Coming Out to the Church

January102013

HUNGRY CHICKEN: An Important Question

So I am sick and feeling sorry for myself and feel like I should go to bed but I also want to get these thoughts down otherwise I will never sleep. Normally this is what the notepad in my drawer is for, but that would require turning on the light. To Tumblr it is.

Essentially, this is about accepting and affirming LGBT people in Christian churches - particularly Evangelical Christian churches, which are the sort I identify with strongest. I am also part of the LGBT community, which is important for this conversation.

Ask most Evangelical church leaders if they think same-sex sexual practice is ok (even within a loving, monogamous relationship) and they will say no. Even fewer will tell you that it’s part of the best way God wants you to live your life.

I’m not saying I know the answer. What I am saying is this: throughout church history, marginalisation of LGBT people has gone ahead without question. They were sinners, and their presence was a threat to a healthy Christian community. But the capital-C Church has never operated in a wider cultural context that says monogamous, same-sex relationships are acceptable. Basically, this is a question we have never had to ask ourselves or ask God.

Today, some serious questions are being asked about the Biblical basis for the non-acceptance of LGBT people and their relationships. Actually, this has been going on since at least the 70s. Do the references to homosexual acts in Paul’s letters to the Romans, the Corinthians and to Timothy apply to monogamous same-sex couples or only to the practices of pederasty and idol worship? And are we sure the Law found in the Hebrew scriptures concerning homosexuality still applies to Christians under the new covenant? These questions have not been properly engaged with in the communities which I have been part of in the past and I do not see them being properly engaged with in many other Christian faith-communities elsewhere.

Using the information I have right now I am doing my best to live my life in a way that honours myself and honours God. My decisions are my responsibility and I do not make them lightly. Like I said, I can’t look you in the eye and tell you there’s no chance I’m wrong, but I can tell you that if there’s a chance we’ve been wrong through the past - through our entire history of being Christ-in-the-world - then that is something we need to take very seriously. For example, are we sure LGBT people aren’t covered by “What I have called clean, do not call unclean” and the rest of Acts 10:9-48 concerning the observance of Jewish purity codes?

Because if they are exempt, we have not only failed to stand beside a vulnerable group, we have actively victimised them.

Now that the Church is facing these questions I’m calling everyone involved to get off their high horses and actively work towards finding common ground. If we are taking these questions seriously then our actions need to show it: actively praying, actively studying, actively dialoguing. And in the meantime we need to accept LGBT people as active participants in our communities so that they do not remain voiceless during this process.

I’m not imagining it to be an easy open-and-shut case, with one ‘side’ suddenly capitulating to the other; I know this will be a long process of reconciliation which requires Christ-like quantities of grace and humility from every corner. I’m sick of straight people in churches talking round-and-round with each other about LGBT people. I want to see life lived out alongside each other, whether or not we disagree. I’m sure this is the only possible way forward without schism, and I want to see it happen in my communities here and at home, today.

What he said. I literally don’t think I could add anything.

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January72013

Being out in the church — What do we do

Of my friends who I more or less only know through church or campus ministries, I have come out to about 5 or so of the closest of them. They are pretty great about it. I’ve come out to friends at my campus ministry, and I came out to the college minister at the church I went to while I was at school.

There’s no way I could be out and miserable, especially when I remember what it was to be in the closet and miserable. I take a very educational perspective on coming out and homosexuality. And it takes a LOT to hurt my feelings. I will be out in my church because I want to advocate for change. Not “believe what I believe—homosexuality is not a sin,” but “let’s welcome them here.” When the focus is on behaving like Christ and not on “which is right?” I think everything changes.

I am out to enough people that to out me at church would be a weird thing and an even weirder undertaking. I go to a church of about 20,000, and our college/young adult ministry is about 200 or so. My small group (all the same age) is about 30. When I come out, I will do so carefully, with every word being about the story and about God’s redemptive plan as I have seen it so far and as I have experienced it. When I tell people I’m gay, I take about an hour or two to talk about everything. That is crucial, I think, for preventing slanderous talk about my sexuality. Sure, they may talk about it, but at least (I hope) the way I’m going about it prevents rumors and false assumptions.

