Categories: uncategorized
Date: 15 September 2011 12:58:21
Tell Show Be is better than the usual Christian video and it is available in a range of languages. I guess now I've advertised it I better engage with it. So who am I telling? You How will I show it? Well hopefully through meeting you in real life and spending time sharing with you - hanging out with you or listening to you when you need somebody, helping you find safe spaes like MAZE (the group I help facilitate for LGB&T Christians in the North East) if you need them and whether on line or in real life encouraging you - I hope - and maybe sometimes challenging you to think outside the box. Oh and if you need it praying and sending virtual hugs. In the end I guess the how depends on who you are. And where will I be it - everywhere I guess; on line, in "real life", on the street, in the shop, in a pulpit - wherever I meet with you. So what's it all about? Jesus/ God/ The Holy Spirit What do I believe about that stuff? Well, I believe that God created the world (not in a wierd 7 literal day way) but I do believe he was behind everything however it happened, (I go for evolution). I also believe Jesus was part of God become human and he chose to die on the cross to act as a sacrifice for all the stuff we do which really hurts ourselves, other people and God and to help us be able to connect better to God. I believe that Jesus then became God again and still lives. I also believes God sends his Holy Spirit and I don't get what happens or how, but I believe God connects with us in some really deep way which words can't express. So what difference does it make? Well, first off if God created us and he created me as I am it means that despite what the papers and some churches say God loves LGB&T people as much as anybody else and we are not a mistake or freak of nature or whatever. It also means that I have hope a hope I can cling on to when all around me is turning to s**t because of my own or other people's bad decisions. Don't get me wrong I don't think God gives us a happy ever after Disney ending - he gives us endings more likely to get the East Enders Duff Duff most of the time, but within it there is hope - real hope. God is using us to make the world a better place where those that have been written off have a chance, those who are surviving on the happy pills have something to hold on to, single parents left lonely and broken for a while have somebody on their side - oh I could go on but I'm getting too mouthy. What do I know - aren't I just another smiley middle-class Christian? Ok, short synopsis of my life. On one level I am middle-class and I don't apologise for it but I have lived it real. I've suffered depression; I've spent time years ago a single mum on benefit, I've been temporarily homeless, I've dealt with the inability of the system to cope with you if you don't fit their boxes and so I could go on. I've also faced up to being gay and Christian, (a mix which doesn't always go). Basically I've lived the life. BUT I'm still here and trying now to be a voice empowering others and serving people. I do some preaching and stuff but most of the time I just live it because that's exactly what Jesus did - he just lived it. I get excited by the stories in the bible like Hagar and Ishmael (the single mum story), The Hemoraging Woman (the healing of a woman who society had cast out because of her prolonged and dodgy period like thing) and The Samaritan Woman at the Well (the slag Jesus loved on an emotional level rather than a physical one). The bible is full of the stories of Jesus and the Spirit interacting with the most dysfunctional and f***ed up people and changing their lives in the most amazing ways and using them in really exciting ways. That gives me hope. The bible is full of stories about people like us and how Jesus used them in ways which were counter-cultural and exciting, although also very demanding and scary. The ultimate counter-cultural and demanding, scary act came from Jesus on the cross - and his sticking it to the man when he rose again. Worth following and holding on to me thinks.