Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1059: Finding Intimacy and Community As a Celibate Gay Christian: Art Pereira

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

Art is the Director of Community Care for Revoice--an organization whose mission is to support and encourage gay, lesbian, bisexual, and other same-sex attracted Christians—as well as those who love them—so that all in the Church might be empowered to live in gospel unity while observing the historic Christian doctrine of marriage and sexuality. Art realized he was gay at around age 12 and became a Christian in his late teens. He's served as a youth pastor and currently works for Revoice. Our converation reflects upon his journey, which includes seeking to find intimacy and community as a gay man and committed Christ follower pursuing celibacy. 

Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest today is Art Pereira, who is the Director of Community Care at Revoice and has a very, man, interesting story, which I'm not going to spoil it for you. You'll have to listen. But man, I was just really impacted by the story you're about to hear. Art just has an amazing perspective on life, and I just can't wait for you to listen to the journey that God has brought him on. So please welcome to the show for the first time, Art Pereira. Art, thanks so much for being on the podcast, man. I'm chatting offline briefly, and I'm really looking forward to

getting to know you more. Yeah, it's my pleasure. So who is Art Pereira? Take us back as far as you want to go that would be relevant and exciting for our audience to listen into. And yeah, we'd love to hear your journey. Yeah. I am 31. I'm a Brazilian immigrant. Like you said, I work for Revoice. Prior to that, I was a youth pastor for about 10 years. So I've always really had a heart for discipleship, community building, walking alongside people as they grow in their faith. My family moved here when I was four years old from Brazil. We live in Jersey. We've lived in Jersey ever since. And we started going to church when I was 11, which was kind of out of the blue because

we weren't really religious growing up. My brother says there's always the people who go on Easter and Christmas, and he calls them the Christers. And we weren't even Christers. We wouldn't even go on Christmas or Easter, besides randomly. And so when I was 11, my mom had this pretty significant faith encounter, and just gave her life to Jesus. And so suddenly, my family was going to church every week. And I didn't really have a say. Latino parents can absolutely just make you do whatever they want. So suddenly, I was going to youth group every Friday and church every Sunday. That was it. I didn't really have, there was no choice on my end. And I didn't really believe in God. And I wasn't super interested in faith, honestly. One of the big things for me, I used to say that God was an invisible best friend for grownups. So wasn't super interested in having an

invisible best friend, felt too old for it. Um, but I was part of this incredible youth group and the youth leaders, man, were just really, um, they were really sincere. They had like really sincere faith. They really knew and loved the Lord and watching them. It was a, it was a church full of immigrants and mostly brazilian immigrants and watching them have these like really hard lives but still feel so filled with joy and perseverance and hope um was kind of baffling to me and i wanted the faith that they had but um it kind of felt like not an option for me because at the same time that i was starting to become like open-minded towards this faith concept i realized i was gay and couldn't shake that I was attracted to guys and had no attraction to women. How old

were you? How old were you when you first realized that? Um, when I first put words to it, probably 12 or like just before turning 13. Okay. A little bit earlier was when I was starting to have like the inklings and being like, man, something's different about how I experienced life and how my other guy friends experienced life. I was, I was, I was in denial pretty aggressively for a while because I just like, I did not want to be gay. Um, uh, I had a, this like macho Latino dad who I just knew that was never going to be okay for my family. Um, for me to be gay, that was like, just not going to be an option. My church, I mean, I would hear the way they would talk about gay people and it wasn't great. Um, there wasn't really a lot said from the pulpit, but like it was off the pulpit. It

was the jokes people made. Um, it was things said in front of youth leaders or even by youth leaders where it was like, Oh, clearly a gay person would not be welcome here. And so I was in denial for a while. I always tell people like being gay is actually the first thing that made me pray to a God I didn't even believe in. Like, I just would be like, okay, I can't. Like, God, you got to do something about this. And it was isolating because, like, again, I had started to have this desire for faith and this, like, curiosity, but it just felt like it wasn't an option. So I spent probably the next three or four years in that tension. A lot of anger, a lot of frustration, really curious to know God.

I would leave youth group. I remember once Friday leaving youth group and they had talked about God loving us, right? That was the whole point of the lesson, which I feel like when you grow up in church and you're like a VBS kid, you're like, okay, whatever. God loves me. Blah, blah, blah. in church and you're like a VBS kid, you're like, okay, whatever. God loves me. Well, blah, blah, blah. But my mind was just blown at the concept that this like invisible creator in the sky that I didn't even believe in not only might be real, but if he was real, he like really deeply loved me and was really interested in me specifically and had love for me specifically. Did you doubt the fact that you were gay and realizing that, did that present any tensions in your own mind about whether this God could love me or was that not really a road

block? Some people, you know, you're in an environment where it is explicitly kind of anti-gay. So you're like, oh, this God who loves people cannot love me. Did you not have that tension at least early on? Well, at first, no. And then as I started running into more of the homophobia, then I was like, wait, how does this work then? Okay. And especially once I started becoming comfortable with the thought that I was gay, I had a pretty crazy moment where my best friend at the time basically made me confront that I was gay. We would spend weekends at each other's house pretty regularly.

And we're up late one night talking. And, you know, it was like typical middle school guy stuff of drinking Mountain Dew and eating pizza and playing Halo on his Xbox. We're laying there going to sleep and I'm on his floor. I forget what I said, but he was like, dude, I got to ask you something. You know you're gay, right? I was just like, what are you talking about? you know, you're gay, right? And I was just like, what are you talking about? Um, and like, he had figured it out before me, but he was just like, art, like the way you talk, the way you experience love, the way you are, the, like what you're drawn to and who you're drawn to. I would just

be shocked if you're straight, buddy. And he was right. And, um, I felt really like ashamed and awkward and he was just super loving. He wasn't a Christian, but he was like, dude, we're like brothers. We've been like brothers for years. So like, that's just, I mean, you know, I'm not like that, but like, that's totally cool that you are. And so it was experiencing that acceptance from him and then from a few other friends from school. My school and church lives were pretty separate because my church was an hour away.