I would encourage you not to limit yourself to being a martyrous example to young people who go through the same thing you do. I would encourage you to facilitate education to those who see things differently from you, and to propose that more important than the sin (which has been spoken for) is the admonishment Christ has given us to be fully hospitable and generous in our patience and (most crucially) to view our own knowledge as folly, even though we may so firmly believe it is of God. Then, we may by grace become like children, eager to see Him for what he would be doing instead of administering the Christian dogma—what the church believes God has obliged them to do as carriers of the gospel.

This post has been in my drafts for… maybe as long as a year, I don’t know. But I decided that I don’t know how to do anything with it… and that every word after “to facilitate education” in the last paragraph is probably the coolest thing I’ve written. It’s difficult for me to write it “accusatively” though, even if it does become easier to understand what I mean, that is:

“…The admonishment that Christ has given you, Church, to be fully hospitable and generous in your patience and to view your own knowledge as folly, even though you may so firmly believe it is of God. Then, you may by grace become like children, eager to see Him for what he would be doing instead of administering your Christian dogma—which you believe God has obliged you to do as carriers of the gospel.

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January22013

Odd Man Out: Responding to Sin

omoblog:

Conversations with conservative Christians about homosexuality inevitably turn to how Christians tend to respond to homosexuality more harshly than they respond to other sins, and there’s an argument that often comes up that rather baffles me. It goes something like this:

“Yes, Christians…

You know how I said I might as well automatically reblog everything OMO posts? Well, I would like to take this one in a different direction, and we’ll see how it turns out.

I think conversations tend to sound a bit more like this:

“Yes, we Christians are more vocal about homosexuality than other sins, and we may hold people to a higher standard with regards to sexual sins than we do with other kinds of sin. But that’s because there’s a growing movement within secular media especially, where people are trying to change the moral standard for sexual activity and for sexual immorality. We see that change in homosexuality more than we’ve ever seen it in the past. It is dangerous to re-write the moral law that God has put into place to protect us. We want to speak out about God’s truths, publicly calling something sinful if it is in fact sinful. It is our duty to speak this truth, to have a firm position on sin issues.”

See, the paragraph OMO wrote allows him to put light on the differences between the way the church responds to gossip versus homosexuality. Well, it’s easy to say, “we’re an imperfect church full of imperfect people.” I don’t think his extending argument (that holding the same expectations fiercely across all sins) is realistic, nor would I expect it to be particularly revealing. I do agree with him, though. He’s entirely, exactly correct. 1000%. I just don’t think people are willing to think that way.

But here’s how I react to this “response to sin.”

It is our duty to protect God’s moral code, especially within our church community. And to a certain extent, we must delicately serve as the moral compass for our society. As we have become more and more irrelevant, people have unknowingly said in their hearts, “the church is wrong.”

Why do people rebel against God’s moral law if it should so obviously be the best choice for us? I think it’s because the church has done a bad job explaining why sin is sin.

So let’s reexamine. If people have said in their hearts, “the church is wrong” and have instead chosen gossip or cohabitation or gluttony, the church has failed to show for people the wrongness of sin. The church has taken the lazy approach of reciting words instead of letting them words alter our lives. The side effect of that sounds like, “It’s sin because God said it was sin.”

We Christians are dutiful. We are trumpeting the messages of a Sovereign God without letting them destroy the darkness in our hearts.

So let’s not ask Christians for fidelity to words that they don’t understand.

Let’s ask them to understand the words. And when they understand them, they may again speak.

Well, our tiny, pathetic brains aren’t too good at understanding the things of God. So let’s just rely on the Spirit. Let us rely on the fruit of our Christian brothers and sisters. Let us rely on love.

Christians’ fidelity to misunderstood scripture is dangerous. Fidelity to misinterpreted words of God has caused forced conversion, legalism, crusades, and racism. Even Satan used Scripture against Jesus to tempt him.

So, let’s get technical. Prooftexting - a) When a person has already decided what the Bible teaches on a particular topic and then searches the Scriptures for verses that seem to back up his belief. b) When a person has gathered enough verses that appear to back up his position, he stops searching.

