"Not everybody will agree with the interpretations offered here, but I hope this venture will lead to deeper thought and conversation about what we can all learn from one another." -- J. Philip Wogaman
January Hiatus and My Problems with Connection at Church
So, yes, I titled this post as a hiatus even though I haven’t been on tumblr in almost a year. I left tumblr because a lot was happening in my life and I didn’t have the time or energy to post, but now, I’m back.
I decided to give church a hiatus in the month of January and to come back to tumblr to do weekly meditations on God and church and my personal beliefs. I want a fresh start in a new ministry that I want to find once I’ve sorted out my thoughts on what exactly I want to give at church and what I need from church.
The reason I want a break from church is multifaceted...
During 2016, I moved away from home and my churches (Little Church and Big Church, for later reference) to take a job in DC, where I returned to the church that I grew up in (Childhood Church, for later reference). A few things had changed in the decade since I’d last attended Childhood Church, but the pastor and the major families were still the same. My childhood friends were at grad school and new careers, and so weren’t available for reconnect, but I did make friends with a few married couples who were cool and reconnected with the pastor from my childhood and his wife. It was good to meet them again as an adult because I felt like I could get to know them as more than just the parents of my friends. Something still was missing though, and I started to notice that there really was no one like me at church. There were no single young professionals, and although my married friends were cool, they had something that I didn’t have and all the old ladies in the church were just waiting for there to be cute new babies to dote on. I was just expected to help with worship, and help with kids programs because, as a single person, I obviously had nothing better to do with my time. I do enjoy helping with worship, and I generally like kids, but I really started to feel like I wasn’t being ministered to. Just helping to minister to the kids and the elders and getting little to nothing in return.
This wasn’t even beginning to touch on a new contrast that was coming between me and this church where I’d grown up. When I was younger, I was pretty homophobic, and as I grow older, I’ve begun to figure out that this was a learned behaviour from my father, and a reaction of fear to my own sexuality and gender identity. A lot of which I think may have stemmed from things I learned to believe, not just from dad, but also from church and the Christian curriculum I was educated with. In other words, I didn’t know who I could trust with my newfound gender id at this church that may still contain remnants of the homophobia I was raised alongside. I was getting plenty of support online from friends I met at anime cons, and from new friends I was making at work. I even made a few forays into the restroom of my new identity at work to test the waters. But the disconnect in my head was growing larger as I felt I had no one to confide in. Eventually, I mentioned a same-sex date to a friend in passing conversation, and she was really accepting. Then another friend stumbled upon an instagram post (I’m out on instagram for the most part) and questioned me about it, eventually to conclude that she saw where I was coming from, but wasn’t sure she agreed and was going to pray about it.
Then... DC didn’t work out and I moved back home to Tennessee. I was hoping to just plug back into my churches where I’d left off and just pick up my broken pieces from what felt like a failure in DC.
But the pastorship had changed at both churches. The pastor at the little church had been young and he and his wife had almost felt like siblings, their little girls almost like nieces. But they moved to Illinois, and the other people my age... were a young couple that was engaged and that I don’t really have a lot in common with, and this guy who has a crush on me, but that I really never want to date. I was alone again, only more so than in DC. I considered going back to the Big Church, but the old pastor had retired. I had looked up to him, and went in a church group with him to Israel, where I really got to connect with him over archaeology. I’m still not sure about the new pastor, and I don’t want to try it out again if I’m still going to have to hide my gender id and sexuality.
So, coming home to TN ended up feeling like moving to an entirely new place, and I still feel alone. I still feel like I’m giving in ministry and not being ministered to. And while I love getting up to lead worship at the Little Church, I know I would be despised if they knew who I really was inside. I was going through the motions, and performing out a character that I know I really am not. They say the worst place to lie is in church, but oftentimes I feel like I need to lie to be accepted.
I want a place where I can be part of a Christian community and part of the LGBT community. I would love to serve in that environment because I would know I was actually making a difference. I cry thinking about trying to struggle with an unaccepted LGBT identity without my faith and wish that we could be included in the church. I want the church to be a place to find hope again, not a place where we learn self-hate and find isolation. Sometimes it feels impossible.
So I’m taking a break to meditate and decide what I want. To find scripture to bolster me and bring back my hope. To reconnect with God, so that I can offer that connection to others. For me, because I’m lonely.
My mom said that today in church her pastor said in the sermon that Jesus told us to help the poor, and taking money away from public schools to give to charter schools only widens the gap between the rich and the poor. She then added that Jesus spoke against adultery and lust and would not have approved of bragging about sexually assaulting women. According to my mom, people got up and walked out.
The pastor also started the sermon by noting that she’d heard of another minister who read the entirety of the Sermon on the Mount at the pulpit, to be told by the so-called Christian parishioners after the service that it was offensive and they didn’t agree.
The Sermon on the Mount is straight up the words of Jesus.
I recently read an article that said, hypocritical Christians in America don’t actually worship Jesus. They worship America, and even then, it’s a very specific, self-centered idea of America.
Now that I realize I'm pansexual, I think I understand why I bought the "Gay is a choice and you can't be born gay" thing as a kid. So if you still buy that, maybe you should re-examine your own sexuality... because if you feel like you could choose either way, there are terms for that, and I think you were created with that choice ;)
Literally having this issue with an uncle who happens to be a deacon. Will probably be posting this exact photo. Thank you tumblr for coming through in the clutch
the universe loves itself enough to put stars out there in the emptiness, enough to form planets and spill out galaxies. and if it can learn to love itself for becoming an infinity, for growing: maybe i can learn to love my body. i am my own universe. i deserve to paint constellations inside me.
Donald Trump is exactly the kind of person that Jesus would have thrown out of the temple and beaten with a stick, and the fact that so many self-identified Christians want to put him in office tells you pretty everything wrong with white American Christianity.
I 100% can’t tell if you’re joking here but he actually did chase people out of a temple at least once for using religion for their own selfish gains, complete with literal table flipping and improvised whips
So really it’s not that he would have trump thrown out as much as he would storm in and accuse him of turning his father’s house into a den of thieves before upending a table on his head
Dude, Jesus not only chased them out, he broke stuff they were selling, let loose all of their animals, and fucking flipped all the money-changing tables.
Jesus 100% would have been chasing Trump out with a table leg.
After Darsh’s photo was used in an Islamophobic joke, the internet rallied around him in love and respect. His response on MSNBC is the definition of poise and rising above the hate.
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