Transcript

Andrew

Tell us how you persevered in finding community. And was it worth it in the end?

Marco

I had to become the catalyst for the community. I couldn't wait for the community to gather around me and just to magically appear. I actually had to start gathering with my fellow. So I had to activate. And early on, that wasn't necessarily my strong suit of, oh, let's gather to share our brokenness. I like to get together just to have a good time, but not to share with cook, to cook, or to. Have a better, you.

Know. But to share, like, this is what I'm going through. Not necessarily in the beginning my strong so I. But I felt a call from the Lord. You have to do it or you're not going to get it. So I can't wait for my Catholic parish or my small group to break into the the deep places of vulnerability and accountability, unless I activate in some way. So yeah, clumsily. A little awkward at first, but it gathered a community that I still have.

Morgan

Well, yeah, for me it was just coming to the place where I had to repent of my sin. I had to start like, the fear of the Lord just kind of overcame me through the conviction of the Holy Spirit. And I found myself one day just confessing that sin of adultery to one of my dearest friends who immediately led me to my wife and the shame broke. And so that's what started it all.

Like being able to be honest with the one who loved me the most. And from there, the Lord began the work that only he could do. And so it sounds so simple and mystery and mysterious at some level. But it started with repentance. It's like I'm really broken. I need to repent and and do that.

Amanda

Yeah, I, I feel like I really did suffer for a long time with just not having the depth of community. And in that place, I did kind of shake my fist at the heavens and accuse God for not providing me what I felt. I needed that at that moment.

But then looking back, I realize he actually allowed that period of isolation to stir up things in me so they could come to the surface, and then and then brought me to a community. That was able to walk with me with wisdom in the power of the Holy Spirit. And so it was. I did have to persevere in that.

But I could looking back, I could see there was a a real reason in what he was doing in his wisdom and goodness towards me.

Christie

I think if I'm terrifically honest, I could say that I avoided community, in part because I felt like I didn't belong. Right. I'm not one of those frou frou girls who crochets, knitting parties or whatever it is. And so I was like, I sounds awful. And well, and here's the thing. I actually had to go learn how to crochet so I could hang out with women.

I was like, community is more important than me feeling like I'm where I belong. I feel like the belonging comes next. So I pressed in. I went on like this commitment and commitment, right? But I knew I needed I had already come from a thriving community and so I knew I needed it. And so I was like, if this is the price I have to pay, I'm going to pay this irritating price.

And then and then you know, son of a god. If you can't bring up conversations while also crocheting like it's like it led to more. But but I had to be honest about the fact that there was a resistance in me. Yeah, partly because of the struggle itself. Made me feel like I'm an outsider. I don't really belong here, and they're wearing prettier clothes and I'm wearing all that stuff.

I had to get pushed through that and then say, no, I'm going to press through that discomfort. So that was that. That was hard for me to sort of humble myself and get into.

Andrew

I mean, it's interesting because you're what you're all describing is a very imperfect communities. But the condition of entry into this imperfect community is your own brokenness, right? Yeah. I'm just I'm I'm sin sick. I know that. And so I'm leading out with my sin, not with the perceived sin in the community who will not embrace me. How did any of us navigate untrue or unkind currents in the church?

Amanda

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like there's, a couple of these that, are untrue and unkind and, I remember sitting across from someone at a restaurant and me, telling them my my struggles. Never Christian. And then this person wanting to drive the homosexual demon out of me, and. And I was just like, wow. Okay, so...

Andrew

Like dessert? Yeah.

Put it on you. Yeah.

Amanda

Put it on me. Like, that's just who you are. Like, just, this is the compassionate thing. This is the kind thing. And I've really sort in the churches that I'm at, and I will always, by the grace of God, seek to do this for the sake of other people behind me. They're still struggling. I will come up against that false narrative every time and advocate for people. And just and just try to tell people why that's rooted in a false compassion and why it's pastorally shortsighted and and profoundly unhelpful.