Is it possible we’ve done that here?

The answer MUST be yes. It is required to be.

THEREFORE, the response of the church must be reasoned. We should encourage fidelity to the all-encompassing messages of God and through those lenses re-examine scripture. We should allow the fiercely strong words of those who oppose the church’s position on same-sex marriage to penetrate our hearts. And, when we finally accept these points one by one, ask, “Is there fruit?”

The church must admit into its heart all evidence, including those exhibits that support same-sex marriage and the “not-sin-status” of homosexuality… and test them.

Then, and only then, will we begin to understand the nature of God’s design for morality. Because we have examined it and tested it. We have taken in and examined the words of non-Christians who are mocking our legalism, our moral code. And we have learned. We have learned why God has set for us things that are right and things that a wrong. And, having learned why God calls something sin, we more radically live in ways that show honest devotion to holiness. Because we understand how sin harms.

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June102012

If you were loving rightly, then you wouldn’t be hurting me so badly.

My church is spending the year focusing on family. Which is great. There’s a huge lack of dads who know what they’re doing. We need spiritual homes; we need safe homes. And it takes a lot of work to build a great home. But a great home isn’t built just by smart people, it’s built by equipped people. So I appreciate that my church is trying to equip parents to foster a home environment that’s spiritually encouraging.

You may have read my rather blunt stream of consciousness that I wrote when I found out my younger sister was engaged.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned on this blog before that my mom’s significant other and she have been together for about 10 years now, but they haven’t yet married. He lives about an hour away and comes here once a week and every other weekend to spend time with her and with us.

So, every other Sunday, he, my mom, my sister, her fiance, and I will go to church together. (During the summer, my youngest sister also joins us.)

It’s difficult to go to church with them, especially with this focus on the family this year. As if I needed another reason to feel like what they’re teaching at church makes me feel like an outcast…

This morning, the two couples and I went to church. He spoke about how God’s directions for our lives (the Bible) are to be followed because God’s design is for us to be fulfilled, and he knows how to best do that. (This language is common in anti-gay rhetoric, so I’m slightly uncomfortable.) His example was Solomon (we’ve been working our way from Genesis through the Bible, so we’re at about this point, now). He points out that Solomon deviated from God’s design for marriage; he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. He goes on and on for a few minutes about Solomon’s unhappiness and what God said about his marriages.

And he begins talking about polygamy; he explains how it’s not God’s plan. He provides a few examples of polygamy in the Old Testament and how each was met with disaster. I’ve been thinking the whole time (we’re like 15 minutes in), “this is a weird message for a megachurch. This clearly isn’t his main point. This tangential focus is leading him to somewhere, and I don’t want to hear it.” And then he posits this question to the congregation: Polygamy isn’t really a hot button issue, though. You hear it, but rarely. What comes to your mind when you think about how this message applies to us today?

I’m literally so uncomfortable it’s not even funny.

And he says, “Cohabitation.”

Breathing a sigh of relief. But still feel my family were all thinking, “well I wasn’t expecting that.”

Not any of the 5,000 people in the room were expecting that.

He talked about cohabitation for a good while, and then he moved on from that point. And he finally brought up homosexuality. His message on God’s design for marriage and family wouldn’t have been complete without it. He, to his credit, brings up the North Carolina pastor’s vitriolic message that went viral, and said, “I’m not on that team. And that is not this church.” But even still, it doesn’t matter. It still hurts. It hurts that he just spouts the references by saying, ‘It’s clear that God calls homosexuality is sin in Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6, and God has designed one man and one woman, as he specifies in the second chapter of Genesis.’ And it hurts to watch my sister next to me writing notes as he says this.

At some point, he uses the word “struggle” just like every Christian has used the word to describe someone who is attracted to the same sex. I want to approach him after the service to show him what I wrote on it near the beginning of this blog.

He ends the message with a call to action: if you’re cohabiting, it may be inconvenient, but follow God’s directions, and God will honor your action. If you’re struggling with same sex attraction, trust God at his Word. … If you’d like to accept Christ as Savior, come down to talk with me as we sing.