And so like school, it was like this place where I felt really accepted by my friends. People knew that I was gay. Um, I started coming out to people and it was totally chill. Like there was just no problems with that. Okay. As a high schooler, like you're coming out mid teen freshman, sophomore year. Yeah. Okay. And that was, yeah, not much of an issue. Um, that's my friends. Uh, the broader culture at the time was still really different than it is now and so like there was like you know harassment and people you know i was bullied a lot but i'd always been bullied so it's like okay now they just found a new reason to bully me but like this

is old news and so it was just really weird because like at school i was out and people knew and at home and church i was just like this little Christian kid or this exploring-to-be-Christian kid. And that dichotomy started to create a lot of tension. I mean, like you said, I did start to have issues. It's like, wait a minute, my friends can accept me. My friends can know me and feel like they care about me. But at church, I can't share anything that's real about my life. But then y'all tell me this is where I'm most loved and where God loves me and where you represent God's love. And so then it started to be, well, either God does love me and Christians are terrible at this, or God screwed up making me. And this God who claims to love me made me in a way that I had no choice in and then forbade any joy from me and forbade me from being part of the family. And that just felt so cruel. And I just couldn't figure out which one it was like,

and there was still this part of me that was like, dude, there's got to be love here. There's got to be a hope for a relationship and a connection, but it just felt like there was no way I could be part of the church. So something was wrong somewhere. Either Christians were totally screwing up the love God claimed to have for me, or God had actually just made me as a joke. And then I met Jesus on a youth retreat. And I always joke that it's kind of like a really, one of those really dramatic, like Kirk Cameron movie moments of like, prior to coming to know Jesus before my junior year of high school, I had this one reputation at school, just, you know, like had no relationship with the Lord really. And like, was doing whatever I wanted, dated, slept around and then like came to know Jesus. And then like, suddenly my reputation

was like, I was starting the school's like prayer group in this little public school. Like I was the first time our school had like a Bible club um and i would literally carry around this like giant bible to classes because i was i you know i would get my work done in school and i would just pull out my bible and just start reading because i was just like mesmerized by jesus because at this retreat jesus has just made it really clear like he saw right through me but he loved me he saw all the stuff that i thought i you know, I had this like whole, like, okay, here's my gay life at school and my Christian life at church. And like this home life where my parents don't really know any of it. And at this retreat, it just felt like Jesus was like, Hey, actually I see through all of

those things. I need to see right through to who you are. And I have a lot of love for you. A friend prayed for me that night and he said, God loves you and he's never going to leave you or forsake you. And that felt true. It just felt like God saw me, saw my sin, saw my confusion and loved me. And I remember saying to Jesus at the retreat, it was July 21st, 2007, if you can love me like this, then you can have me. You know, I was just so convinced that I had to keep up appearances for everybody and make everyone care about me. And to have a God that

could see exactly how messy I am, almost still deeply, and desired to know me and desired to love me and care for me, that was beautiful. And so I started getting really involved in the youth group voluntarily. I ended up leading a Bible study a few months later, both at my school and at my church. And one day I just went to my pastor and was like, what do I do? Because part of coming to know Jesus was I did feel conviction about my experience of sexuality and specifically the guys I was dating at the like, it was part of coming to know Jesus that I was convicted by the Holy spirit. Like that was just not what I have for you. But then I didn't know what that left me with. Um, and so I went to my pastor and was like, dude, what do I do? And at the time, the only resources really were the ex gay movement. Um, and so a few things happened.

Um, my mom had sent me to a like a conversion therapist for a little bit so wait you came out to your parents during this time at some point well so my parents actually found out before i came to know jesus um okay when i was like sophomore in high school my parents found out and it was it kind of like destroyed our family um my dad didn't talk to me for a few months my mom she was new in her faith and everything just felt really volatile. My dad wasn't really a Christian, was drinking a little bit at the time, so she wasn't sure what to do with him. And so it just felt like a mess. So the resource she could find was conversion therapists. And so she'd like sent me to some conversion therapy. And I always

thought people like, look, I caught like the tail end of that big conversion therapy movement. So it wasn't the scarier stuff, but it was still, um, pretty messed up. And, but at the time it was, Oh, you know, you have these emotional needs that aren't being met and that's why you're gay. And so when I came to know Jesus, my parents were super thrilled. And when I was like, Oh, I like, not only did I come to know Jesus, but I'm convinced I don't want to be with guys. Then they were really thrilled. They were like, Oh my gosh, it worked.

And I was kind of like, well, I guess, but I'm still attracted to guys. I don't know what I'm doing with that. And so my pastor, you know, the only resources he could find were really the ex-gay movement. So we started reading some books. There was this online discipleship tool at the time for people who were trying to, you know, quote unquote, leave the gay lifestyle. And so we worked through that, um, for, for a few months and we would talk a lot about, I mean, he was such a blessing because he was someone I could be honest with. Um, I had tried to talk to my parents for support and my dad was like, look, you either are gay or you're not. And you got to pick. And what he meant was, am I going to sleep around with guys or not? So I was like, well, I'm not going to do that. And

he's like, okay, so you're not gay. And I was like, okay. And like, that was it. That was the last conversation we ever had about it. But my pastor was like, no, let's talk. Let's figure this out. Let's, I mean, of course you're going to experience temptation. Everyone does. And so I got pretty deep into that way of thinking. I always tell people I grew up Presbycostal. It was a Presbyterian church, but it was like, we had a little Pentecostal like flair in there. And so like, yeah, I fasted every Wednesday for the next couple of years. Um, Wednesdays I would fast on my phone and for, from food and just would pray. I would go to every altar call. I was like, Jesus, like, I am going to follow you, honor you, whatever you need from me. And you're going to make me straight. That's the deal. Like you're

actually going to heal me from this. And, um And that's kind of how things were for the next eight years. I felt called to ministry. And so I went to school for youth ministry, started dating women. I dated this girl for two years that I met on a mission strip, which was, you know, how like that's winning at Christianity, right? It's like dating a girl you met on a mission strip is like, that's it. You did it. Christianity, right? It's like dating a girl you met on a missions trip is like, that's it. You did it. Um, and so that was great. And she was, she was really fantastic. We were together for two years and, um, I really cared for her, but like, was I actually attracted to her? Not really. Right. Um, that was some pretty deep denial. Cause you, you know, when you're in the ex-gay movement, you can't name almost anything, right?