Andrew

And I would say for all of us, we come out of, traditions, be that evangelical or Catholic, that are the we have a big premium on compassion, on social justice, on inclusion and diversity, and where that inevitably overlaps now is in, well, homosexuals and transgender and the whole LGBTQ queer thing. Those are just those are just like oppressed people groups.

So those are people groups, morally neutral, ethnically born that way, in the same way that we would advocate for, African-Americans, Native Americans, etc.. And so we're always intersecting with that. When I was in seminary, I was in seminary a long time, a good seminary with many important thinkers in the evangelical church.

And one by one, all of my professors and mentors became gay, affirming to wear those that I had really looked up to and respected me and knew my story was saying, well, when? How long, oh Lord, how long will you stay married? You know, because professors were also coming out of the closet. And, you know, this is, you know, this is just what was going on. This was in the 80s. So look where we are.

You know, 50 years, 40, 45 years later. And so we're, you know, we've, we've sewed to the wind, and now we're reaping the whirlwind in the thoughtful, compassionate church.

Christie

So there's two things happening, right? You've got the divided heart of the person who is struggling with sexuality things, and you're not offering them the hope that you would offer someone who came in who's maybe struggling with bulimia or struggling with some sort of man hating thing, and they're in angst about it and they're like, they're like walking around with there's we offer healing and we offer hope.

If the church isn't going to offer hope to the wounded. What are we here for? Like, I think they think to recognize that I think two things have happened. I think one, we've normalized this thing because frankly, the the pain and the challenge of laying. Same sex attraction before the cross. It is so hard, yet so healing. And I think that that invitation of laying it all down is so hard and so healing for everyone.

But but it is everyone. Like, you can't. You can't say, you can't ask the same sex attractive person to do something that you're not asking everybody else to do. Yeah. And since we've just stopped asking everybody else to do it, we're just going to go ahead and leave the same sex attracted. And you know what I mean?

Like, if we're not all going to die at the foot of the cross, why can we ask those guys today at the foot of the cross?

Andrew

Yeah. Fair enough.

Christie

Yeah. And so we all got to go faceplant.

Marco

I think it's important is to speak out your opinion. I mean, that's what I've been trying to do, is if there is something that's off to say, hey, I think that's off. You know, I think that isn't a great understanding of human sexuality. That's a faulty anthropology. I mean, both Catholic and evangelical, like, you know, we're but we're so diplomatic in these, in this that we, we fear division or, you know, disagreement is rebellion.

And that's just, I think, an immature way of seeing it. It's like, you know, I'm an adult. You're an adult. You've said publicly something that is actually super confusing and I think doesn't reflect well, Genesis one and two doesn't reflect well, John Paul the second, the Catechism, whatever your denomination is.

I think we as agents of Jesus, I mean, we're not cardinals, we're not elders per se, but we can go and say, I think that's off me. You know. It's a small voice, but it's a voice, you know? So I, I think we need to do that more. As you said, Andrew, in this time where the LGBTQ thing, the splitting off of identity from sexuality, it is the it it's the heresy de jure. And so we have to be evermore clear and speaking out the truth.

Andrew

Yeah. And and speaking of the truth, it's always unto the end of saying we want this to be a place of redemption, right? Yes. We want our community to be a place of healing. Yeah. And hope and yeah, that's what we've sought to do.

Daniel

When I thought about church, I thought, well, I don't really belong there because I'm identifying as a gay man or a gay teenager. And so I didn't really think that the church was a place for me. So I ran into the arms of the LGBT community and thought that that was my home.

So I began to think about my future, and I remember seeing drag drag queens performing and thinking, Maybe I'll do that, because maybe it'll help me sort of like deal with some of the pain or some of the unresolved and the things that I can't seem to reconcile or shake in my life.

And so I began to actually give myself to this persona and building this construct of what it meant to be, the ideal of woman in my eyes.