Well, I stand, and I nearly start to cry. I hold it in. I survive without bursting in to tears.

It’s no wonder that I oversleep church on Sundays and go to the service for college age that evening. I can’t stand hearing all of this preaching about family. It’s not for me. Because all I can hear, in those same breaths, is “you’re different. that’s sin.” And what I feel is “I’m not going to find anyone; maybe God has not already chosen someone for me because he doesn’t want me to have someone.”

At this, I’m breaking on the inside. As my church continues to speak doubt and shame into my life, I will continue to hurt.

I know it’s not trying to do any of that. But that’s what happens. And sitting next to an unaffirming family doesn’t help. The silent opposition is smothering me.

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February122012

Gay people feel welcome at our church

Me: Oh hey, church, what's up?
Church: Not much, just baby and family dedication at church coming up, so, getting ready for that.
Me: Cool.
Church: We love taking the time to celebrate our newborns, proud dad and mom toting them with bright smiles in their Sunday best.
Me: Right.
Church: Yeh, just trying to remind you that you're gay.
Me: ...
Church: And that the church won't approve of your choice.
Me: ...
Church: Or of you adopting kids without a wife to make a stable family home.
Me: ...
Church: Or especially with another dude.
Me: Yeh, I really appreciate you talking down on the whole California thing last week.
Church: We love the gay community, and we want them to feel comfortable coming through our doors.
Me: ... right.
Church: We can't tell if it's working, though. Our gay radar is off. Especially since all of those weird worship leaders in skinny jeans with their girly hairdos started popping up all over the place. Those may be the only gay guys in the church, we just cant tell.
Me: ...
Church: But they have wives, so it's all good.

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February32012

Coming out to the church

I wanted to talk about the difference between coming out to the church and coming out to Christians. At least the differences as I expect to experience them.

Christians are pretty easy to come out to. At this point, I seem to have it down.

When I talk about coming out to the church, I, at times, do mean “being out to my congregation.” But let’s face it. The college ministry is several hundred people, and the entire congregation is over 20,000. So being out to my church would involve some pretty weird stuff to go down. I would not be shocked if I was given the chance to share my story at the college/young adults ministry. Decently surprised, especially considering I would have to be honest with the leadership about my stance before I was allowed any type of platform, but not totally shocked.

Coming out to the congregation is just not likely, unless something at the college ministry went overwhelmingly well. If, in some form, the college ministry heard my story and met it with controversy, backlash, boredom, whatever… I don’t see much going further. If there was some form of activism that began to take place, especially with pro-LGBT-support, certainly the church’s leadership would address it in some way.

But when I talk about coming out to the church, I mostly am interested in the idea of what I want it to look like to be out to the church leadership. The elders meetings are closed. I don’t know a single person on that committee, except for the chairman, who still is inaccessible to me (at least I feel that way). The deacons and other leaders of the church are, in a sense, expected to communicate to higher leadership if something like this-my sexuality and stance-were to come their way.

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January282012

I'll say it again...

I’ve gotten lost in the whole post-reblog response-response to response-reblogging again thing. I can’t keep up with it. But I want to highlight this.

… but who wins when Christian brothers do this to each other?

I’ve talked about this to you guys before, and this will always be my stance.

We must accept that having different opinions is good. It is inevitable that gay Christians will always have a variety of opinions.
Convincing another Gay Christian our side is right cannot be our priority. It is crucial that we, who are all walking this confusing path, have different opinions and celebrate the variety of approaches we are taking.
We should discuss “This is why I have come to my conclusions” instead of “This is why my side is correct.”
For any of us to assume that someone ignorantly chose the Other Side is absolutely the single highest disservice we can do. We all have spent countless hours and tearful nights working out our opinions.

We will learn which side is correct if we get to heaven and even remember to ask Him once we are fully enveloped in His splendor. I’ll be lying facedown in undignified love, too distracted by overwhelming holiness to remember I even had anything to say.

We cannot crusade for our opinions. We offer grace and compassion, that Christ may abound all the more. Sacrifices, we offer ourselves as examples of Christ’s great work mighty and active in us.