Like you can't ever talk about being gay or can't ever talk about really your attractions because you're just trying to deny everything. That's part of it. To name something is to give it power over you. Is that where the allergic reaction against even the term gay as a quote-unquote identity or a description of your experience, your attractions. Was that where that kind of negative reaction against that, you know, you can struggle with same sex attraction as a temptation, but don't use the term gay because that is, you're too strongly identifying with this or naming. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. In my experience. Yeah. I mean, it was kind of like, well, to call yourself gay is to cement this thing as true about you in a way that like to struggle with things. Like I would tell people I used to be gay before I was a Christian is what I would tell people. And now and people are like, well, not anymore. Right. And I'd be like, oh, yeah, no. Now I'm you know, I'm delivered from that, even though I was still not attracted to women and was still attracted to men.

But I was delivered, you know. Yeah. I was delivered, you know? Yeah. I think for a lot of people to self-describe as gay or to identify as gay is to like make up all of who you are in this sexual experience, in this sinful sexual temptation, right? So you just don't talk about it. You don't even name it. And the circles I ran in or like the sort of therapy I got at the time, it was kind of like you barely even talk about the attraction because you just got to put it to death. You got to ignore it. You got to like run from it every chance you can. Over the next eight years, what that led me to was a lot of isolation. You know, one of the things I had been told was that I was developing effeminate mannerisms and

not identifying with my masculinity. And so what I needed to do was find really good male community so I could model myself like the other young men around me, you know, like the real guys at youth group. And so I would try to do that. I'd try to get close to guys at youth group. And at the time, I had a lot of female friends and so pulled back from a lot of my female friends because I needed to find my masculinity. And then you start getting close to guys. And then, uh, and then all of a sudden you're told you have to pull away from your guy relationships because you risk running, uh, into like developing feelings for them. Right. Um, and so now I can't be close to women because then I'll develop effeminate mannerisms. I can't be really close to men cause I'll develop feelings for them.

And so you've just got to keep everyone at a distance and only talk to Jesus about your internal experience. And got through college with a lot of that thinking. I was able, I mean, by God's grace, I was able to find some really great friends, but for the most part, still kept a lot of this to myself. Didn't really tell people. I just, yeah, I just didn't share that part of my experience. And when I was 24, 24 25 I was working in my first youth ministry job I had this really big crisis of faith um and it came with a pretty aggressive mental health issue I uh looking back now I was really really unwell I was serving in this local church I was um we had seen so much incredible growth in this youth ministry we um we these incredible kids I was serving, and we'd grown the youth group from like four

kids when I started to, I think, 60 kids in about two and a half, three years. So this is incredible, thriving, small town youth group where kids were like coming to know the Lord. And I was watching my kids, like anything we prayed for our kids would happen, man. And then the things I prayed for myself would just fall flat. And I started feeling like, God, do you not care about me? Don't you see? I've been praying for eight years to be delivered, and I'm still stuck. Why do you not listen to me when I pray for myself, but you listen to anything I ask for

anyone else? My bitterness towards God started to grow, and my feeling of isolation and abandonment started to grow. I couldn't really talk to people about that experience because you're not supposed to talk about it. And then you're a pastor, which pastors struggle to get support anyway because you're not supposed to have needs when you're in ministry. I just started to hate myself and hate God and feel really isolated and really deeply depressed. really deeply depressed. Had a few months there where I was really unwell and was thankfully loved well enough by a mentor to kind of say, dude, you need to get help. So I started going to counseling and one day I was having coffee with my mentor and he said to me, you are waiting to be heterosexual to be loved by God. And I said, no, of course I know God loves me. And he was like, Art, what if you're gay?

And what if you're just going to be gay? And what if that's not going anywhere? And what if God loves you right now? So suddenly, of course, I'm sobbing at this Starbucks. And it was kind of the first time I looked the problem dead in the eye. For years, I hadn't named that part of my experience. I hadn't really shared it. And so to have someone who knew me well enough just to say, dude, you are waiting for this to shift and only then will you believe God loves you.

Art, I'm curious real quick, that's such a profound point. And it's something that I hear very often among gay people I talk to that that it's almost like there's, I feel like almost the health of their faith hinges on that kind of moment when you're kind of waiting to be straight, striving to be straight, expecting to be straight. And then you come to this kind of realization that you might never be, probably will never, might not never be straight. And that is okay in the eyes of God. That God loves you the same, can use you the same, perhaps even more. Is that a very common kind of transition that what you're going through at that moment? Have you heard a lot of people go through that kind of shift as well? I think so.

I think it feels like one of the things we have to confront in ourselves, right? It's like, okay, if God is who we say he is, then he loves me right now. And if he loves me right now, then he meets me right now. And the question is, what's he doing right now? And at least for me, what I often find and I think this is true for others, that I had decided that what God was doing right now was healing me of my homosexuality,

but God had never said that. And so once we embrace this concept, because if God is who we say he is, then he loves me right now, right? If he loves me right now, right? If he loves me right now, then what he's doing right now matters. And apparently what he's doing is not delivering me from this, but he's actually building a beautiful life for me. He's actually calling me to holiness. I think that does seem to be a pretty key moment for a lot of people.

