If you aren't already familiar with Henry Ossawa Tanner, I highly encourage you to meet him. He was one of the most highly-regarded African-American painters of the nineteenth century–without question a challenging time for a Black artist. Tanner is best known for his paintings of African-American life as well as his striking renditions of biblical scenes. In his generation, his perspective as a Black Christian artist was utterly unique.

As a surprise to pretty much nobody, I’m a bit of a loud person. Not just in my speaking volume, though I’ve been “shushed” in my share of environments, but in the amount of noise I create around me. My roommate often nudges me to put my earbuds on as I start chopping carrots for my dinner because my phone is blaring whatever silly little reality show I have on in the background.

But all these well-meaning "welcomes" leave me clueless as I try to find a church to belong to. I'm not looking for a church where I am merely welcome—I'm looking for a church where I'll be loved, edified, and discipled. I'm looking for a church that will see me as part of the body of Christ, with gifts to offer and holiness to pursue.

Our February masterpiece is Jesus Christ Pantocrator, a Byzantine mosaic from the 12th-13th centuries located at the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. The word “Pantocrator” means “ruler of all,” and Pantocrator images were some of the most common depictions of Christ in the ancient Byzantine church. 

A core part of my theology is that God is good. Good in big ways, not some abstract concept. Good like ice cream on a hot day, hot chocolate after a winter storm, or a hug from a far-away friend. Belief in God being so richly good was a real confusing challenge to my feelings about celibacy... Why would a good God call me to something so... frankly, so bad.

One reason that many Christians see celibacy as being unfair and even unattainable in the long term is our incorrect assumption that love and intimacy are most deeply found in sexual relationships. In reality, while the marriage covenant and sexual bond are indeed deep places of love and intimacy, they are by no means the only (or even best) ways for humans to find and flourish in intimate relationships.

Whether due to geographic moves, church leadership changes, disagreement in beliefs, or even church harm, looking for a church is a common enough experience… but it comes with unique complications for LGBTQ+ folks. Having been on this journey for two years now, I’ve decided to document what I’ll be calling “The Great Church Search.”

If I’m honest, though, I can waste a lot of time avoiding my Dad. Scared to ask for what I need because some weird lie of independence has convinced me I have to set out to build for myself, make for myself, and care for myself. Old wounds make me fear rejection, and rejection makes me fear asking. I live not as an heir, a son, but as a worker, a servant, trying desperately to earn his keep.

During these darker nights, what I love most is observing the twinkling holiday lights, a vivid reminder to me that "on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned." (Matthew 4:16) Thanks to our Emmanuel Jesus, we are free to experience inextinguishable light, hope, and joy now and in the glorious life to come.

I have long maintained that Advent is the most queer of all liturgical seasons. This can neither be proven nor disproven, so most of my friends roll their eyes at me and refuse to take the bait, but I’m pretty sure I’m right. Advent is a time of longing for God and waiting in darkness, and we sexual and gender minorities have deeply formative experiences of longing and waiting.

All of us, both gay and straight, have a sense that we were not made for just this world and have an innate longing for more, but for side-B folk, this longing is often profound. It’s easy to feel like we are somehow in exile here with our longings unfulfilled, waiting for someone or something to rescue us.

The Revoice team is delighted to announce the appointment of Rev. Michelle T. Sanchez as its new Executive Director, effective January 1, 2024. Sanchez, previously the Executive Minister of Make and Deepen Disciples at the Evangelical Covenant Church, brings a wealth of experience and a deep commitment to the Revoice mission.

My first Revoice, in 2019, was a discovery that the jungle did, in fact, have trails. And not only were these trails clear, they were ancient, tied to the faith I’d treasured, and they were filled with fellow travelers. I never could’ve imagined a community like Revoice existing. Here I was, arrogant enough to think I was alone in the jungle, when great trail-blazers were going before me.

So, here we are again on the other side of another National Coming Out Day and we didn’t come out. We saw many people we know who at long last finally came out and we wonder if our time will ever come. Our time to be fully seen and fully known. And if they don’t like us then at least they have all the correct information. Right?

I feel this most strongly in the mornings and the evenings - in the quiet moments when I’m alone with the burdens of the day, trying to rest. I turn off my lights and climb under my comforter, with nothing but my breathing and the echoing of my thoughts. It’s in these moments that celibacy can feel less like a gift and more like a sorrow.

National Coming Out Day 1998 was my first experience with the LGBTQ+ community at large. I was a freshman at a state university, newly pledged to a national sorority, and so far in the closet that I was probably closer to Narnia than the United States

For me personally, the first person I had to come out to was myself, and then I had to come out to Jesus. It was that process that began to heal those wounds and some of that shame. That's not to say that I don't need that same healing and reminder regularly. Even this past week, I found myself doubting whether or not I should be pursuing ministry because of my sexuality. But it has been through prayer that I have experienced the most healing in my shame.

As much as I think I crave sameness, nothing about the life God has given us grows in immobility. Scripture compares believers to growing things, seeds, vines, and trees; our lives are described as walks and journeys.

My therapist recently said to me, “you deeply respect the journey others have gone on in reconciling their queerness and faith, but do you have that same respect for yourself?” And I haven’t. Even stepping into Side B spaces for the first time, I felt myself shrinking back, not because I feel like I didn’t need the space, but because I felt like I didn’t have the same claim that others had to that space.

I'll be honest; I like complaining.

Don't get me wrong; I love helping others. I just… sometimes want it to be known that it's costing me something.

I've heard this is typical of those of us who struggle to say "no," we sign up for what we never wanted to in the first place and piously serve with a grumbling heart.