We are not messengers or prophets. We are servants.

(Source: searchingchristian, via gaychristian)

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January192012

You hear those stories about gay guys marrying women…

and some of you think, “I am so glad that I got my head straightened out enough to know that I will not do that.” You may not be sure what you want to do, but you know that a girl, at least in your current frame of mind, is not going to work. And you knew that was where you once were! That it’d be this way forever, and you’d be with a woman who didn’t really know.

I know that I am so grateful that I got past this step. Even six years before I had come out, I knew that I would never date another girl again, and I knew that I could never marry one. I just couldn’t do that to someone who God had destined for something so much better.

Yeh, sure, I could be a great husband to a lovely, lovely wife. But she’d get much better sex somewhere else. And she’d be much more fulfilled in other ways by someone else. And Lord knows I’d be a heck of a lot happier with a dude.

It still is so surprising to me that I see gay guys who are closeted at 25, 26… and I’m just thinking, “please tell me so we can talk about it. At least let’s just start there.”

It’s even more surprising to see my friend that I’ve grown up with marry a guy I’d swear was gay.

And then there’s that guy at church who just announced his engagement on Facebook, and I think, “I was expecting him to come out, not get engaged.”

There are so many young people at my church who are in the closet… or at least i think. But maybe I’m being too harsh. Because in all technicality, I’m still “in the closet” at church. I’m out everywhere else, but I’ve not come out to enough church friends to consider myself out at church. Out of my core church friends, 30 or so including my Bible study, I’ve only told 5 that I’m gay. Not because I’m worried about how they’ll react. Just haven’t had the right moment.

So maybe I don’t need to be hard on the one who I suspect are in the closet, because maybe they’re out to their non-church friends too.

Do you all have any circumstances like this?

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December172011

Seriously I am so amazed by all of this. He sounds just like a new Christian, doesn’t he? He seems thirsty, excited. He knows his needs have been met in full because of Christ. And he knows he wasn’t going to find it anywhere else. So beautiful.

I tend to be delicate/sensitive about what messages I’m writing. Ya know, I’m not sure I would have posted what he did. But I am glad I get to see it. Because those words remind me that Grace does get us passionate for Him. And I think it tells me something about myself. That we can allow ourselves to forget the enormity of our old selves and of our lost-ness. That we can allow ourselves to forget the way True Grace felt when it was new and surprising. It was so undeserved, we knew. And everyone needed a taste of it.

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7PM

God can use a negative experience, you just have to let him…

I worked as a server at a local restaurant (much like O’Charley’s) during summer and Christmas breaks, and Matt started working there a few weeks after me. We all wore black dress pants, a plain dress shirt (the standard white, blue, pink, or yellow) and tie. And in that attire, Matt was hot. Not quite handsome — the attire wouldn’t completely disguise what I knew to be moderate apathy and mediocre ambition. I could tell he had, like so many young people do, chose that fleeting enjoyment instead of earnest self-care and extraordinary goals.
He did exert much of his energy to being very built, and I liked that about him. During the summer, he was decently tan (despite our having to be inside during sunny hours). He often wore white dress shirts, and he looked all the better. There were only about 15 servers, so we felt like family—we had to work so often for much less pay than most of us would have received serving somewhere else.
He did have highs and lows, like I expected to see, and like many of the other servers. Being around him was a pleasure, though, and I knew that I had a solid friend in him. I never had to come out to the restaurant, but after a short time, it was common knowledge (without any action on my part), and I was all the better for it. Everyone treated it as a superfluous detail, and it just showed me how family could be. Matt was no exception, either, like most of us think it would have been, knowing his type, right?
They knew I was a church-goer, and they knew it was important to me. That didn’t seem to surprise them, either. Since they were mostly unreligious, I had figured that they’d be really confused by those two truths about me.
I think Matt may have been able to tell that I appreciated his physique, but he never did seem to take issue with it, or even give it a second thought. And I was thankful for that. Because being attracted to anything about a straight guy often causes interpersonal conflict.
Eventually, he stopped working there, as did I. And I was surprised to see him at church one weekend nearly a year later. He was there with his girlfriend, a Christian. He was working a good job and doing well in school. Very cool. I see him a few times more, and I’m encouraged by it. Summer ends, and I go back to school, and I graduate at the end of the fall. I’m back at church, and I see him again. He no longer is dating that girl, and I would have expected that to be the end of his obligation to church, too. Then I learn that he’s in a small group, too, and loving it. And then I see him a few weeks later serving as a volunteer during the service. He seems satisfied. He seems to know that he has life and in himself spiritual light. And then during a worship/reflection night, he and I ended up off to the side, and he asks me if I want him to pray for me.
Well this is all just blowing me away. I am so incredibly thankful that I was able to witness this before and after. I’m not quite sure how he would describe all of this, but I imagine it would be such a great tale. It’s a good thing that he and I have a man date in the works. And I can’t wait to hear all the movement God has done to bring this guy to life.
He does restore our brokenness. We just have to let him.
He does fill us with joy. We just have to let him.
He takes us gently in his hands, and knowing our needs exactly, he meets them. He sets into motion beautiful plans for our lives that make Him happy. He draws us closer to himself so that our questions about Him are answered. He draws us closer to himself that we would shine and shine and shine. We proceed into the darkness ahead, and bring it light. That everyone would see his glory in us and be convinced of it, knowing it is available to them. And that together, we shine on, fully satisfied in him because we have all of the riches of that mystery. ”From the fullness of his grace, we have all received one blessing after another.”

