Before discovering the United Church a little over 3 years ago, I grew up in the Anglican Church and attended with my family every sunday. My father was anglican, and my mother was roman catholic. I dutifully went to Sunday School, and when the time came, I was confirmed. I believed in God but I had very little interest in Church. I found the hymns boring, half the time I was daydreaming, and as I got older I noticed there really weren’t many people my age attending. In order to truly share my faith story with you, I have to tell you a fact about myself. I am a transgender person, which means that I identify as a gender other than what I was assigned at birth.
I never questioned my beliefs until I started questioning my sexuality in grade 9. While I thought God was an all loving being, the internet and people in my community made it clear that Gods love didn’t include the LGBTQ community. All these hateful comments I was hearing, were all made in the name of God. So I lost my faith. I wasn’t going to spend my time trying to please people who preached about love for God and others on Sunday, but were full of hate and judgement for anyone who was different every other day of the week. So my dad kept asking me to go to Church with him, and I always gave the same answer. No.
Fast forward a few years and I’m attending college. By this time I’m proudly out of the closet, identifying as a lesbian and overall happy. One day I’m in class, and I overhear a comment. “Why would someone live in sin and go against God?” Although this wasn’t said to me, it was very obvious that it was directed at me. I held my tongue, sat back, and carried on with my day.
It was at this point however, that I wasn’t just a non-believer anymore. I was the one who became hateful and intolerant of any mention of Christianity and organized religion.
But most things in life eventually come full circle, and now my eyes have been opened to how God truly works in mysterious ways. A little over 3 years ago I met my partner Katie. You know her as the Sunday School teacher here at Cochrane, and she is also attending university with the goal of becoming an Ordained Minister. When we first met I was shocked and couldn’t understand how a member of the LGBTQ community could be so passionate about Jesus and the Church.
A couple of months into our relationship Katie asked me to go to Church with her. Hesitantly I agreed, and that first Sunday I walked into St. James United Church, was the start of the happiest years if my life. There were pride flags on the doors, and I was greeted warmly by everyone I was introduced to. They even tried to get me to participate in a play that was happening during the service.
I attended church more and more, and slowly I began to regain my faith. I started to believe that God could love me. I opened myself up to the United Church community because if I wanted to support my partner in her life goals as a leader within the United Church I had to stop letting hate poison my life.
I gradually began to to help out and take on a more active role myself. I helped out with fundraisers, and with the Youth Group, and Sunday School as well. I began to enjoy the community around me.
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About 2 years ago I became an official member of the United Church. I attended my first national event in Montreal called Rendezvous, where people from all over the country come together to attend workshops and celebrate their faith. I met other members of the LGBTQ community, some of which are ministers, and heard their stories of how they accepted and define their relationship with God. I also had the opportunity to walk in the Montreal Pride Parade with the Right Reverend Jordan Cantwell, who is the previous Moderator of the United Church, and her partner. Which was probably a once in a lifetime opportunity.
I have also begun to take on more leadership roles within the Church. Last winter I was a homegroup leader for a handful of youth during the Winter Gathering Youth Forum that took place in Paris, Ontario, which helped to prepare them for General Council 43 in Oshawa this previous summer. It was a challenging experience. To put your needs aside and provide youth with a safe space to share about their day, to talk through their feelings and their struggles. But it was so rewarding to provide them with that mental and emotional support, to know that while they are miles away from their families, they are looking to you to provide them with comfort and stability.
It was through these events that I met some of the most inspirational people. People from all over the country that I can now call my friends. It was with their help that when I came out as transgender, I received unconditional support and love from them, than I have from even some members of my family. And for a while, it was the Church community that provided me with comfort and stability, while I endured hardship with some of my closest relatives. These people are the ones who truly opened my eyes,
with their help I was able to stop listening to hateful comments, made by so-called Christians, and my heart was opened to the Holy Spirit. I truly believe that by placing Katie in my path, which led me to the United Church, that God was trying to tell me that I was loved unconditionally, and I too had a spot at his table.
While you know how I came to be part of a Christian community, it doesn’t explain what having faith means to me. Although the United Church is open and accepting on a national level, not everyone is going to be as welcoming, there are still going to be homophobic and transphobic people. People are still going to think I’m an abomination because I’m trans, and they’re still going to think that I’m not living my life the way God wanted me to.
So how did I learn to block out those voices while exploring my faith? The easiest way to explain is from something I read online. Jesus said follow me, he didn’t say follow Christians. People have a way of inserting their own feelings and prejudices into things, and if they want to hate you, they’ll find a quote from the Bible that can be loosely translated to fit their needs. Just remember that the Bible has been translated into hundreds of different languages, and interpreted time and time again. Meanings were bound to be lost. At the end of the day when we all leave this earth, we are going to face the same judgement, and I refuse to believe that living authentically means that I’m any less devoted to God.
People also say that because we are all made in Gods image, I’m doing him an injustice by changing my voice and my body. Yes we are all made in Gods image, but we are all different. There are billions of people on this earth and each one of us is
unique. I think that as long as we try to do good and spread positivity to others and our communities then our souls are pure, and we truly live in God’s image and likeness.
Faith can be found in many different ways, it doesn’t have to mean going to church every Sunday. It doesn’t even mean having to believe in God, you can have faith in the goodness of people. My journey of faith has been rocky at best, I went from being a non-believer to finding acceptance in a community that I am proud to be a part of.
When Rev. Miriam asked me to share my faith story with you today, she also told me to pick a hymn that I would like for us to sing. I chose Spirit, Open my heart from more voices. I first heard this hymn while attending Rendez-Vous in Montreal in 2017, I feel as though this hymn is a good reflection of my faith journey and how my heart has been opened to the United Church and its amazing community.