And so I began to learn how to do makeup, and I hung out with the drag queens. And by the age of 17, I started dressing up and going to all of my school functions. I remember going to every single school function as a senior in drag, and then when I graduated and I hit the age of 18 years old, I thought, I don't even have to identify as a man if I don't want to.

I found myself angry and dissatisfied because no matter what, I tried to fill the void within. I couldn't fill it. So I was angry and I was wanting a quick fix in my life. So I started dressing as a drag queen and competing professionally in drag. And my goal was to be miss Gay USA.

So I competed in the Mesquite, Texas pageant at a very young age, and I thought this was going to be the thing that I aspired to be. This man who was trying to be a woman. And I thought that that would be sort of the climax of my story, and something that I could be proud of.

But then I started to actually smell death in my own life, and I started to see, what my neighbor saw when she realized that I was I was actually, suffering and actually, dying really. And she wanted me to know Jesus. But I was so driven, and I thought, these are my people. But then I opened my eyes and I saw all of these men around me getting sick with HIV.

They were dying because they were, injecting themselves with hormones, and their bodies were reacting to those hormones in their bodies. Some of the men were getting killed because of hate crimes, and I did not want that to happen to me. And the Lord, in his kindness, began to send the church to surround me and invite me into what he wanted for me.

Amanda

I remember, one ministry time where there are women laying hands on me, and I had my hands on my stomach, to to indicate the depth of my need, that I need something that was so, so central to my being and so guttural, really. And it was silent. It was silent. And I knew because this woman here that laid hands on me, was there, that I needed her presence, really the presence of Jesus.

But I needed it through her. And in that moment, I had this very, beautiful encounter with the Lord. I was being wrapped in a warm, white, bright blanket, and the Lord was holding me near to him. I was very secure, very warm, and his eyes were like golden flames of fire. And I knew in that moment that he was giving me something that I needed, something that was broken, something that was empty.

And he was filling me with his love through this vision. Yes, but also through my sister who was just abiding with me, saying, yes, Lord, more, Lord...

Carl

I know that Jesus didn't just heal me in a vacuum. As much as I wanted that, I knew that Jesus didn't heal me by myself because community and relationship is how he interacts with us. And I just think of the reality that I felt so loved and received in relating to people in my brokenness, that there's no way that I would have come out of these wounds on my own.

Amanda

And in a in this, I had a relationship with this person. So, I just, I brought some correction to them. And this moment, it's like, hey, that's really unhelpful. So just really told them. And then also there's others, who have just tried to put the guy, the gay or the queer identity on on me and...

Morgan

I think there is something very special. By me submitting my life to especially men that that's not their issue. They have a different impartation for me. And mainly it's one of being included in the world of men. So sometimes there was a season when I was mainly hanging out in the recovery world with just men dealing with same sex stuff, and it was great.

And yet, there was something lacking because we just kind of reinforce that we're so difficult or we're really broken or nobody understands us. And that wasn't as helpful, because it's stunted a growth, stunted healing. But being included into the world of men as a brother really was the key. And so I'm grateful for these men that see me as one of them...

Carl

I think a blessing of receiving support from people who struggle with SSR like I did was certainly having a path, in a way, seeing other people walking this path and knowing, oh, I think this is the way to go. I think this can lead me in the way that I want to go. And seeing brothers in arms, in a way, walking in that direction. Certainly, I think a limit to that is they can only lead us so far. Those who have who are on the path to healing perhaps cannot provide healing to me if they themselves haven't been healed.

Bonnie

Growing up, I remember it just, there was a pastor in our church who had a fault, and when the pastor, he confessed to the elders that he was in a relationship with three different men in the church, he was married. His daughter was in youth group with me. Shook our church. And the lack of transparency and healing, and truth that that didn't happen.