God can use a negative experience, you just have to let him…

I worked as a server at a local restaurant (much like O’Charley’s) during summer and Christmas breaks, and Matt started working there a few weeks after me. We all wore black dress pants, a plain dress shirt (the standard white, blue, pink, or yellow) and tie. And in that attire, Matt was hot. Not quite handsome — the attire wouldn’t completely disguise what I knew to be moderate apathy and mediocre ambition. I could tell he had, like so many young people do, chose that fleeting enjoyment instead of earnest self-care and extraordinary goals.

He did exert much of his energy to being very built, and I liked that about him. During the summer, he was decently tan (despite our having to be inside during sunny hours). He often wore white dress shirts, and he looked all the better. There were only about 15 servers, so we felt like family—we had to work so often for much less pay than most of us would have received serving somewhere else.

He did have highs and lows, like I expected to see, and like many of the other servers. Being around him was a pleasure, though, and I knew that I had a solid friend in him. I never had to come out to the restaurant, but after a short time, it was common knowledge (without any action on my part), and I was all the better for it. Everyone treated it as a superfluous detail, and it just showed me how family could be. Matt was no exception, either, like most of us think it would have been, knowing his type, right?

They knew I was a church-goer, and they knew it was important to me. That didn’t seem to surprise them, either. Since they were mostly unreligious, I had figured that they’d be really confused by those two truths about me.

I think Matt may have been able to tell that I appreciated his physique, but he never did seem to take issue with it, or even give it a second thought. And I was thankful for that. Because being attracted to anything about a straight guy often causes interpersonal conflict.

Eventually, he stopped working there, as did I. And I was surprised to see him at church one weekend nearly a year later. He was there with his girlfriend, a Christian. He was working a good job and doing well in school. Very cool. I see him a few times more, and I’m encouraged by it. Summer ends, and I go back to school, and I graduate at the end of the fall. I’m back at church, and I see him again. He no longer is dating that girl, and I would have expected that to be the end of his obligation to church, too. Then I learn that he’s in a small group, too, and loving it. And then I see him a few weeks later serving as a volunteer during the service. He seems satisfied. He seems to know that he has life and in himself spiritual light. And then during a worship/reflection night, he and I ended up off to the side, and he asks me if I want him to pray for me.

Well this is all just blowing me away. I am so incredibly thankful that I was able to witness this before and after. I’m not quite sure how he would describe all of this, but I imagine it would be such a great tale. It’s a good thing that he and I have a man date in the works. And I can’t wait to hear all the movement God has done to bring this guy to life.

He does restore our brokenness. We just have to let him.

He does fill us with joy. We just have to let him.

