as it is only thus that any of us can begin to understand the unconditional love of the Savior -- the only One that can meet the love-hunger of the soul. 
8. We each have the responsibility to be true to the convictions to which God has led us, while keeping an open mind toward new insights He may bring.
9. It is our dream that subscribers will find such loving support in this list that they may be freed to love their gay and lesbian family and friends in a way that will encourage them to grow into their God-given potential in Christ. We hope that the atmosphere on this list will facilitate "bearing one another's burdens," encouraging one another and lifting each other up in prayer. 
10. We also dare to dream that the support of this list may give some subscribers the courage to be speak out to their fellow church members about the issues we discuss on this list. For too long Christian churches have been party to a conspiracy of silence on sexual issues, and it is time for this to be broken.