All right. So take us back to the aftermath, I guess, of what that did for your life. I mean, the first thing is it meant I was honest with myself and it meant it was honest with a few key people. I have a few. I have like three guys I call my brothers. I'm an only child by blood, but I have a few spiritual siblings that God's given me. And by that point, these were guys we'd already decided. We had graduated college together. We'd already decided like we're in this together. We're going to care for each other well. We're going to love each other. We're going to walk each other through difficulty. And so I started inviting them into the conversation. They were

the first people I told. I said, hey, you know, I've mentioned before that I used to be gay. What if I am gay? And so we started talking about that as a community and we started trying to find words for that. And like i wasn't comfortable with the word gay for a while so we would just talk about yo you know your sexuality thing and we just kicked it around for a few months and i would look for resources and we would pray together and i found um i don't even know where i found it but i found a link to wesley hill's book spiritual friendship um which is super weird because usually people find Washington waiting. But I read Spiritual Friendship, and I remember sitting in the office at this church I was working at.

I was about three pages in. I'd already cried like four different times because it was the first time in my life I felt like someone else got it. And I'm 25, and I've never talked to another LGBTQ Christian. I'm reading Wes's words, and I'm like, oh my gosh, this guy gets me. This guy understands. And I felt so understood in a way I'd never had before. And also I felt really scared. I remember texting my friends. At one point I threw the book across the room, screamed some cuss words. And I texted my friends like, guys, I either have to burn this book and

walk away from this conversation or I have to face this head on this weekend, but life's never going to be the same again if I do that. And they were like, hey, whatever you need, we got your back. So I just dove in that weekend, read Spiritual Friendship. I think a few months later, Single Gay Christian came out. I read that and decided to spend the rest of that year. I think it was 2018 or 2017. I was like, I'm going to spend this whole year just processing this part of my life. I'm going to stop dating. At the time, I was still trying to date women, not to great success. And I'm going to stop dating. I'm just going to try to figure out what is going on here. And it became more and more clear that I'm not attracted to women at all,

that I'd only ever been attracted to men. And that, try as i might um one of the things i did was also explore my sexual ethics and like what do i believe the bible says like hey i was raised in a church where like we said gay people are gross so clearly i can't just go based off what they say right so what do i believe the bible says to gay people and a part of me kind of hoped i would develop a more affirming sexual ethic you know like it just would have been felt neater um but i couldn't get there i as i wrestled with scripture and as i wrestled with the holy spirit um it just felt inconsistent to what i see god saying clearly in scripture and so the next option then is celibacy which sounded really terrible

um just sounded so awful. And I was really overwhelmed by what a grievous, terrible thing that would be for me. For me specifically, like I'm a super social person. I love to give and receive love. I mean, we all do, but I'm like, I'm wired to give love, man. And I just remember thinking like, there is no one who could be less cut out for this life than me. The amount and extent to which I just want intimacy and want to share my life with someone and want to have someone to come home to every day, this would be the worst possible option for

me. But also, celibacy kept feeling like the only thing I saw as an option, if I wanted to honor Jesus. I spent a couple months just going, okay, Jesus, what would it look like to be celibate? And the way I decided to process that was to almost imagine it's true. I'm just going to assume it's true for a few months and start imagining life. So I feel like when you're, especially in your young 20s, you're driving around, you see a nice house, you're like, that'd be a great place to live. Like, be cool for the kids to like run around the yard. And so I would catch myself and I'd go, wait, I'm not going to have kids. So like, that house is too big if I'm going to be single.

And then like, move on. And that was, I started kind of processing like that, like, all right, Lord, what would it look like for me to be single the rest of my life? And the more I did that, after a few months, it just became really clear that's what the Lord was calling me to. And again, that sounded terrible. I was really depressed about it, cried a lot about it in those early days, especially. And the Lord ended up doing this really beautiful thing. At the same time, my best friend, Nick, he was one of those three brothers I mentioned earlier. He was praying for me and just asking God how he could support me well.

And he was reading Galatians one day where it says to carry one another's burdens. And he was like, Jesus, how do I carry our burden of celibacy with him? And we're talking one day, I'd call them. It was one of those days, man, especially in ministry, I would have a really rough day at work and then just come home to an empty house and just feel so defeated. So I called Nick on one of those nights, and that was pretty normal. And I'm in tears, just like, man, I feel so lonely. I don't know that I can do ministry for forever like this.

And he was like, dude, I think maybe God's asking me to help you do this for the long haul. And I was like, what does that mean? And he was like, well, you know, Galatians is to bear one of those burdens. I'm like wondering what it looks like to bear your burden. And man, what if you're just, what if you're just my family? What if I'm going to carry this with you so that it's not as heavy and so that you can like honor Jesus without feeling all that pain. And I, I got pretty scared because I was like, dude, that's, that's really beautiful. But also like, I can't count on that because if you you don't deliver, that would be the most painful thing. But as we talked for the next few months, as we prayed together, he just kept feeling called to do that.

And so we decided we were going to find a way to be family. Nick's heterosexual, and he at the time was planning and still planning on getting married to a woman. He's got a really lovely girlfriend right now that we're both pretty crazy about. He just said, you know, we'll find a way to support each other. We'll find a way for you to not have to do this alone and for me to still get to have my best buddy around. And what we saw was God actually calling us to kind of live as a household. So we moved in together two years ago. And I started asking God, okay, like, could it be that actually you have good things for me if I'm going to be celibate? Because that's the thing, right?

