Jamie McDaniel
10-27-2006, 11:39 AM
Last night, our local Soulforce group here in Lexington showed the film Fish Can't Fly (http://www.fishcantfly.com) at a house church downtown. One of our volunteers works at Asbury and so he sent out an email invitation. I started to wonder what the night would shape up to be when he received a response asking if Mel White would be there and stating, "Sounds like propoganda to me. Unless you plan to have representatives from ex-gay communities showing their own movies!"
We had a group of over 20. There were four of us from Soulforce Lexington, a couple of members of the house church, and a lot of students from Asbury seminary. We had chili and then briefly went around the room introducing each other. I shared I was gay Christian, talked a minute about my journey, and said that I was going to get married next year in Canada. Someone asked why Canada. I replied, "Because it is legal in Canada."
We then started the film, which I had not seen previously, though it features people I know about and one of my Soulforce friends, Mary Lou Wallner. As the movie played, I wondered about how to start out the discussion that would follow. I tried to get a feel by listening to how they reacted to some of the film's funnier moments. When they laughed, I felt a little relief.
Anyway, the discussion was really great. Not everyone stayed, but we started by my referencing Mary Lou Wallner and her journey from believing gay people were sinful to becoming fully welcoming and affirming. Borrowing a line from Dotti and Roby, I said that we recognize that many people, like Mary Lou, wrestle with their understanding of GLBT people and find themselves somewhere on that same journey. Not knowing where everyone was, I tried to make it feel like a safe discussion.
While it took a little to get it rolling, it turned into a simply wonderful discussion. Three of the other guys from Asbury felt comfortable sharing they were gay. This led one female seminary student to state, "I don't think I've ever been in a room with this many gay people before."
And I just received an email from one of the gay men who attended. He wants to meet and talk with me and my boyfriend. He shared that for the past several months, he has been praying about how to reconcile his faith and his sexuality.
So I am feeling really good about doing this event. It was actually Clinton and Lisa (our heterosexual allies in our local group) that really pushed for this movie night and discussion.
We had a group of over 20. There were four of us from Soulforce Lexington, a couple of members of the house church, and a lot of students from Asbury seminary. We had chili and then briefly went around the room introducing each other. I shared I was gay Christian, talked a minute about my journey, and said that I was going to get married next year in Canada. Someone asked why Canada. I replied, "Because it is legal in Canada."
We then started the film, which I had not seen previously, though it features people I know about and one of my Soulforce friends, Mary Lou Wallner. As the movie played, I wondered about how to start out the discussion that would follow. I tried to get a feel by listening to how they reacted to some of the film's funnier moments. When they laughed, I felt a little relief.
Anyway, the discussion was really great. Not everyone stayed, but we started by my referencing Mary Lou Wallner and her journey from believing gay people were sinful to becoming fully welcoming and affirming. Borrowing a line from Dotti and Roby, I said that we recognize that many people, like Mary Lou, wrestle with their understanding of GLBT people and find themselves somewhere on that same journey. Not knowing where everyone was, I tried to make it feel like a safe discussion.
While it took a little to get it rolling, it turned into a simply wonderful discussion. Three of the other guys from Asbury felt comfortable sharing they were gay. This led one female seminary student to state, "I don't think I've ever been in a room with this many gay people before."
And I just received an email from one of the gay men who attended. He wants to meet and talk with me and my boyfriend. He shared that for the past several months, he has been praying about how to reconcile his faith and his sexuality.
So I am feeling really good about doing this event. It was actually Clinton and Lisa (our heterosexual allies in our local group) that really pushed for this movie night and discussion.