You don’t need to bring anything to God to be Beloved.⁣⁣
⁣You don’t need to bring unconditional trust.⁣⁣
⁣You don’t need to bring radical obedience.⁣⁣
⁣You’re Beloved when you show up with open hands. You’re Beloved when you don’t have it in you to show up at all.⁣
⁣This is the scary, beautiful mystery of the Table.

Lesbians and gay men face discrimination because of societal attitudes. Unfortunately, these attitudes are often taught by churches and, sadly, the Bible is frequently used as a weapon to “bash” lesbians and gays. It is important to remember that such hurtful things are not a reflection of Christ, or the way God wants the church to be, or even what the Bible really says.

Only a small number of passages in the entire Bible reference same-sex sexual activity (six out of sixty-six books of the entire Bible). Obviously this topic was not of great concern to the biblical writers. Yet these verses have been used to justify hatred, condemnation and exclusion of God’s lesbian and gay children.

Fearless: Reverend Troy Perry founded the Metropolitan Community Church in 1968 as an outreach to the underserved gay community. Rev. Perry looks back at his personal evolution from a heterosexually-married, closeted gay man in the conservative south to a spiritual and civil rights leader of the LGBT community in Los Angeles and beyond.