truth and love (church)

<sup>I went to church this morning. My goal has basically been to go to church every other week when in Jackson. My goal has basically not been met. Today, I intended to make visit #3 to Bible Fellowship. If it was a good experience, I would then dig for more information on the church and learn important things like their stance on homosexuality. However, I had one of those nights that I wish existed less often where I spent hours awake but too tired to do anything productive. Goal in mind, however, I got up. Late. And slowly. I got ready for church but started thinking making that 10:30am service was asking for a bit much. No problem. I'd check out an 11am service... where? Apparently, my list of places I want to visit is almost none existent and the one church I could think of started at 10:15. For 20 minutes, I used the Internet to find somewhere to go today. It didn't work. I remembered the list I pulled from the newspaper and tacked on my refrigerator and there I found an 11am service: Truth and Love Church. I made an online friend that is a lesbian and goes to the Truth and Love in Humboldt or somewhere. She said she hadn't really heard them talk about homosexuality and they knew she was gay and didn't treat her any less. She recommended I check it out. Today, I did.

The Scripture today was I Thessalonians 2. The opening piece of that, for me, was affirming:

2</sup> But even^[a] after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in much conflict. ³ For our exhortation did not come from error or uncleanness, nor was it in deceit.

The pastor said he was going to preach on priorities. He said Truth & Life needs to have 4 main priorities.

I thought this might be a good sermon 1 for me to hear. I figured I could hear what the church was about, and maybe I would learn its take on homosexuality. I did.

The priorities?
1) Be Biblical
2) Be Authentic
3) Be Gracious
4) Be Relevant

It was a good sermon. I would go back because his sermon was full of love. Love, love, love, and be real. I don't think Pastor Cupples has to worry about blood being on his hands from his congregation members verbally or physically abusing LGBT people in the "name of Holiness". Pretty much everything that came out of his mouth made it plain he wouldn't approve of something like that, no matter the person's perceived sin. And, after saying homosexuality is a sin he told the congregation to hold their applause 'cause adultery, shacking up, and having premartial sex are sins too. I appreciate that he didn't just lay it in on homosexuals. Of course, queers are the only ones in his listing that just are; everything else had to do with a choice people make. Although I enjoyed the sermon's overall message and the style of service, I still found myself leaving church going, "Gee. God, am I a sin? Do I have it all wrong? This pastor seemed like such a nice guy, smart and authentic, yet he said I'm a sin." (of course, HE would probably say he said homosexuality is a sin, not the person. But ask a queer person the difference.) So no, I can't go back to Truth and Love because spiritual violence (a phrase I picked up from Walter Wink) occurs there and I have no desire to help perpetuate that but also, I don't need to experience it.

Some positives from today's experiences:
1. I obtained For the Bible Tells Me So. I intended to buy it but it costs more than I tend to pay for DVDs. I downloaded it, legally, I think. I'd be happy to make a donation to whatever agency made it available for me to download as such. You can also watch it online. It's sad that going to church made me feel the need to find affirmation that I'm not a Christian in vain, that God isn't inherently disgusted by who I am because of who I love.
2. I was reminded of the need to work in my Christianity. I don't pray enough. I don't read the Bible enough. I don't stay the course. I think of starting an affirming group in the back of my mind but before I get the go-ahead or a new course or a nothing, I must be consistent and take steps to grow. Grow, grow, grow. I think of starting something like Columbia Progressive Christians or the Stone or maybe even Soulforce.
3. I went to another church. That's church #3 for this area.
4. I'm gonna ask other lgbt ppl where they go for worship. Tilley went to a TEP meeting and apparently, a bunch of them go to church.

This experience wasn't great in the story of me loving me but it did serve the purpose of reminding me that there is much work to be done. Biblical. Authentic. Gracious. And Relevant. Amen, Preacher, Amen.

hope

Letters like this make me proud to participate in grassroot organizing. Who says it doesn't work?!

Several weeks ago, survivors of "corrective rape" -- a heinous practice in South Africa where lesbians are raped under the guise of "curing" them -- started a petition on Change.org to ask the Minister of Justice to declare corrective rape a hate crime.

It has since become the largest-ever petition on Change.org, and the Chief of Staff at the Ministry of Justice has repeatedly contacted us to complain that they are overwhelmed with the messages coming from every part of South Africa and every corner of the globe. But the minister still refuses to meet with the activists who started the campaign -- Ndumi Funda and the women of the non-profit Lulekisizwe.

Ndumi asked us to pass the note below along to Change.org members. Take a look, then please add your name to their petition to keep up the pressure:

http://www.change.org/petitions/view/south_africa_declare_corrective_rape_a_hate-crime?alert_id=ENBcQmHwGD_lHrfyTEiZA&me=aa

___________

To Change.org members, editors and most of all to all of you who signed our petition,

We are GOBSMACKED at the response that our petition has received. Our fight against corrective-rape has been going on for so long, under the most harrowing of circumstances, with only a few volunteers to help, and it just seemed that nobody was listening, nobody cared, and our sisters were getting raped, beaten up and murdered without anyone doing anything about it.

In absolute frustration, we decided to write a petition. This was a first for us, and never in our wildest dreams did we imagine that we would get this kind of a response. We did jokingly say that we wanted to crash the Ministry of Justice's servers, but we thought that our petition would get a thousand or so signatures if we were lucky. More than 65,000 signatures later, and the senior Ministry officials we targeted are apparently having major difficulty accessing their e-mail because of all the e-mails your signatures are generating! WOOOHOOOO! Well done & thank you!

If you haven't already signed the 'Corrective Rape' petition, please sign and share it with your friends:

http://change.org/petitions/view/south_africa_declare_corrective_rape_a_hate-crime

Unfortunately, despite this becoming the most popular petition of ALL TIME on Change.org, and clearly getting the attention of the minister, Lulekisizwe has still not heard a word from the Justice Department! We need a meeting with the Minister of Justice so we can discuss how 'corrective rape' victims are treated, the lack of police response, how long the court cases take, why so many of the dockets get 'lost' and why the rapists get out on such low bail. Please keep the pressure up!

Thanks to a donation from an ethical cosmetics company in the UK called Lush, we were able to get another, more secure place to stay and use as a safe-house for the victims, but the rapes and assaults are continuing. We are worn out and things are far from easy, especially at this time of the year when stress levels are very high.

The one thing that is giving us hope is all of you showing love and caring by signing and sharing the petition. We are thrilled, excited and very, very humbled by the support that every one of you have shown, and all we can say is thank you and please, please don't stop. Ask your friends to sign our petition:

http://www.change.org/petitions/view/south_africa_declare_corrective_rape_a_hate-crime?alert_id=ENBcQmHwGD_lHrfyTEiZA&me=aa

Bless you all and have a great Festive Season,
Ndumi Funda & the Lulekisizwe team

Okay. I said that but part of the point is the guy is annoyed, but not yet moved. Still, that annoyance has many times pushed people to respond and as long our voices continue to unite, movement will continue to happen.

Namaste.