He takes us gently in his hands, and knowing our needs exactly, he meets them. He sets into motion beautiful plans for our lives that make Him happy. He draws us closer to himself so that our questions about Him are answered. He draws us closer to himself that we would shine and shine and shine. We proceed into the darkness ahead, and bring it light. That everyone would see his glory in us and be convinced of it, knowing it is available to them. And that together, we shine on, fully satisfied in him because we have all of the riches of that mystery. ”From the fullness of his grace, we have all received one blessing after another.”

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September142011

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June42011

Visiting the Present Day

So, family, we are going to take a short break from the past. I wanted to talk about something that’s going on right now. Literally just happened. and I’m kinda nervous, and I definitely need your advice.

I have a really cool small group I’m a part of. I joined in March. One of the guys in the group is named Brian, and he, at face value, is pretty much everything I want to be. He’s smart, he’s successful financially, and he’s very attractive.

I on the other hand am a recent graduate, unemployed, and consider myself quite uncool.

There is more to our story, and I will tell it soon. But tonight, he asked me to be his accountability partner, and I said yes. I’ve never really had a true accountability partner before… so I want your advice. What does it look like? What does it not look like? What things have you noticed really helped your relationship with God grow?

I don’t need elementary advice. I know what an accountability partner is and how it works. But I want your stories. I want to know what works… what helped you pursue Jesus together and grow spiritually. I’m looking for theoretical and applicable advice. Because I want my relationship with Jesus to grow. I want my friendship with Brian to grow. And I want Brian’s relationship with Jesus to grow even more!

SO! Please help, family! Love you all. :) Will tell more very soon!

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May302011

The Untold Conflict, my story continued

Hi, family. How are you? We’ve talked about a lot so far, and I wanted to continue today with my story, which I started about 2 weeks ago in this post. If you haven’t read it, go for it! If you’re new to the family, check out posts tagged “my story”.

We last left off in ninth grade, where life for me had come to a stand still. It was one tear-filled night, aware of the impossibility that my tidy family facade would survive that I gave those difficulties over to God.

So, during this darkness, I felt unfathomable comfort in Christ and his Church. It was in the Church that I found solace—whether a holy shield or just distraction—from the pain around me. So into the church body, I invested my time and my energy. Over the next three years, I wore many shoes in those church buildings. I was at first an insatiable learner, listening to 3 different sermons in my church home every week, and listening to just as many online, all by the world’s most inspiring teachers.

I soon was spotted by Marci, who decided that I would help greet the hundreds of high school students each week. I transformed. Before, I did not want to be seen. In fact, I was trying to hide myself (both internally and physically, by blending in) so that no one would have an easy time identifying me as the one who would inevitably confess and need changing. After Marci’s love embraced me and her encouragement supported me, I was the bright light at church, smiling to all, friend for all. She is quite possibly the person most responsible for my transformation and for who I am today, because she ignited a place in me that would eventually be the catalyst to everything in my life.

I began this new walk toward opportunities I would never expect. One of the youth pastors approached me with a surprising request, “I would like you to help with Saturday night’s high school service.” That may not have been what he said, but that’s what I heard—an endorsement, a commendation of my character. So began my (admittedly hilly) involvement in the roller coaster that was Saturday night church. It is a novel in itself.

But here I was, in the public. And a new person. I became a spiritual leader in some ways. I also involved myself in the charismatic leanings of pursuing Jesus, different from my church’s preferences. But there was so much inner conflict. {And I hope to God that my writing does not sound like Stephanie Meyer’s, and I the young Bella. Because that inner dialog for four books is obnoxious as hell. (I should also point out that New Moon is the best book, that the series’ writing is horrendous, and that the love in Meyer’s story is unhealthy and terrifying. So yes, I’m team jacob. shhh.)}

It was my sophomore year that I met a boy from school named Preston. He was bold, funny, and beyond charming. So, quite impressed, I became friends with the ambitious student and great soccer athlete. He was flamboyant, but no one thought he was gay. Why? Because he didn’t fit the limited mold of what a high school gay guy looks like. And even if the murmurs of his girly jests did question his sexuality, no one really cared because they just thought of him as a pretentious asshole anyway. But his being a pretentious asshole… well, I didn’t notice, and it didn’t bother me.

