Taking my openly gay roommates to church...

[Jack Shephard]

It is something I have been thinking about for some time. In fact, my roommates have asked about the church I had been attending. The church is a UPCI churchm but in name only. It's pretty much on the fringe of being UPC... it's pretty liberal in someways.

So I asked the pastors, husband & wife, their thoughts on bringing my openly gay roommates with me. The response I got was "everyone is welcome." So I relayed to them this conversation. Over the weeks that followed one of my roommates mother found out she had cancer and my roommates spent their time on the weekend in the town where she resided with her until she passed. The timeframe from the conversation with the pastors to the time the mother passed was roughly a month and a half.

I had been traveling for work and wasn't in church for almost a month, which can be quite common with my job. Once I returned to church the pastors asked where my roommates where & had been. They still hadn't been to the church & I explained the situation to them. Almost the very next thing out of the pastor's mouth was "God can deliver them." It struck me and made me feel uncomfortable. Quite uncomfortable. I wasn't wanting to bring them to be delivered but to visit a spiritual community that was loving and caring. But to me it seemed that the only concern was to get them in there to be delivered so there would be a good story to tell later. It bothered me and I haven't been back.

What do you all think? I understand the pastor's stance on homosexuality. I don't have a problem with the stance either, but with him knowing they are pretty much the only family I have, since my divorce, where I live...it just hurt. Sorry this post is a bit lenghty, but I felt it important to give some detail to what happened.

A side note: the pastor and his family have been friends of mine for several years. Their son was in my wedding over 10 years ago. He and I have been friends for a long time.