BROCK MIX

I realized from a young age, late elementary, that I was different than my peers. I wasn’t “girl crazy”, I didn’t share the same “masculine” interests. My eyes were drawn to my male peers in ways that my other friends didn’t understand.

I grew up in catholic school and went to a Pentecostal/evangelical church and so I always thought my feelings were wrong and shameful. Those feelings were compounded when I spent a year doing missions with a youth missions organization. Even though my family said they supported the LGBTQ+ population, I felt too much religious and cultural shame to come out.

I became a pastor in the church I attended as a teenager and decided that I would need to either change my sexuality, take a straight life or stay single. It wasn’t until a failed opposite-sex relationship and years of prayer and study that I decided I couldn’t live in the closet. I came out to my family and was immediately accepted but I lost my job and needed to change careers.

Hearing stories about proud, queer Christians who had same sex partners helped give me the courage to ask God if this was a reality for someone like me. I read books, listened to podcasts, studied academic articles and biblical languages and found that the few biblical passages were more grey than black and white.

I’m now a teacher and in a loving relationship with another queer Christian man! We are rebuilding our faith in ways that look so much more like the love of Jesus I was taught as a child. We found a church that loves us, friends that support us and the church I needed to leave has become more accepting of Queer people in the process. The journey was heart-aching and brutal but the fruit has been full of blessing and love. And, throughout the last few years, the church that I left has become a place where queer people can serve and love freely!