Last night as I was sitting in my bedroom reading, I suddenly became aware of the date. Exactly four months have passed since that January morning when I woke up, sat down at my computer, logged into WordPress, and clicked “publish” for the first time. I put a link on my Facebook page and went upstairs to make breakfast: oatmeal and blueberries – just another day in the life of the recently unemployed. I sat in the kitchen and ate my fibrous morning meal, thinking to myself, “who’s really going to read this blog?” I had already come out to my entire family, to most of my friends, and to nearly everyone I encounter in my day-to-day life. I imagined those who would see my link on their Facebook news feed simply saying, “Oh, Andrew’s gay; knew that already,” then keep scrolling. But by the time I returned to my desk, my inbox had started filling up, my phone was ringing, and Facebook notifications were coming in by the minute. At the end of the day, we had received nearly 4,000 hits.
It’s hard to believe that “Coming Out Covenant” is truly up and running. I’m in my 70th year, and it has taken a very long time to acknowledge a large group of human beings living in our midst. I am one of them.
My name is Charlotte Johnson, and I live with my spouse, Joan Gauthey, in Washington, CT. We belong to Salem Covenant Church in Washington Depot, where we have been active for 44 years. When I say active, I mean ACTIVE. I’ve been in the choir since age 14, both of us have spent years on church council, Joan has been church chair, together we’ve been on Diaconate, Fellowship committee, Christian Education, pastoral search committee, Joan helped with nursery and I’ve organized Lenten Lunches for 20 years. SHOCKINGLY, we even headed the young people’s group when we were young and agile. (Some of those “kids” are now grandparents!) Oh yes, delegates to annual and conference meetings several times. Where we totally fall by the wayside is that neither of us bakes, and I’m a mediocre cook.
Joan has been a wonderful high school teacher for 35 years in town, and was coach of the year in Field Hockey in 1991 for the United States of America. Her Covenant resume is pretty thin. She’s only been in the church 47 years, is Irish, Arab and French, and was brought up in a Congregational Church. However, she did work with Jerry Johnson and the Barnabas group for several years. I, on the other hand, am a saturated “Covie.” My grandparents from Sweden helped start our church in 1888. My father was on the Diaconate for 40 years, and mother rolled enough bandages to circle the Congo. They put their blood, sweat, tears and constant prayers into our church family, as did Aunt Ruth, who lived with us and was always part of the family. Aunt Ruth was born in Sweden, confirmed in our church, and died at age 100 and buried by said church. My sister, 13 years older, and aunt went to North Park College (NPC) and Swedish Covenant Hospital (SCH) starting in 1924 – 1951. Continue reading Charlotte Johnson: “Staying Home”→
Yesterday, one of our readers shared a link to a Holy Week sermon on our Facebook page (you can click “like” in the box on the right if you haven’t already done so to support us on Facebook and get new post notifications in your news feed).
I’m sharing the link here in hopes that more people will see and read and pass along this powerful, moving sermon:
As I read this sermon, I was reminded how one of the things the evangelical church often struggles to do well is lament. When it comes to the treatment of our LGBTQ sisters and brothers in our churches and our communities, there is a deep and urgent need for us to lament. Today is Good Friday. Today is a day on which the church laments. Today we hear the lament of Jesus himself, from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That cry of forsakenness, loneliness, humiliation, and abandonment is echoed by countless marginalized groups today. May the Church give ear to that cry and always remember: it is the cry of Jesus. We must hear, and join in, the lament if we are to be able to bring the hopeful light of the Gospel. We can’t just skip past Good Friday. But even from Friday’s darkness, we can’t forget: Sunday’s coming.
(Also, be sure to go back and read yesterday’s post from Darlene if you haven’t already! We are grateful for her willingness to share her journey so honestly with us.)
My name is Rick Sindt and I am a sophomore at North Park University, where I am currently pursuing an Art and Psychology double major. I grew up in a small town south east of the Twin Cities, in Minnesota, along the Mississippi River. I grew up with two loving parents and one brother. We lived in the country and always had an assortment of animals around ranging from barn cats to sled dog teams. I have a large extended family and I grew up much like any other boy. This past fall I started the process of coming out.
