From High Brow Pirate to Hometown Pastor

I will make this brief, because the end is more important than the content.

It was a good first day. I am not sure how to describe it, other than to say that it was a good setting of the stage. We are doing this in two parts. Today’s part was about setting the hearts and the spirits to be in the right attitude before we open up Bibles. Sometimes, you need a primer of being Christ like before you open the book.

I started out by talking about the great chasm that exists between Christians and the GLBT community. I then talked about, and apologized for my own prejudices and asked forgiveness for not being more Christ like in my life. I shared some of the content on some discussions I had with gay and straight Christians, told my story of starting out in evangelical conservative land that was opposed to gays and then the evolution of seeing One Punk Under God and then getting to meet gay people who are believers. After that, I went into the tough questions and refused to answer them with closed answers, rather I elevated the conversation. (SHORT VERSION: Is being gay a sin? According to Romans and James we are all sinners and we are all in the same boat, gay or straight. This is not about sinlessness, but a one on one relationship with God and being a part of a community. I will be judged with the same measure I judge others and considering how I have treated gays in my Bible thumping years as a homophobe, I have some things to answer too. ) In other words, I answered the questions that need to be answered and for now, put the other issues to the side. Chose to elevate the conversation. Then I talked about how we can build the bridge. Next week, we are talking the "big five" verses and looking at them from the conventional side, the gay affirming side, and the third option…how to look at the bigger picture and elevate the convo. Everyone has been given the verses and challenged to google them and look at them from both sides and help me find the third side. It was a good start.

So this is where the rubber met the road and I knew we made progress. First of all, we rarely get new visitors. Today we had 4. One of them had no idea who we were or what we were or what the topic was. The person is bi and currently goes to a church she does not feel comfortable in or feel she can be open, but here she is, day one in the doors, comfortable to tell me where she is in life. Further, two other younger congregates who have been with us almost from the beginning, not only told me they were GLBT, but also a couple. I’ve known them for over a year and I never knew and it never would have mattered, but today, they felt safe enough with me to tell me. This is the beginning of something good.