Like, if God is who we say he is, if God is actually good, right? Like we say all the time, God is good all the time, all the time God is good. If God's actually good, then like that means that what he wants from me has to be good. That was pretty big for me in just landing on celibacy. I remember texting my friends once, like, look, this cannot be a consolation prize life. Like, I can't, like, I don't want a third place trophy. I want the best life I could have. And if I obey celibacy, it has to be because I think that what God thinks is good is for my best. And so here Nick comes along and he's saying, well, maybe God's calling us to live as a community. And I started asking God, what would it look like for this to be my best life?

Not, okay, well, good enough since I can't have a partner. Not like, okay, this will do, I guess. But like actually the best and to make it something I'm excited about and passionate about every day. And us living in community has been a huge part of that. Wow. That was two years ago. You guys moved in, roommates. More than just roommates, though.

Would you call it a covenanted friendship? Or what's the language you use to describe your relationship with Nick? I mean, not that it matters too much. Yeah, we hate most language. I call him my brother. I introduce him as my brother. He's my family. He's my household. We usually say committed friendship when we're trying to explain it okay um definitely not just roommates like the way we show up for each other is definitely not just roommates um in the sense of like you know it's things like okay well when my money

runs out like i had a pretty big um just one of those months where like everything that can go wrong does. And so my bank account was really hurting, you know, it's like the car breaks down and that's more than it should be. And then like, it turns out at the same time you need new tires and you know, uh, your taxes come due and it turns out you are the government, like all those things. And I woke up one day with a couple hundred dollars in my Venmo from Nick. And he said, I mean, if we're going to be family, then when you don't have money, I have to.

Yeah. And I think that's a really great depiction of kind of how we feel is, in a lot of ways, our lives are still pretty separate, right? He has his work. He goes to his church. I go to mine. We don't really have the same schedule.

But also, I will never move someplace without Nick, and Nick won't move anywhere without me. When Nick dates, he lets women know, like, hey, this guy's my best friend. He's my brother, but he's also like going to be part of my household. So I can't pursue a marriage that wouldn't make room for that. Does that mean live? Like, so if he gets married, you're coming with them? I mean, in terms of like living in the house or not? Yeah. So we've, we've, uh, we, we leave a lot of room open for what is actually best for different seasons or not? Yeah. So we've, we've, uh, we, we leave a lot of room open for what is actually best for different seasons of life. Um, and also because he, like, when we started making these commitments, he didn't have a girlfriend. And so we weren't

sure what that would look like and like, what would be best to honor his wife too. Cause we really like, it's really important to us for us. We think of it as like, he has to honor my vocation of singleness and I have to, I has to honor my vocation of singleness and i have to i have to honor his vocation of marriage yeah and so how do we do those things well right and so um i think what we've developed is understanding that probably living in the same house for us we are ideal for most of life i think what the actual arrangements look like will change in different seasons of life but um, um, as he, you know, is dating this young woman, one of the things we've talked about a lot is getting a

duplex, um, and them living in one half and me living in the other. Um, and not just, you know, they pay their bills, I pay mine, but somehow like the whole duplex is a household. Um, but we have our space where we can honor each other. Um, partially because I, I think one of the freedoms God has called me to in singleness is not necessarily to raise kids. And so I don't really want to live with kids. But also, just like for them to have a healthy marriage, especially early on the need for space, the need to be able to identify themselves as a couple and to figure out what they need. So we've said it is everything from living in the same space to being within a

five minute walk of each other. That's our range. Okay. Um, and we will as a team discern what's the healthiest for that season of life. That's, that's pretty remarkable, man. I mean, I, I know a lot of celibate gay Christians. That's, you know, that's remarkable. And, you know, I think there's a growing number of, you know, gay, let's just call friends, you know, exploring what does it look like to be more than just roommates, but some kind of committed friendship. a sexual friend make this commitment who also might be, you know, entering into the vocation of marriage. That's pretty, I don't know if I've ever, I might've heard one other story like that. Maybe it was your story. Actually, somebody told me about without naming. There's, there are one or two that I know of, but it's definitely a, it's definitely a weird minority. I mean, it's costly, right? Like, And I think a lot of people aren't open to that sort of sacrifice outside of for a romantic relationship. And can you describe maybe, because I love that you're saying you're not naturally wired for single celibacy.

Because I have heard some people, well, the one in particular I'm thinking of, you know, an affirming gay Christian say, you know, it just seems like, you know, these celibate side B gay Christians, they're kind of, I don't know, they're kind of wired for singleness. They kind of like to be alone and read a lot of books and, you know, um, and this person said, you know, I'm just not, I'm not wired that way. You know, that wasn't like it's an only argument or whatever but i mean i was like i don't know i i know quite a few celibate gay christians who were it not for a really you know being convinced theologically that that this might be the best vocation for them i don't think they're just naturally wired that way so i would say most

of us are not naturally wired this way. I'm definitely not. This is like contrary to every default inclination in me, both the pursuit of chastity. Um, but even just like being, I mean, I thought I would be 30 with a partner and two kids. Um, when I was ex gay, I thought that was going to be a wife, you know, in other days I thought it was going to be a man. Um, but like everything in me is like, let's make a family, let's raise some kids. Let's, you know, do the thing. Um, this has been a real reworking of everything I would have imagined for myself. I always tell people that I have the life I never would have picked for myself. Um, but God had something way better in store for me. Way better. So can you, I mean, can you unpack that a little? Because it sounds like you're saying, well,

it's just hard for, I think, modern Westerners to get their mind around how this new vocation could still be a good life, let alone the best life or even a path of flourishing? Is it because we put so much stock in love and intimacy? We funnel that through a romantic sexual relationship and we don't have any categories for other kinds of rich, robust, intimate community outside of that? Is that? I think that's one of the things i also think we don't yeah so first of all in america especially we do tend to kind of be like hey sexual intimacy is your option period uh i mean a great i mean today is valentine's day and it's a really interesting thing to me that like i'm brazilian and we have like yeah we have a valentine's day that's like

for couples but we also have a day to celebrate friendship love. Huh? In Brazil? Yeah. Yeah. In Brazil. Oh, okay. Um, that's like part of our cultural framework. And so I love that I'm even from a culture that are already in here, like inherently understands like, yeah, we should celebrate our friends. Um, the notion that romantic and sexual love is the only love worth celebrating is really modern. It's really American. Um's really unhealthy. No one would ever read the Bible and come up with a framework of community that we have today. The New Testament is just filled, filled, filled with intentional and beautiful and thriving community. After kind of walking away from the ex-gay thinking and reading the Bible with fresh eyes,