What has surprised me the most about coming out is that when I come out to people I am not given space to be me. People who I come out to still hold me to the image they had of me as a heterosexual, or they expect me to become their preconceived notion of who a gay man is. I first started telling people in September of 2010. The first person I told was one of my closest friends. I decided to tell her because she continued to ask me about girl interests in my life. I grew tired of putting on a charade, I felt like I was living a lie, and I knew the only way to liberate myself from that feeling was to name my sexuality to someone. She handled it well and graciously. At the time she was alone with me in this journey and it was difficult for her to be the only one who knew. I was finally willing to talk about my sexuality with someone and I talked about it persistently. Continue reading Rick Sindt: “A Little Space”→
It is the stories of others that help promote dialog and understanding. Most people that I know who have once held anti-gay viewpoints but changed their view on the subject, whether their anti-gay view was based on religious convictions or not, have stated that it was personally knowing someone or hearing someone’s story that made them think about the issue in a different way.
Here is my story:
I was born in 1981, so much of my childhood was during a time when LGBT individuals had no or very little positive presence in the public sphere. Although not everyone does, I knew that I was gay from a very young age. I knew I was different and that this difference was not accepted in society and especially not in the church, so I kept it all inside and told no one of my feelings.
I come from a line of deep rich Covenant blood. I am almost 100% Swedish and can trace many of my relatives back to Sweden (for non-Covenanters, the Covenant Church was founded by Swedes). There have been numerous Covenant clergy in my family history dating back three or four generations. I attended church every Sunday and unless I was on death’s doorstep, I was there. I attended a Covenant camp in the summers and even worked at one during a summer in college. I went to CHIC, and then completed the perfect Covenanter’s journey by going to North Park University. Throughout all this, I prayed to God to fix me, or heal me, or change me. I wondered what I had done wrong to be so different from everyone else. It seemed like a cruel joke. I thought maybe if I prayed harder, or was a better Christian, God would make me “normal.” Nothing changed so I just put on the happy perfect Covenanter mask and continued living. This only lasted so long before resentment and anger started to brew, and eventually I distanced myself from the Covenant and stopped attending church altogether, but never completely abandoned God. I always knew that even though I might leave a denomination, I could never turn my back on God or deny his existence or presence in my life. Continue reading Michael Satterberg: “My Story”→
Text for reflection: [Three men] said to him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And [Abraham] said, “There, in the tent.” Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?” The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.” But Sarah denied, saying, “I did not laugh”; for she was afraid. He said, “Oh yes, you did laugh.” (Genesis 18:9–15)
I often have wondered about Sarah’s laugh in this text from Genesis. Was it a laugh of disbelief? “You have got to be kidding, God. The idea of having a child at my advanced age is worthy of great laughter.” Or was it a laugh of pleasure? “After all these years, I can finally have my own child and not share my husband’s son Ishmael with my husband’s mistress.” Or was it a laugh of sarcasm and cynicism? “This time you have gone too far, God: You know that the only role for women in this culture is to bear and raise children. After all these years, it still brings me great pain that I have been unable to have children.” Or was it a laugh that provided a cover-up for a great deal of shame – shame that was a result of years of pain?
When I a teenager, I walked around with a great deal of shame, which I quickly covered up with lots of laughter – just like Sarah. I was ashamed of being gay, and I wondered why God would have created me gay and not straight like everyone else. Even saying the word “gay” did not happen unless it passed my lips as I sang a Christmas tune in the local Covenant Church Sunday School pageant: “Christmas is Jesus’ birthday; that’s why we’re happy, and that’s why we’re gay, for Christmas is Jesus’ birthday.”
