Fabulous
 

Tomorrow I am attending my first MCC service and I am very excited! It has taken me nearly a year to come to terms with the fact that I can be gay and still be a Christian. The circumstances that lead me to this decision are interesting. I had no intention of attending this or any other church for that matter. But after almost attending another event at this church, I began thinking more about it. I believe that God works in mysterious ways.

I wish you well in this part of your journey...(f)

We have an MCC church at the beach that we attended a few times years ago. My spouse is Christian but I'm not, so we eventually just quit going. It was real nice though. I have never attended a Unitarian Universalist church but I've always been kinda curious about them.:praying::praying:

Anyone else on here Baptist?

I'm not but
 

On my mother's side both my great and great great grandfathers were Baptist preachers in NC & SC. http://www.reeceschapel.com/ To appease our relatives back east as a child I was sent to every Baptist church in town and the next two cities over. There are so many different types of Baptists within the denomination that you just truly never know what you're going to see at a Baptist church that's new to you until you get there.

One guitar player great with Baptist roots was Sister Rosetta Tharpe. She was born Rosetta Nubin in Cotton Plant, AK. Her mother was a preacher for the Church of God in Christ founded in 1894 by a black Baptist bishop named Charles Mason, who encouraged rhythmic musical expression, dancing in praise and allowing women to preach in church. Encouraged by her mother she began singing and playing the guitar as 'Little Rosetta Nubin' at the age of four and was cited as a musical prodigy*.Your post reminded me of her and I thought I'd post it for any Southern Baptists who might be out there.




*Source - compilation wikipedia and guitar world dot com

Thanks for this. I'm hoping more Baptists come out of the woodwork on here to discuss things.

I forgot about this thread. I am a third year student in seminary right now here in the San Francisco Bay Area. My first year as a seminarian I was very surprised to find that there are many, many LGBTQ people in seminary. Most of us are working on getting a Master's of Divinity degree. Some will seek ordination, some will not.

There are many mainline Protestant religions that are open and affirming. Even if "Open and Affirming" is not yet official across the entire denomination, many of the individual church's do indeed welcome LGBTQ people. "Christianity" ain't what it use to be. Most of the Queer Christians and members of other spiritual traditions I go to school with are very concerned with social justice issues.

It is not required for you to attend church to be a Christian, but what you do get by attending many church's is a community. The right wing Christian is not the 21st century Christian. Your choice of religion or spiritual practice is yours to decide. Let us not forget the Humanist, they too are now getting chaplains in the military.

I remember growing up being told by my devoted Baptist grandparents that you have to go to church to be a Christian. As I've gotten older I know better.

Thank you for posting this. I've loved Sister Rosetta Tharpe for decades. She's just now getting some revived interest with a documentary about her life and a PBS biography. I haven't seen either of them, so I don't know if they gloss over what historians have often described as her 'unconventional lifestyle'. That's usually code for gay. Sister R.T. was just as at-home in country juke joints and big city night clubs singing proto rock and R&B as she was at church singing gospel. When I heard Sister R.T's gospel recordings with Marie Knight I was sure they were more than just performing partners, and that was before I ever heard a peep about her 'unconventional lifestyle'. I have no historical evidence whatsoever about Marie Knight, by the way. That's just my hunch.

I haven't heard anything of it. I do know that once source did mention she was married once.

She was married several times. Considering the time in which she lived, that's not much of an indicator.

I have been attending the church where my girlfriend works but they do not know we are a couple, we are keeping things under wraps because I don't want the drama and neither does she nor do I want her to get a bad review or fired.

I really like the church, way better then the one my parents attend, I am not sure why.

Anyone else been church shopping before?

I've been church shopping before but it was a long time ago what type of church are you looking for? BTW Happy Sunday Everybody.

I'm not really church shopping now. I was trying to get dialogue going on the thread.

Well maybe with the title of the thread being about open and affirming churches people are leery of going off topic, putting anything much else in here?

Yeah maybe idk. I thought someone might come in here and post more.

I'll post something for you.

I am not much into any secular organized religious organizations. I do not like how they set their their doctrine based on what they want others to follow and believe. I am however very spiritual and find all sects of religion very interesting.
So much of all organized religions are fear based, and I personally do not believe that GOD ever wanted that.
I believe each persons spiritual walk is their own and no one should judge that walk.

I'd rather hang out with spiritually opened minded people that have an interest in the words of the bible and not what someone directs them to believe.