I am so struck at how much the Bible is filled with amazing, beautiful friendship and amazing, beautiful community and communal loyalty, like ways that we did life for and with each other. I mean, the new church, I mean, the early church in Acts, right? Like, oh, this guy from our church doesn't have money. I guess I'll sell my house so we can have some money. In America, we would call that idolatry. We would say they're codependent. And the Holy Spirit calls that beautiful obedience and brothers living together in unity. For me, it's been a lot of asking myself, what is the way God does love? And what is the way God does community? And what is the way God is calling me into those things? way God does love and what is the way God does community and what is the way God is calling me into those things. Um, and frankly, it's also been being stubborn. Like I think, I mean, I can't tell

you how many people a year try to convince me that my life is miserable because I don't have a romantic or sexual partner. Oh yeah. Implicitly or explicitly or both? Uh, both. Yeah. It depends on the person. Um, I've had affirming folks be like, well, you can't be happy this way. And I'm like, no, I'm actually really happy. And they're like, no, you're not. And you're like, that's weird. But also even just like I'll share my testimony at a church and a straight couple will pull me aside and be like, I'm just really sorry. You're really brave. You're really strong.

And I'm like, look, honestly, what that says to me is that you don't actually believe God is good. Oh, wow. If you're sorry for me for following a vocation he's called me to. I mean, imagine you get engaged and I say to you, man, I'm really sorry. Like, that's a really rough view of your wife, right? Like, that's super messed up. But like this beautiful thing God has called me to might be hard, might be challenging, is not necessarily my favorite.

Absolutely has moments where I need to grieve, but also like if God is good, God calls us to good things. And if we don't believe that as a community, we have no hope. Yeah. Like what's the point of any biblical obedience? Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so for me, a lot of it is, do we believe that God is good?

And if we believe God is good, do we care what he says about sexuality and community? And when we do, the good God who tells us how to live our lives sexually and communally probably has good instructions for those things, probably has our best in mind for those things. And so for me, part of it's just been a stubborn unwillingness to believe that I will have anything less than God's best. I want a really joyful life, and I believe that what God says is good is good. And that doesn't mean there's not grief. I'm not walking through life.

There's been a lot of crying into my pillow because I can't have a partner. Sure, yeah. And Nick is amazing, but he's very much my brother and very much not my boyfriend. Right, right. And so there's days I feel that like there's days I'm like, Oh, I wish someone would just like come like hold my hand on the couch, you know?

Um, so there's something that's like a life without pain, but like, honestly, one of the things we do too is we pretend that marriage is a life without pain. Well, yeah,

that's what I was going to say. Like hard. And it's hard. Here's my tension is, and I feel like I can tell you this, and the 30,000 people listening. It's as a straight married guy, I've got a good marriage, four kids, the American life, whatever. And sometimes I feel like I can't even say, and maybe I'm not the one to say it. I don't know.

Like, well, sometimes I can't even say, yes know, yes, married life isn't all it's cracked up to be. Yes, my wife and I cry. I'm not a, for unhealthy reasons, I'm not a crier. And that's not because I'm a man or straight. It's because I'm unhealthy and I need to deal with stuff from my past. And that's all another story. But you grow up in a very toxic, hyper-masculine context and your body absorbs this unhealthy, literally chemical reaction against tears welling up.

It's very unhealthy. But like, you know, how many times did my wife and kids cry over just difficulties in life? And my wife and I have had, you know, again, we have a very good relationship, good marriage. We've had many times throughout our life where there's been tears and tears and maybe the same night that you had your head in your pillow crying over lack of a romantic relationship. There's many romantic people in a relationship crying in the same pillow, in a different pillow, but that'd be weird if it was the same pillow, in a different pillow. But that'd be weird if it was the same pillow, but you know what I mean. And here's my hesitation is I still feel people say, yeah, but, yeah, but don't think your

suffering is the same. I'm not saying it's the same. I'm just saying that the Christian life has this rich, beautiful, painful fabric of rhythms of suffering and pain. And I wish I had dot, dot, dot. I wish I was more like dot, dot, dot. And is it, I mean, how do, yeah. And so the hesitation to keep hearing my voice is I firmly believe, firmly believe that gay people trying to follow Christ do have a unique challenge that people that don't have this experience will not fully understand. And yet,

that doesn't mean it's the only way of living that has also very real challenges. Does that make sense? I don't know. It does. And it does. And I actually, I think I always encourage my married friends. Would you actually be more honest about how hard your marriage is? I think it would be better for the single people in your life and the married people in your life. Most of my married friends who go to church don't feel like they can talk about the challenges they have because you're almost in this weird, like marriage competition show when you go to church. Like, I don't think anyone says that, but I think it's a pressure people feel or like my buddy might be like, man, I can't talk about like the struggles I'm having with my wife because I don't want to dishonor her, which is valid. Like you don't want to

drag on your wife, right? Like that's no one likes that guy. But on the other hand, like we need to know that marriage is actually hard, especially biblical marriage, right? Like to do beautiful, godly marriage, the way Jesus calls is really challenging. In the same way that singleness is probably easier when you're not doing it Jesus's way, but it's not as fulfilling. Marriage is probably easier, especially in the short term to do not Jesus's way, but it's not as fulfilled. Well, it's a truism, you know, that it's better to be single and wish you're married than be married and wish you're single. And there's a lot of straight heterosexual Christians, pastors, a lot that are married. And if there wasn't any ethical problems, they would choose either not to be married or be married to somebody else.