Of course, we were “gay” if you mean happy, but we certainly were not all gay in my Sunday School. But I was – and I hoped for a long time, through middle school and upper school, that somehow God would work a miracle and make me to be just like everyone else. Continue reading Scott Erickson: “What Are You Going to Do About It?”→
Several weeks ago, I had the honor of preaching at North Park University’s Sunday evening service, collegelife. At the time of the invitation all I knew was that they were beginning a series on characters in the Bible, and how we can “mind the gap” of 2,000-plus years between their time and cultural context and our lives in our world today. How can their lives, experiences, and stories inform us in the similar challenges we face today? Only later did I learn the specific topic for the night I was asked to speak: “living above the influence.” I was less than enthusiastic. It seemed to have old youth group “peer pressure” talks written all over it. They picked the wrong guy for this one, I thought.
I had to choose a character that exemplified a life above the influence. So I picked Peter. Yes, Peter. Impetuous, imperfect Peter. Peter, the one who stepped out of the boat in faith, and then sank. Peter, the one who vowed to follow Jesus even unto death, and then denied his Lord three times. In many ways, Peter was such a doofus. And in many ways, Peter was just like you and me. He sank. He denied. And still he was called the rock on which the early church was built.
Peter was a loser of a fisherman, not among the social elite. He didn’t hesitate at Jesus’ invitation to be a part of his inner circle. Just like us, Peter wanted a place to belong, he wanted to be accepted. But this desire for belonging would take over him in such a way that in order to fit in with an accusing crowd, Peter would have to deny his faith. And as with Peter, our innate desire to belong easily becomes idolatrous, which compels us to compromise.
I’m afraid the same is true in the Church, that great fellowship and place of belonging. All too often, we feel forced to compromise or to cover up truths about ourselves in order to find acceptance and welcome. We advertise with the message, “all are welcome here” while often communicating an implicit message that some are welcomed as second-class members. And so, for many the options appear to be to hide and remain accepted, or to be honest and face rejection. It’s no wonder that so many of our sisters and brothers sitting in the pew next to us are, in fact, hiding in plain sight. This has become the price of fellowship. It is denial. Just like Peter. Denial of one’s very identity.
When it comes to relating with members of the LGBT community, we like to disassociate ourselves from the purportedly Christian churches whose vitriolic speech communicates hate more clearly than love. But when we welcome others without offering them the freedom to be honest about who they are, and together celebrate and embrace all that God has made them to be, we too fail to communicate the radically inclusive love of the Gospel. Instead, we find that we’ve fallen under the influence of a culture of mere tolerance. Tolerance is convenient. Tolerance is cheap, and it is easy. But tolerance is not Gospel. Tolerance is a denial of the Gospel.
In striving to live above the influence, we must continually return to our baptism, to remember who we are and be thankful. This is the Good News of the Gospel: you are accepted. There is no second-class citizen in God’s Kingdom. There are no second-class seats at Christ’s Table. I refuse to tolerate second-class membership in Christ’s Church. And I refuse to deny the radical love and acceptance of the Gospel.
Here is a 17-minute clip from the second half of the sermon I delivered at North Park (complete with my sniffles and strained voice as I struggled to preach while at the peak of a cold!):
[audio:http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3181966/collegelife022011%201.mp3|titles=”Above the Influence”|artists=Andrew Freeman]
If you are interested, you can listen to the full sermon, about 38-minutes (which includes an introduction and the beginning of the communion liturgy), in the player below or download the audio file by clicking this link.
I was 20 when I first heard someone say that God might be OK with me even though I’m not straight. I spent the next two years at North Park as a transfer student, trying to figure things out on my own. I really felt that there wasn’t anyone I could share it with at the time. In high school and my first bits of college I had done a lot of spiritual leadership-y things – led a prayer group at school, led a lot of worship – and I felt that I had trapped myself. I did well in school, I led all these things, but privately I was lonely and intensely sad. I was deeply unhappy (but it did make for some good songwriting material). I could not believe it was possible that God, my family, my churches, or most of my friends would ever accept me. It hid parts of who I was; I could never just let go, be a friend to my friends, be open, be myself.