Then, just really kind of colored colored my, my view of the church really being helpful. And so growing up with that and then coming into a different expression of the church where they're speaking life into me, they're speaking wholeness. And to me, they're telling me that I'm beautiful, that I'm a good gift, that, that I'm worth something because I started started the journey feeling very worthless.

And then then to have them pour worth into me over and over again in and just, reaffirm, what the Bible says, was so powerfully healing, particularly in my relationships with women I felt very other than women. And then halfway through Living Waters, I was sitting in my small group thinking, why am I in this small group? I don't relate to any of these women no more.

And I'm sex attracted except for the scary one who was in there. And, And I started getting to hear their stories and realize that, they're not other. And as I hear their stories and went way I went through that, I had that that was similar overall. Like, we're actually really alike. We just took different routes to get our our pain dealt with was trying to fix it best we could. But it wasn't good enough.

And that's why we were living waters. And, to really realize that, oh, I, I, I'm not other, really affected all of my relationships then to, to walk into, really a, a true bonding or a fellowship of we're like, really was transformative.

Steve

I'm so thankful that the church was there and allow accept in me, in my raw brokenness and just love me. And I'm also thankful that he put individuals in the church who could encourage me to a healthier way of life. A pastor who had come out of homosexuality, therapist who was skilled and able to help me.

All of this I found in the church, and just the kindness that I was feeling brought me to a place of repentance for all my sin that I had walked in for many years. Deep grooves in my brain and my heart. You know, people were kind to me. And yeah, I'm just very appreciative that they they were kind, but they didn't accept me to just stay in a stuck place. They spurred me on to the next, next step.

Carl

I would say that integration into the greater church community has certainly led toward increased wholeness in my life. Just through walking with other people who are broken, who are pursuing the path to healing day in and day out. I have my sin. I have my past. But so does my brother. From another walk of life. And we are broken sinners. And that's not where we're meant to be left. But we can support each other in getting back up and resuming our walk to wholeness.

Amanda

I, I love the church. Jesus has loved me so. I loved the church. And I remember when I went to my church for the first time, and I was in the midst of my healing process right in the center of it. And I would go on Sundays and I would just raise my hands during worship.

And the healing just from the beautiful worship was there. (this answers questions 3 and 4!) 00:42:21:21 - 00:42:47:11 And the people who were so embracing of me there. I just went honestly to receive more from God in that season. And as I begin to learn more about the church and became a member at the church, I started serving on the greeting team.

And then I also realized that God was doing something deep in me and that he was he was calling me to walk with others as well. And so I started to just share, what the Lord was doing in me. And, and they began to see, like, wow, God is really moving in this woman's life. And I longed to see that for other people.

And, you know, I started living waters at my, my church and, and it it kind of went very well, you know, it went very well. People were really longing, to receive deep healing from Jesus in the places where they are sexually divided or unhealthy in their relationships.

And I started to really come alive, to know that the, you know, what I think is the messiest thing about me, or the ugliest thing about me, is now a source of healing for other people when I continue to surrender it to the Lord and to share what God has done. Honestly, it's beautiful. And it begin to to change the type of people that were in our church.

I remember, remember our, our pastor saying, I can tell who's been through living waters by the way that they pray. They pray differently. They, they they're fervent, they're zealous, they're fiery and, it's really a beautiful thing.

Yvonne

God encouraged me to to bring my testimony to my. Church. And, that was challenging for a lot of reasons. I wasn't sure. How clear. My testimony really. Would be. But he showed me pretty clearly. Even I don't have perfect people to work with. I only have people in process. So you're great, and and you can do this. And it was so fun to bring what I had to bring what God had done in my heart to my church, you know, in a. Way that I. Could invite other people into it.

Carl

Having been helped by the church. I just have a conviction in my heart that healing is not meant to be kept quiet, kept under a bushel basket, but I know that my story, my experience with, say, can be a light to somebody else. And it's my heart's desire that, the suffering or the struggles that I've experienced not go quiet, but that they can be used to, encourage others who might be sharing in the same struggle that I did.

