From Shame to Belonging: Finding Queer Faith Community
2010
My pastor would end every Sunday service with a call to action – If you have not accepted Jesus into your heart, now is the time... Despite every Sunday ending the same way, I would still ask Jesus to be my savior, to fix my sinful, 11-year-old self, and lead me towards a path of righteousness. I sat in those movie theater seats (yes, we were one of the churches that held service in a movie theater) and asked God to forgive me.
I was taught and ultimately believed that sin was everywhere, whether we intentionally did it or not. That humans were inherently sinful, that it was impossible to live in the 21st century without living a sinful life, through the shows we watched, to the language we used, everything was caked in sin.
I walked through life believing that wholeheartedly. My overweight body, my parents’ divorce, my inability to feel any control or agency in my life–they were all sins. Shame grew inside me, masking any joy I felt. I believed that maybe God did create me in God’s image, but I was still born a sinner. I felt this deep obligation to feel a constant sorrow towards my inherently sinful nature.
2011
I confessed to my mother that I no longer believed in God, but still, that shame sat with me. Because I don't think I ever stopped believing in God – I just stopped believing that God loved me. I believed that God knew me; God created me and the Earth and the Heavens, and God hated me.
2012 - 2019
To continue my path into a sinful life, just months after declaring my disbelief, I realized that I was gay. I told a few friends, and word did get around at school, but at church and at home, I tried my best to fly “under the gaydar.”
Flying “under the gaydar” meant church members spoke openly about LGBTQ+ people around me. Whether it was comparing consensual same-sex relationships to bestiality and incest, or flippantly damning all queer people to hell, I heard it all. I learned that the person I was at church and at home could not be the person I was around my friends. I lived a double life for eight years, secretly dating girls on Saturdays and the next day teaching Sunday school.
My anger toward God only grew during this time. I knew in my heart that my sexuality wasn’t wrong, so why did my congregation believe that? Why did God create me this way, just for it to be a sin? Was I destined to live a life of sin and shame?
2020
After eight years in the closet, I came out. I had quit both my church nursery jobs and finally decided it was time to live my life out of the closet. I could finally leave my Christianity behind and live the life I truly wanted.
2022
When I met my partner, Sarah, and she told me she was a Christian, I was genuinely in disbelief. How could such a smart girl believe in a religion so outdated, contradictory, and baseless? I am not proud of the way I reacted. I spent years being taught that the Bible had only one possible message about queer people. I couldn’t believe that a self-respecting gay person would bother with Christianity in this day and age.
2024
When we moved to Nashville, she expressed interest in attending church. I would go to the ends of the earth for Sarah, so I obliged. But having spent over a decade as an out and proud atheist, I told her there was no use in trying to convert me.
Sarah and I went to Nashville Pride and met some of the UMCs with tables, gathering information about who would be affirming and inclusive to us. We eventually visited Edgehill, and Sarah enjoyed it, so we kept coming back.
Edgehill was the first time I had ever sat in the crowd of a church and heard that queer people were not an abomination, but divinely made.
It was not spontaneous. It wasn’t like one day I woke up and started thinking, “Okay, this makes total sense” (because I still think a lot of the Bible is like, really confusing). It was slowly putting together a puzzle, where, before, I had none of the corner pieces. Slowly, I realized that God never left me. God never abandoned me. That bad people and bad circumstances were the authors of the evil in my life, not God. I realized that I felt God’s presence constantly.
2026
When I imagine God, I see Sarah’s big brown eyes staring into mine. I hear Maria von Trapp singing that those beautiful rolling hills in Austria are alive with the sound of music. I hear my best friend’s laughter. I feel the sand beneath my feet as I walk along the beaches of Hawaii with my aunt. I see my cat and dog curled up together, sleeping peacefully. In those moments, I see God’s face in humanity. And I know that God never created us with the intent to feel shame for just existing.
One thing I admire about Edgehill is that we refuse to let sin and shame dominate the conversation. Growing up, I learned to see my sexuality as something that separated me from God, but at Edgehill, I learned that queer love is not only welcome but sacred. That God's love has never depended on pretending to be someone else.
When I volunteered with Edgehill at Nashville Pride this year, it wasn’t just about inviting people to church on Sunday. It was about showing my community that queer love is Godly.
Because I believe that the opposite of faith isn't doubt – it’s shame. And finding Edgehill taught me that God's infinite love never relied on changing who I was. God was never the source of my shame.
Six years ago, I believed leaving the church was the only way to survive as a queer person. This year, I spent Pride telling people about the church that accepts me for exactly who I am.
And when I think about that scared 11-year-old sitting in those sticky movie theater seats, I wish I could tell her that God never hated her and that someday, she would find a church that didn't ask her to choose between her faith and herself.
There is power in belonging. There is strength in loving. I found it at Edgehill. I found it in the queer community. And I found it in God.