When I first started this blog about a year ago, one of my main goals was to share stories. By nature, I tend to intellectualise a bit and default to sharing ideas rather than stories, but I’m becoming more and more convinced that there’s a deeper kind of learning that happens through embodied experiences and stories. Some learning is more caught than taught: especially the kind of learning that involves character growth and worldview shifts. So I wanted to share with you a story of how my church family taught me about family.
Tag: Church
Life on Side B Podcast Episode
This week I had the privilege of being interviewed for an episode of the Life on Side B! I've so appreciated the work of Life on Side B and the way Josh Proctor has reached so many people with stories of Christian sexual minority people over the past few years, so it felt pretty surreal … Continue reading Life on Side B Podcast Episode
Belonging
A few weeks ago I was on a late an evening walk through the park talking to a dear friend on the phone about how lockdown and social distancing have affected us this year. Both of us are people that have always been good at long-distance friendships, and we’ve both managed to stay closely connected to our friends this year through phone calls, video calls, 1-1 catchups and small group gatherings. But something was missing.
Eight Reasons to Consider Coming Out
I initially journaled these thoughts in 2019, but with today being National Coming Out Day, I thought I'd post them here to mark the occasion. Here's to celebrating greater authenticity and closeness!
The Gift of Diversity – and Diversity of Gifts
Most of my readers are probably aware that I'm a passionate bassoon player. Anyone who knows me in real life knows that I’ve devoted a significant portion of my lifetime to pursuing a professional career in playing the bassoon. You could even say it’s one of the most distinctive things about me. It’s not unusual for me to run in to someone I haven’t seen for years (you know, the kind of person you met that one time at a conference and have long since erased from your memory) and while we’re standing there trying to recall each other’s names, the other person confidently blurts out: “All I remember about you is you’re the guy who plays the bassoon!”
Church after Lockdown
It’s been four months. Four months since we did real church in a real building with real people. All this time I’ve been looking forward to the day when things finally go back to ‘normal’ and imagining what that moment will be like.
Re-writing the Script Together
In my last post I talked about the idea of cultural scripts that tell us how to live and behave: what to aspire to. Cultural scripts embody the virtues a community values most highly. But what do we do when our community doesn’t value things that ought to be valued? What do we do when the cultural script we are handed is inadequate in guiding us to a life of flourishing? I think our culture needs to re-write those scripts.
New Episode: The Distillery
It's been a big week for me! Tonight I had the great privilege of joining Lee Shang Lun for an episode of The Distillery where we chatted about things like what the Church--and the LGBTIQ+ community--can do to help people flourish in our communities.
Celebrating Singleness
What does it mean to celebrate? We talk about valuing singleness and single people in the church, but is valuing something the same as celebrating it? What makes a celebration?
Dual Citizenship during the Plebiscite
To continue exploring the idea of dual citizenship, I thought I’d share some stories of my experience during the same-sex marriage postal vote in 2017. This is not a feel-good post as it contains some heavy-hearted stories taken from my journal as I struggled to cope during this time.
Singled Out 