That's not, you know, again, not many people admit it, but the divorce rate, affairs, other addictions and stuff will prove otherwise. So I'm curious. So you have this amazing relationship with your best friend, Nick, right? Is it Nick? Yeah. Okay. Well, if you didn't have him, do you have other, is your, is your, is your longing for and satisfaction in community solely in him? Or do you have other spaces where it's also being fulfilled? Like if he got for, you know, if he passed away, unfortunately, like what would that, would that leave you in a major tailspin or are you, are you still in community enough? Yeah. Um, well, I think like, even if we were married, that wouldn't be a healthy way to live. Like, I don't think it's healthy. So I'm really against, again, I think

scripture calls us to really robust community. Some of the best advice I ever got about living a chaste life, I got a chance to pull aside Greg Johnson at Revoice in 2019 and was just like, bro, you're almost twice my age. How do I last? Like, I can't believe I lasted 25 years. How do I get to 50? Yeah. And he had just really practical advice. Like it was kind of beautiful where he was like, stay in one city, stop moving, develop a network of friends, a robust network. It's got to be multiple people. They should live within 20 minutes. Like it was just like so detailed and it's got to be a bunch of people because you will lose some of them. So just get ready. Like some people will leave you. Some people will stop being your friends. Some people will move.

Some people will die. And so other parts of your network have to be able to sustain you when some dip. And then while those parts sustain network have to be able to sustain you when some dip. And then while those parts sustain you, then you go and develop new relationships. And you keep feeding the network. And really all he's teaching us is how to live in a biblical community. That's all he was really saying to me is, hey, stay committed to people. I think in America we're so used to we move for jobs. Early on into this process, I remember saying to myself what am i gonna do just like stay in one place and live where my friends live

that's pathetic and then i was like wait why would that be pathetic why would that be any more pathetic than moving across the country for a job that's gonna pay 3k more yeah yeah like who's to say i can't just live where my friends live. So no, I mean, Nick is the biggest part of my daily life. Um, but like, I have a lot of really great friends. I actually have options. I probably would have explored. There's options I've had to pass down on. I have some, um, celibate gay friends who live, um, in like pretty intentional community together in California that I'm really close to. And I've really thought about living with them, but I was already committed to Nick at that point. Um, and so, you know, that guy's really holding me back from living my best sunny life in California. Um, is it San Diego? I know an awesome community in San Diego. Uh, these guys are now in San Diego. They were in LA before.

Yeah. Um, but yeah, it's like, those are some of the guys that I'm really close to and like, would have totally thought about moving out there to be with them. Yeah. But even locally, I try to be really intentional with my church community. I right now see people from my church probably three to four times a week. That's more than most people for sure. Right. Like we – I refuse to go to a church that's more than half an hour away because I want it to be like a really big part of my life.

Go to church on Sundays, but then also I go to a small group and, um, another celibate gay friend of mine, she goes to my small group as well. And she goes to her, like it's her church originally. Um, I got it from her. And so like, I might see her to have lunch sometime during the week. And then we have other friends from church that like, I co-work with some of them on Wednesdays. And so I'm really intentional about cultivating communal practices, um, people who've been in my life for years and that I choose to be really loyal to. If Nick were to die, that would be tragic and there would be pain. But like I've got a lot of people in my life and that's really on purpose. Are you totally out and open as gay in your community?

Is that an issue? I was a youth pastor before and felt God in about 2019 really felt the Lord calling me to come out more publicly. I mean, I am someone who like, I think maybe I like trouble. I can't not be in the conversation if there's challenge, if there's people being pummeled. I think that's something uniquely God has called me to. But also, like, God has given me unique support. Like, there's so much privilege in everything I've shared about, like, having a church I'm really connected to, and Nick, and, like,

not every celibate gay person, very few celibate gay people, have someone saying, God has called me to share life with you. And so I see all this privilege the Lord has given me, and I just feel a responsibility to, like, leverage it to support our community. And so I felt really called to come out publicly around 2019. So came out publicly then. I've had, you know, different forms of backlash, especially speaking at Revoice. You know, I always tell people, don't Google me. It's like for your good and for mine. You know, we just don't Google me. But finding a church after I left local church ministry to work for Revoice, that was really hard. Okay. Church hopping was really painful because

some pastors were not really open to even having the conversation. And like, for me, I really want to be pastored well. I mean, I was a pastor for years. I feel like I must be exhausting the pastor because I'm like, I know how to do your job, so do it well. But before I would even visit a church, I would send them an email with a few questions to understand, are there gay people openly out in this church? Am I going to be treated well? Am I going to be allowed to serve in ministry? I love youth ministry. I was a youth pastor for 10 years for a reason. So I can't really belong to a church long-term if I'm not someone they would see serving in youth ministry. Because I have gifts to offer there, and I love investing in the next generation. So finding a church that was safe for all those things is hard. Finding a

church that's safe to go to just on Sunday morning is hard, but finding a church that you can actually belong to. And I'm someone, I mean, talk about a mess, but I love accountability. I want to have a pastor that is going to be able to say to me, hey, I think you're making a mistake. The problem is it's really hard to find a pastor who will do that operating from a worldview that even believes I can use the word gay without just like, well,, well, Hey, you've got to like pray all that away without like having any real context for it. Um, a pastor who will decide what's best for me without even like considering the realities of my life. Um, I've had pastors who try to tell me that, you know, living with Nick was a mistake because I'm gay and I live with a man and I'm just going to experience temptation all the time. And I'm like, dude, I gotta tell you, like I've said to these pastors, like it's actually

way more tempting to live in isolation. Yeah. That's a great point, dude. Like if you think I'm going to experience temptation living with this guy that loves me and has my back and loves Jesus, you should see temptation when someone just lives alone. Like that's temptation. Yeah. Or then you feel like, all right, I'll go live with a woman.

