'Together we stand and are counted. The road has been rocky and rough but we walk that road and carry on.'
Pam Gold is coordinator for the Methodist Solidarity Circle for LGBT+. In this blog for LGBT+ History Month she shares the story of how her life changed once she came out and began to actively support other LGBT+ Christians.
In 1996, my church-life changed forever. My “sin”? I came out as lesbian.
I was a member of an evangelical URC church in my hometown at the time. I was summoned before the church leadership and given two choices, accept a prayer for healing and deliverance from homosexuality or to leave the church.
So, I left, taking my three young children with me. It was a traumatic time.
I eventually discovered the Metropolitan Community Church in Manchester, aka the “Gay Church.” From there, I also encountered the Evangelical Fellowship for LGBT Christians. It was in these two organisations that I encountered other LGBT folk who had been excluded from church fellowship. It was heartbreaking!
The Evangelical Fellowship met twice each year. Year on year, that was the only church these people experienced. It was at that point I felt called to reach out to those who were hurting.
I was involved with Evangelical Fellowship for many years and co-convenor for ten years. We had many fantastic speakers discussing issues around homophobia and inclusivity. One weekend where we had representatives from the Gay Jewish community, the Gay Muslim community and people from Christian denominations, we listened to each other’s stories and all under the banner of inclusivity. It was a great weekend.
After leading this group for years, I felt called to start an Open Table (OT) group in my, now inclusive church, in Warrington. I had been going to OT in Liverpool on and off since it began and asked if I might start the second Open Table in Warrington. The new meetings took off after I flooded social media with information about Open Table. Here, yet again, LGBT folk felt safe to come on a monthly basis for a service with communion and fellowship.
I have also been involved with the European Forum for LGBT+ Christian Groups and for many years was the Evangelical fellowship representative. When I started going most of the good folk were from Western Europe and were representing multi-denominations. It was here that I met Brenda who would be my future wife. The forum usually has a presence at The World Council of Churches. Some progress has been made with the Roman Catholics being included and there are now more initiatives to reach out to Eastern Europe.
In all the groups I have been involved with, I have attended many Pride marches, in the UK and Europe. I’ve been at a Pride event where the gay priest was hit on the head with a Bible and faeces thrown. Once we had to march behind barriers and with the presence of armed police.
But together we stand and are counted. The road has been rocky and rough but we walk that road and carry on.
Nowadays I spend time as convenor of the Solidarity Circle for LGBT+ Methodists. We meet bi-monthly, exchanging stories from our experience in the Methodist Church as well as having discussions about how these can be fed into the JDS strategy.
Although our congregations have become more inclusive, or should I say at least appear to be more Inclusive, it’s my experience that this isn’t always the case and I am not the only LGBT+ person to experience this.
Our faith communities should be places where all are valued, accepted, welcomed without exception.
We need to make ourselves more visible to the communities outside of our walls. Our communication, whether social media, websites or notice boards, need to say we are a safe community and we need to live by this message.