I grew up fairly oblivious to my sexuality. I had a few minor childhood crushes, but even when we began to learn about sex ed and other things in school, I was under the impression that I didn't experience desire, since my feelings didn't "click" with what my peers were describing. When I was 15 or 16 though, I began to realize I was attracted to men as well as women and everything snapped into clear focus. I had a crush on a boy in my science class in 10th grade, and began to have more crushes on people of all different genders when I got to college. Though it would be another 7 years from the moment I realized to when I had my first boyfriend and began to come out in earnest as a bisexual man, I knew that this part of my embodied experience would shape my life and story in powerful and at times mysterious ways.

For a number of years, it never occurred to me that there might be other LGBTQ+ Christians. I had heard about "ex-gay" ministries, and vaguely about Christians who were what we would now call Side B, but I didn't know anyone personally. Despite the lack of role models, I still believed that it was possible to be bi and Christian. I was blessed to have a number of affirming straight friends, and a spiritual mentor who encouraged me to pursue my own walk with God regardless of what the Church said about me. Through prayer and contemplation, I had a few mystical experiences of intimacy with God that affirmed in my heart that God was for me and loved me unconditionally. The struggle for me was how to explain the truth I felt in my heart about my affections to someone else, since I had no affirming theology to explain my experiences.

Eventually, I was blessed to find Q Christian Fellowship and a number of other communities who gave me words to talk about how God is proud of me. I went from thinking "my orientation is okay in the abstract, but I'll probably never act on it" to being openly bi and cultivating relationships and intimacy with men and women (and a few nonbinary friends). As I was meeting other queer Christians, I also ended up leaving my conservative evangelical church and becoming a member of the Greek Orthodox Church. While this community was not officially affirming (and eventually I was excommunicated), my sojourn into an ancient faith community helped me to feel a sense of kinship with the saints and the ancestors of my faith. Their testimonies of being marginalized by the institutional church gave me strength and courage. The rich life of prayer and sacrament I discovered in the Orthodox community helped me to build a strong foundation of intimacy with God, a foundation that helped me to stand strong in the face of persecution by non-affirming Christians. Over time, I've come to believe that my queerness is not just okay, but that it is a gift to the Church. I believe that LGBTQ+ Christians reveal in our bodies and our experiences different facets of the Kingdom of God. We have the potential to be icons, holy images of the abundant life all Christians are called to live in Christ. LGBTQ+ Christians in particular reveal a way of being in our bodies and in our relationships that can transcend the flawed scripts society writes on what it means to be human. We creatively image new ways of being, ways which provide a foretaste of the creative renewal that I believe God desires for all human flourishing.

Though I'm deeply grateful for the work that's been done on how to read Scripture in an affirming way, I always felt that for me personally what was most important for affirmation was the ability to see my queer life reflected in the life of God's story and in the lives of other Christians. At first, that looked like searching for role models from the past. I read a lot of lives of saints who might now be described as "queer" (Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, for example), as well as writings from modern LGBTQ+ Christians (Fr. Henri Nouwen, Richard Rodriguez, Justin Lee, and Rev. Elizabeth Edman come to mind). In time, I also was greatly helped by the support of LGBTQ+ Christian friends and colleagues, people who had walked the road I was walking and were able to show examples of what flourishing for our community looks like. Discovering a more affirming theology of the body as a source of God's goodness (primarily through my encounter with Orthodox and queer Christian texts) also greatly helped. All in all, my journey towards affirmation was a journey of learning to see my queer Christian story echoed in the church, in my communities, and in the heart of my faith.

After various conversations with friends and family, I began to feel a call to ministry. I am currently in my second year of seminary, studying for my M Div. At school, I do campus ministry with undergrad students. I was recently ordained to minor orders as a Subdeacon with a progressive, affirming Orthodox Christian church. In every venue of my life, I try to tell my story to people who might find it helpful, and for people who need to hear that we exist. My hope is to eventually be ordained as a priest with an affirming community in my church tradition, and possibly also to serve as a chaplain in a hospital or college campus context. I write poetry and fiction, and I'm also hoping to eventually write a book on the intersection of queer theology and Eastern Orthodox theology. I'm currently single, but hope to eventually find a husband or a wife to settle down and share life with. In all that I do, I try to bring a creative, playful and prayerful approach to life, doing my best to break and blur boundaries between ideas and communities. Though I've continued to meet with resistance at times from churches, society and occasionally family, I am hopeful and confident that God is doing beautiful things in my life and in the lives of other LGBTQ+ Christians. We are a vibrant and holy community, and I continue to be touched by the ways my experiences as a queer Christian in community have helped me to reach out in solidarity to others, doing my part to help us all move towards the abundant life God desires for all people.