I didn’t have anyone to go to with something so unimaginable and unacceptable – I say unimaginable because when I first started coming to terms with my sexuality, I really honestly could not imagine what my life would look like – it was terrifying. So when I got to North Park, I kind of tried to stay under the radar. I was torn because I was encouraged in doing things with the church, but at the same time I felt that if I was honest with people, that my orientation would cancel out all of that. Covenant churches were spaces where I felt that if I got close, if I was known, it would necessarily lead to pain and rejection, so the easiest thing to do was back away. Continue reading Rebecca: “My Story”→
God asked Solomon a question that I wish God would ask me:
“What shall I give you?”
Up until recently, if I was asked this question by God, my answer would have been, “Free me from homosexuality,” “take away this deep desire for me to be with another man.” In my time spent in prayer, I was like the persistent widow constantly asking God for this. This plea has not “yet” been answered. I say “yet” because I still hope that some day I will wake up and find myself attracted to the “GIRL-next door” instead of the “GUY-next door.”
This desire has intensified over the past couple months as I’ve found out that two of my closest Christian friends are engaged to be married.
Is this a selfish wish? Is this a wish that is in line with the word of God?
I am a Christian man, born, raised, and worshiping in the Covenant Church, who also happens to be sexually attracted to other men. I don’t like calling myself “gay,” because in my town, people (both inside and outside the church) associate “gay” with words like “promiscuous,” “flamboyant,” and “queen.” I do not fit any of these categories.
In my few failed attempts to connect with other gay men, I hesitate at calling myself a “Christian” because people outside the church (both gay and straight) associate “Christian” with words like “judgmental,” “hypocritical,” and “self righteous.”
For me, trying to find my own identity is incredibly bewildering. Scripture and prayer has been an incredible source of comfort and guidance for me as I search for my identity. However, on the topic of homosexuality, it is lacking clarity. “Mom” reads it one way; “Dad” reads it another way. When getting an answer, I’d like to always go to the parent who will give me the answer that I want, but I’ve learned that neither “Mom” nor “Dad” is always right.
Graphic by David
Since these answers are unclear to me, I feel like I am standing at an intersection on “Uncertainty Lane” not going anywhere in life. I am scared to pursue an intimate relationship for fear I will mess it up, and I am scared to share the Gospel with non-Christians for fear that I will be hypocritical or give people an inadequate image of Christianity.
In addition to the voices from the “Christian” community and the voices from the “gay” community influencing me, I also struggle with a very judgmental father and a mother who I love and do not want to disappoint. I know from experience how bad decisions can hurt those people that you love, and I fear that a wrong choice on my part could deeply wound the people who I love the most. Continue reading David: “Standing on Uncertainty Lane”→
As I’ve been reading the posts and comments here, I’m excited to see new dialog within the Covenant. I’ve seen views across the board about us. We are people, not an issue. I am gay and a child of God. These identities can and do coexist.
I have been a Christian all my life, and there was a time when I myself was strongly against what was already evident inside me. I held it in the dark, too afraid of what might happen if my secret was out. I must admit, though, that my fear did not come from the pulpit – well, maybe a few I happened to see on TV. The pulpits were mostly silent about us. Instead, the hate, anger, filth, and outright lies came from the news, TV, and from movies. Most of all, it came from everyday people around me: from family, friends, and strangers. From those who suspected I was gay, it was the taunting and torture just about every day of my grade school and junior high life. I’d been singled out and attacked, and I was constantly taunted by fellow students.
The taunting was still a problem in high school, but I made a small group of friends and stayed away from any extracurricular activities. I limited myself to one activity outside of school: being drill leader for JROTC. The rest of my time I chose to work instead of doing other school activities. I worried this might affect me down the road when applying for college, but it wasn’t worth the risk to me. Being out simply didn’t feel like an option. My group of friends from high school never even knew until a couple years after I graduated from college. Continue reading Anonymous: My Story→
Members and friends of the Evangelical Covenant Church in favor of a more inclusive church!
