"Yes, I know it may seem almost sacrilegious for a pastor and faith leader in the Christian tradition to admit. But it's true. I never desired or sought after the title, even though I knew that someday I would be one. And even though I have been resistant to the idea, one thing I cannot deny - that I've been coming to grips with for the last year or so - is that I do have a pastor's heart."
"How could someone like me, a same-gender-loving Black cisgender male from the South, be called to do ministry? My very presence, as far as the church universal was concerned, was an abomination. What claim did I have to profess the good news of Jesus Christ in anyone's pulpit? It didn't help that someone dear once told me God didn't hear my prayers."
"I enrolled in the Master of Divinity program at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University for two reasons. First, I had very real questions about what I'd been taught from the Jesus story in its entirety. The second reason was that I needed to prove to those who claimed they saw something in me that I hadn't quite seen in myself - a call to ministry - that they were wrong. And by extension, I enrolled to prove God wrong."
He never desired the pastoral title yet acknowledged a pastor's heart that shapes his ministry. Pastoral care draws from personal experience and years of faith leadership, including serving as senior pastor of a small Pentecostal-leaning ministry near Atlanta. He enrolled in a Master of Divinity program to question teachings about Jesus and to test a perceived call to ministry. As a same-gender-loving Black cisgender male from the South, he faced declarations of abomination and was once told God did not hear his prayers. He left his childhood church because it would not be a safe space emotionally, spiritually, or relationally.
Read at LGBTQ Nation
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