Next week is a first for us. We're heading off to THE LODGE to hold our annual Pride service!  I know, you think I'm mad. British sense of humor, mad cow disease, middle aged spread (I think the crisis happened whilst I busy with something else), whatever the reason - your Pastor is off his rocker.  Well, maybe, but let me explain why I think this is important.

Firstly, and most importantly, I felt called to do this. Whenever I thought about it the Holy Spirit became present. I don't ignore the holy Spirit. (Or, at least I try not to). So, for whatever reason beyond my own 'out of the box' thinking, I felt we had been called to do this.

The second reason is more personal.  I don't like bars. Going to a bar takes me back to a very unhappy time in my life. The bar was the place where I was 'gay'. I wasn't 'gay' anywhere else - just whatever gay bar, club, or venue I could find. Being 'Gay' wasn't something I could be in church, or at work, or wth m famiy. I didn't like being gay. I felt that being gay was the 'fly in the ointment', the source of all my problems. I thought it was what made me a 'sinner'.

The only reason I went to a bar was to find someone to go home with.  I didn't go to the bar to connect with people, I went there to meet and use people.And I lied. Not just to family and friends about being gay, but I lied to everyone at the bar. I lied about who I was. Often I would use a pseudonym, pretending to be someone I wasn't. I pretended to be rich, poor, powerful, a victim, married, younger/older than I was, and much, much more. When I look back I don't like the 'me' that went to bars. Sometimes drunk, but more often simply predatory. You see, I didn't have to worry about meeting God in a bar- God never went to places like that. I never wanted God to meet the real me. I thought God couldn't love the real me and so I despised 'me'. I thought God hated me. How wrong I was!

I never realized that God was with me everywhere, especially when I was in a bar! Jesus spent time with the marginalized of the world. He visited their homes, met with them at their places of work, and connected with them wherever they were. He knew that the hurting and the lost weren't found in the places of worship that had rejected them, they were found on the streets and wherever the disenfranchised collected together. If Jesus came back today I have no doubt he'd be  in trouble with the authorities for hanging out in gay bars and clubs.

And why would Jesus be there? To share the Gospel!  That God's love is outrageous and that we are all children of God. That God made us just the way we are, and that God wants more than anything to be in relationship with us. And simply to be in community with us.

Today Harry and I are going to the bar to try and figure out how to turn it into a sanctuary for the Pride service. During the New Light worship service and pot luck meal the bar will be on lock down, although the lodge has kindly offered to supply soft drinks. For a few hours next Sunday morning we invite God to come to the bar and hope against hope that someone will meet the Jesus who saved us. Not from gay bars - but more than often in gay bars!