Coffee bridges the gap

I made a new friend today.

I'll admit that when I first saw Brady speak at the Living Hope Ministries conference a few weeks ago, really getting to know him was the last thing on my mind. Perhaps I thought I knew enough about him. I knew he had been in a gay relationship for seven years and is now married to a woman and has a daughter who is almost 5, and he's heavily involved with an ex-gay ministry. Case closed, right? Since he's a Christian whose pursuit of God required him to walk out of homosexuality, surely he's in cahoots with Jerry Falwell and agrees that I'm an abomination to God and on a fast track to hell, right?

If there's one thing I've become good at as I've matured in my faith, it's judging others. I've almost mastered it.

Brady has said that he doesn't have an agenda, and I've discovered that to be the absolute truth. It's not his mission to change my mind about things, and it's not my mission to change his. God can use us both to love each other and bring understanding where there wasn't understanding before. As it is with every divinely inspired relationship, there is a purpose.

When I was first asked to attend the ex-gay conference, I naturally wondered whether I'd have to check my gayness at the door or if I'd be singled out and scolded somehow for being able to reconcile homosexuality and Christianity. Brady and I laughed today about my fear that I was going to be hooked up to electrodes right then and there. Nothing of the sort transpired. Any apprehension I felt about going to the conference was just my own fear, that I might feel bad about myself or discover them to be somehow "more Christian" than I was. But after really thinking about it and getting to know Brady, I've become better able to understand that we're all "true Christians." We just experience God differently.

As we talked today I felt like I was experiencing a little slice of God on a platter, as Alanis Morissette would say. I love that lyric. Brady is a true seeker, and although he and I disagree about some things, the love that each of us has for God breaks through and transcends all thought. Even if we don't always connect on a human level, we connect on a spiritual level. And that's way more relevant.

A few years ago I might not have been strong enough to drink lattes with someone who considers it a sin to be gay. I might have felt defensive, like I needed to justify my beliefs and make the person across from me see it my way. But I didn't have any of those feelings today. Perhaps that's a credit to Brady's hunger for God and his ability to let me hunger for God in my own way. He trusts in God's ability to work in my life, and that's refreshing because it doesn't seem to be the case with organizations like Focus on the Family and others. It doesn't even seem to be the case with Exodus, the parent organization for Living Hope Ministries. I love it when my real life experience doesn't match the projected images.

It would have been easy to stay in my comfort zone and not make any attempt to bridge the gap, but God doesn't call me or any other Christian to sit by and let fear keep us from building relationships. It's silly to reach out only to those who are exactly like we are. Brady and I are going to continue to meet for coffee every few weeks and we may even go out to dinner and include our spouses sometime. I'm looking forward to it. It's not about gay versus straight or who is the better Christian, but it's about seeking God and putting that quest first.

As Brady puts it, "God is huge. It's my faith that makes God small." Indeed. If God can handle our differences, making the effort to reach out and connect with one another is the least we can do.