Morgan

As the Lord has healed me and lifted the shame of what I had done for so many years. I began to realize that, wow. This healing that God is doing in me is not just for me. It's really for his people. In other words, this wasn't my own little healing thing journey for myself and my family.

And that's all it was like, no, the the Lord expanded my vision to say, oh, when you can lay down the shame and know that I love you. You can love others well with the offering that you have, which is some of the story of profound brokenness to being healed, a, being healed, man being healed, husband and father and brother. So, yeah, there was a liberation of shame that allowed me to say, I have an offer. I have something to offer this church. I have something to offer this community.

Steve

I'm a deacon in my church now. I mentor others. So yeah, he's providing wonderful, ministry opportunities. My vision for the church. Is that it? Give the full gospel justification. Yes. Then there's sanctification, which is doing the hard work of growing up and growing into our fullness as a male, or fullness as a female.

Bonnie

One of the things that I think, that I love imparting to the church and doing it regularly, is to have honest conversations. There's, there's a, a place of perfection, you know, that, that says, you know, we're doing this perfectly, which is a lie because because we're fallen and we fall and we we need to be able to be weak. And so one of the things I bring is weakness. When I blow it, I say I'm sorry.

When I mess up, I clean it up and I ask the Lord's help to clean it up well. And there's so much freedom in that to just say, oh, I blew it here. I'm sorry. Forgive me. I need to get up and do this better. One of the things I like to impart also to the church as a whole is that they're a good gift. So many, so many, especially the younger people who I interact with.

They don't know that. They don't get how amazing they are, how beautiful they are. And so to be able to, to speak words of life that I've received myself and then speak them over them and to be able to speak to their identity, especially identity, because they'll, they'll identify as all kinds of things. But the reality is we're made in the image of God. That's our core identity is who we are in Christ, which supersedes any struggle.

David

I believe I'm being a good voice to help others in the church to to deal with the fact that whatever they're walking through, God wants to restore them. God wants us to be drawn to his heart. And some of those examples has been where I have been able to really connect with other men and to really hear their pain and to walk with them and saying, you know what? God is not ashamed of our brokenness. God, our God, is actually drawing us to his heart.

Marco

So our church community wasn't so open to this idea of fostering a community where we would be known in our sexual brokenness. So my wife and I had, a bit of a rough start, so to speak, with bringing this empowered community to this Catholic church. So, yeah, that was hard at first. And we thought, okay, right off the bat, we are not under any sort of impression that this is going to be welcomed.

So this is going to be an uphill battle. So if we actually want to do this in this community, we need to commit to it. And it's not that we're going to start it and then go off somewhere else. We thought, no, this is this is it. We're going to do it here. So we got the pastor's, okay. He was he was game for it. But there was just some rumblings, so to speak. Oh.

This is dangerous. This is conversion therapy. No, you can't do this. And so, my wife and I are very united in this thought. We're going to be humble. We're just going to be humble servants of this place. We're going to serve it as is needed. So we're becoming fully integrated into this community, not necessarily just doing our group, but doing things that actually are needed in the church community.

And I think that gives us some trust from people like, oh, these the Casanovas are their members and they're not off just doing their thing that they want to do. They're they're becoming more one of us. And I think we are seeing slowly but surely, members of the community opening up more to this idea of becoming chaste together. It's a hard one. It'll take a long time, but that's okay. We're. We're not going to go anywhere.

And Jesus helps us. The pastor helps us. It helps to to be a member, very present and and and active. And and when in that way, it seems that people are becoming a little bit more okay with us bringing our gift.

What if you don't have a community?

People who've carried similar stories, in vulnerable conversation and personal reflection.

On building one from scratch.

Everyone says community is the answer.

But what do you do when you don't have one?

An honest look at building it from scratch: the awkward first attempts, the confession that finally broke the shame, and why going first turned out to be worth it.