Well, they can't. Well, what do people think? Right. Exactly. Okay, cool. We're not doing this. Like I'm not chopping away. Yeah. Or you feel like, all right, I'll go live with a woman. Well, they can't. Well, what are people going to think? Right. Exactly. It's just like, okay, cool. We're not doing this. Like, I'm not chopping away.

Yeah. And I've told those pastors, like, look, I get it. You got to think about how your church looks. I have to think about spending the rest of my life celibate. Yes. So I'm not going to do the thing that makes it easy for your church. I'm going to do the thing that makes it possible for me to be celibate the rest of my life. Dude. I want that to sink in. I've learned that over the years. And I want to apologize on behalf of straight, well-intended

Christians that just, I don't know, we work in the abstract and we don't think from the individual lives of real people oftentimes to our, to our fault. And that's a, man, that's a great, great word. I want you to just, we have, you know, we're coming up on an hour here, but can you pastor some people listening right now who maybe aren't a very similar spot as you, they're, they're in the same theological camp as you. They're also gay and maybe they don't have the kind of community you're describing. And I think hands down, it goes without saying, it is absolutely essential to

survive, to live out this hard Christian ethic if you don't have rich community. How do people take the first steps to find... Because the community goes both ways, right? It's like, you can't just snap your finger and all of a sudden have some straight dude that says, I'm committed to you for life. And other people that are like, you know, you know, you have community throughout the week. So, um, what, what steps can people do to take, to, to try to find that and build that community? Yeah. Um, unfortunately, most of my advice is really uncomfortable. You know, I, I get like really frustrated when people are like, Oh, you're so, you're so lucky you have this really robust community. Cause it's like a thing

I've really fought for and the thing I've really bled for. And the first thing I think we often have to realize if we're going to live in real community, we won't keep anyone unless we're willing to forgive them 100 times. If you want to have a friend that's still here next year, at some point in the next year, you have to forgive that person. And I find that our community has often experienced so much hurt. We've run out of forgiveness. And I'm not saying this is for everyone. I'm not saying like, I'm not saying there's not people who are like really bullheaded and want no relationship with us, but we have to be able to discern the difference between people who are just not there yet, but they're growing. Nick, I mean, people think Nick is like the greatest guy and he is, he's a rock star,

but man, he said some hurtful things over the years and he's done some hurtful things. And I've had to forgive him a lot. And frankly, he's had to forgive me a lot. Like I'm probably not easy to live with. And we would have lost this beautiful friendship we have that's such a gift to both of us if we both weren't really, really committed to forgiving each other a lot. And so the first thing is just commit to the fact that like, you are going to have to be someone who forgives others. There is no way to have community without that. But then I think the other thing is like to be really, like for me, we have to believe that God wants us to live in

community. Like this thing that you want is also a thing God wants. Like if you're lonely and if you feel disconnected, look at like the scriptural commands to live in community and see that like, And if you feel disconnected, look at the scriptural commands to live in community and see that not as a burden on you to be failed, but actually a reality that if God is commanding us into community, it means he's very interested in making that possible for us. And so if you're someone who's trying to figure out who your people are, literally wake up every single day and ask God to show you. That was a practice I did for years. My mom was like, I was really lonely for some portions of my life. And my mom would tell me, get on your knees every morning and ask God, who are your people? Who is he calling you to love? And who is he trying to love you through? So like, genuinely be prayerful. Who is God calling you to love? You will be surprised the people that you are called to serve, who become the people who most fight for you.

At times, a lot of my most beautiful friendships have come from me really fighting for someone and from a relationship that wasn't at all equal, but was entirely one-sided. It was someone I mentored in a season or someone I just really felt burdened for. And so I was really trying to walk alongside and encourage them. Those have become some of my greatest friends. I think also finding safe ways to practice honesty. I need my friends to know me. That's just like a core feature of friendship is we need to be able to know each other and walk with each other. And so maybe your church isn't a place where you want to share your whole story, or maybe you're not in a place to share your whole story anyway. But maybe there's one person, maybe it's the person who runs your small group.

Maybe it's that one pastor who just seems really kind every time you talk to him. Starting small and growing. I encourage people often to find the center and grow from there. So if you can identify one or two people who are your people and they have your back, and then keep growing that. Find one more person to be someone you can talk to some you can call on a bad day and unfortunately vulnerability is the only way to develop intimacy so like we're gonna have to share uncomfortable stuff we're gonna have to risk ourselves and i think we're gonna have to know that we're gonna risk ourselves and get rejected a lot for For the 15 amazing friends I might

have in any given day, there's a hundred people that rejected me. All right, man, you're a beautiful soul and wise. This is what excites me about being, you know, kind of, I guess, part of this conversation on some level is I've just learned so much about the heart of Christ and how to live the Christian life from getting to know so many LGBTQ Christians who have just such a unique slant on the Christian journey that is filling in some serious blind spots in the church between what marriage is really about, what friendship is for, and the absolute need and richness of being part of a community of God's people. So thank you for the work you're doing. Do you want people to find you?

And if so, where can they find you? Yeah, totally find me. Honestly, the best thing I'm a part of is the work we do at Revoice. I'm our director of community care, which means I help provide pastoral support for LGBTQ Christians across the country. And I help pastors who are trying to support LGBTQ Christians across the country. And so you can find us at revoice.org. That's kind of the best way to know anything about what I do because everything I do, I do through them. Well, thanks for coming on the show, man. Really appreciate you.

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