I was attracted to him, and I think he loved that, though we never admitted it to each other. Maybe he counted it boyish curiosity, or maybe he didn’t care because he enjoyed the attention. Either way, he flirted well, and I enjoyed it. Nothing seemed to materialize because I wouldn’t let myself go there. But watching from a distance was enough for now.

We were shopping for spring break clothes, and he invited me into the changing room with him. While shirtless, he bragged about himself, and I sat on the corner ledge, wondering what the hell all this was for. He purchased what he needed, and we left.

The rest of our story, though quite important, I don’t need to tell. What is important:

I cared about him very deeply, and he had all the promise and potential in the world to become an incredible, important man. I would have loved to see him become that man, and during the years of our friendship, to discover if he was gay… and if we could do life together. Because to this day, there has been no man that compared. And, he had an amazing family that I deeply enjoyed being with and loved. In-laws? Who knows. But all that was lost.
I lost it. It was my fault, and I hate the mistakes that my selfishness caused. I hate that I am completely unaware if there exist untold problems and secrets that I may have caused him and his family to experience.
And, that most vulnerable of moments where I failed, I have relived. and relived. and relived. So, it is with great sorrow that I took (and still take) my weaknesses and my breaking points to Jesus, hoping that he would mend that hurt and that he would disguise my ugly with Grace and Hope. That my hideous disfigurement God would remove from me and that he could somehow point people to a beautiful Jesus. Because with that tumor, I certainly didn’t and couldn’t show people who Jesus is.

So this is the conflict. And it is an untold conflict. It is the secrets gay young people keep in their deep, hiding places. And these secrets then brew into deeper pits that hold captive spirits that yearn for more Jesus, or cry out for a first-time Grace.

And that’s what I want to see relinquished, for all. These darkest of places, these deep pits we are forced to dig ourselves into. That they would be gone. And we pray, vigilant for Him to move in power.

But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.

Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.

Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the Lord’s wrath, until he pleads my case and upholds my cause. He will bring me out into the light; I will see his righteousness.

I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.

He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him.

May212011

Our little ohana

Hello followers. I’ve decided I’m going to call you family. Why? Because we should be one. From the 15 of us, many are quite similar. In fact, we all share a lot in common. Many of us go to church; they probably call it a community there. Bullshit. My church? they don’t want to get to know me, be sincere friend and mentor, much less know & care about the homosexual+Christian paradigm that makes going to church so difficult and having Christian friends so difficult. Oh great, small group - another place I get to hide when everyone else is at least trying to be real.

Please don’t get me wrong. I love the Church. and I love my church. But the tweets I read, and the wall posts I see… they show me that my community is not ready for me. So is that community? Maybe. But not… it’s not a community for me I don’t think. It’s no wonder why we feel so damn lonely. Yeh. not a friend with a single gay believer. and I go to one of the largest churches in America.

You heard me right. I go to a huge church, and yes, we do love Jesus there. But am I connected, out of the hundreds of students who go there, and the thousands of adults who go there, to anyone who can help navigate me through these waters? I guess. But the river I most want help in… no one is willing to talk about.

Therefore, with this blog, may the church doors be open, and the churches’ closets and hiding places disappear. Gays, we can no longer hide from ourselves.

Love you family.

Talk to you soon.

P.S. I found some things in tumblr today that I’ve never seen yet. Like the mega-editor and the tumblelog. I’m slowly getting the hang of this! Housekeeping items: So as the blogs title reveals, yes I am coming out to the church, and I will write about that. I’ll write both about how that process is going for me and my general thoughts on this gay Christian thing. But I also wanted to talk about the past experiences I have (/remember) and tell that story. So I hope you like the reflection posts. I have more of those to tell at the moment.

coming out gay christian gay church closet hiding ohana family church community community fake community fake gay believer journal diary reflection post megachurch my story

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Finally settled on a place to broadcast the story of a young guy in love with Jesus... who has to come out as gay to the Church, those he dearly loves, and making this Christian thing work in a way that makes Jesus famous.