Affirming Church - My experience of recently attending a very openly "affirming" Church

     

  Maybe you had a chance to read a blog I recently posted in public, and if you did you read all about how I have been, and still am, struggling with my views and ideas of the Church. I wanted to write an update on how my search for answers and a church home is going and I think my experience might surprise you, it definitely surprised me....




* A Confession - I'm going to be really honest here, maybe too honest for a blog, and I need grace!


       A few months ago a friend of mine invited me to a Church (which I won't name publicly) she had been going to and she knew about how I had been struggling to find a Church home, so when she invited me I knew she was thinking of me and felt this Church could be different. It took me a few weeks before I finally went but before I share my experience once I got there, I want to share my prejudice's and bias before I ever stepped foot in the door.

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What makes this Church different is a number of things, but possibly the biggest is that it's a very openly "affirming" Church. If you don't know what affirming vs non-affirming means, thats probably a good thing, maybe you don't have a lifetime of ideas in your head about what it means. But just so we are all on the same page, in short, an "affirming" Church is a church that openly accepts those whom the broader church has cast out, and more politically incorrect, but how I saw it (honesty moment), is that an affirming church accepts people who are gay. If I'm honest, I'm not even sure I know what exactly affirming and non-affirming means?

Regardless....


     Thats it. Thats all it is. A Church that is affirming. But this one word makes a world of difference in the Christian culture, and if I am completely honest, I had picked up a lot of prejudices and wrong ideas about this subject that I never intended too. I'm not even going to try to justify how I thought, or why I thought what I thought, I just need you to know that hidden deep inside of me were ideas I wish I didn't have. Hidden inside my "compassionate" heart was bad theology and twisted words.

      Before I ever walked into this Church I already had an idea of what it would be like in my head. I had heard the comments people make, "Ill never go to an affirming church", "you can go wherever you want these days and someone will tell you what you want to hear", "How can a church let gay people stay!", "that church can't be a biblical church", maybe you've heard them too...and the list goes on.

      So as I walked into this church for the very first time, whether I knew it or not, I had a perception of what I thought this would be like, but I want to tell you now, my perception was wrong.

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     This Church was different then any church I had been to before. They worshipped in a much smaller space, a room big enough for maybe 40 people. The pastor sat down and asked questions and the people responded, there was a dialogue. The community seemed tight-knit, maybe because the church was so small, or maybe for other reasons. The physical apperance of this church was different as well....there were gay men in this church, single moms in this church, non-conforming "they/them" people in this church, minorities in this church, outcasts; this church was made up of 100% of those cast out by the church.

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*** (this isn't a discussion about whether or not you think homosexuality is a sin or whether or not you think churches should be "affirming", its a discussion about how "affirming" churches are perceived and how I experienced one for the first time.)

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   So here is the thing: my whole adult life, and possibly well before that, I have seen, heard, and been told that a Church and a Christian who identifies as "affirming" or Gay can't be a Christian. That no good can come from there, that there is something inherently wrong, unchristlike about them. Maybe you've heard that too. Maybe you have some of the same ideas, prejudices, and bad theology from years of doctrinal church as I do.         (go visit an "affirming" church - here is why)

-------My Experience-------

        This church was beautiful.... This church, with all of it's "faults and controversies", was something different than I've ever experienced in church. This is what pierced my heart - my whole Christian life I have attended churches and not once, I mean, not one Sunday, ever, had a church addressed racial inequality in our country, our city, our churches. NEVER! This elephant in the room in every church, the current climate of racial tensions in our country and especially our churches, never has this been talked about with such rawness, honesty, and humbleness. BUT.....the very first time I attended this "affirming" church, for the first 15 minutes the pastor and the church discussed what was going on in our city with regards to racial inequality. They talked about what they were doing as a church body to combat racial poverty, systemic oppression, they were open about the things going on and willing to spend time addressing it. I mean, they spent 5 minutes talking about a law being enacted that would directly effect the poor, and predominantly minority population in our city. This wasn't a facade, this was real.

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My heart sank and my heart rose in the same moment. 

      Here I was, assuming I knew what an "affirming" church would be, and I sat in disbelief, that the darkness hidden in our churches was openly brought to the light, and it wasn't the big church down the street with the huge sound system, it wasn't the church across the way with strong biblical teaching, it wasn't the evangelical church with a great social media account, no, it was the small "affirming" church in the middle of the city that was doing something to combat racism and injustice in our city! So my heart sank because I had unintentionally crossed them off my list, "cast" them out, if you will. But, my heart rose, because I had finally walked into a church that felt safe.

*** It felt safe

    Why have I struggled so much with walking into churches? Because I don't feel safe when I do, yet, with this church, the net was put down, my safety was not at risk, I felt safe. Do you know what that feels like? To finally feel the overwhelming emotion of safety to love God and others? It was too much to describe in the moment, I was at a loss for words and in someways I still am.

     The affirming church, the "gay" church, the church with "those" people, the church that let "them" in, it was that church that was getting is right. Man, I've got a lot to learn. By the way, this same church was maybe the most well versed church congregation of the Bible I had ever been in, scripture wasn't set aside for the sake of "social" issues, in case you thought that.

     So what now? Well, I've gone back to this church, and while I still have a lot of things to wrestle with in my own heart about church in general, I have a desire to wake up on Sunday and go and for that I am thankful, and that's what I plan to do, attend an "affirming" church. Why? Because there is something so beautiful about a place that offers refuge to the 'least of these' in society. A place for the downtrodden and hopeless. A place that gives life to the lifeless when so many others refuse to even try. A place that makes Christ safe for those who have been told verbally or not verbally that the doors to His church are closed.

Disclaimer: this isn't to say there arent other churches that arent getting it right as well. This isn't a critique of every church everywhere, and it's not a sounding board for my own theological doctrine or thesis, no it's just an encouragement to all of us, that we may look at ourselves, at our own churches, and be concerned with how we ought to be more like Christ, instead of trying to convince others that "that" church is not like Christ. Maybe I'm just speaking to myself.

A Final Note -

   To my friends who are like me (straight, well-versed in church, bible reading Christians) I just want to challenge you - is it possible that the places and people who you may see as the least Christlike, actually have something beautiful to offer? Would you ever consider attending an "affirming" church? Would you ever consider moving closer to the things you are afraid of, unsure of, unaware of? You might just know Christ more because of it. 

     To my friends who are gay, to those of you who have struggled to sit in all white spaces, to those of you who have felt the weight of a church that doesn't value you because of your gender, to the teen mom, to the leper, the prostitute, the tax-collector, the lame, the blind, the meak, the poor, to you I just want to say I am sorry for not loving you how Christ has. I am sorry if you've ever been hurt by me, by people in the church, or by the church as a whole. I want you to know that I see you, that there are Christians who see you, who want you, who need you, who know you belong. Thank you for fighting an exhaustive fight, and I hope I can learn a few things from you on what it looks like to love Christ more. 

* Feedback: 
       - If you're uneasy about the ideas I wrote or that I enjoy attending an affirming church, don't be mad, reach out to me and ask me about my heart and to hear more. Let's have a human conversation! 

       - If you've experienced the "casting out" of a church, how has that experience been for you? Would you be brave enough to share it with me? I'd love to know your story. 


   In Christ,

            Jeremiah