I want to open lesbain go to church. But I am

don't feel I can be myself becouse of the

pope stand.

What can I go to church and be open lesbain?

Dear disabledglbt

I'm not sure whether you said where you are living but you can check the following website for some information regarding "welcoming congregations".

http://christianlesbians.com/congregations/

You may also wish to check out the home page for this which is as follows....

http://christianlesbians.com/

If you are relatively new to navigating the Gay and Christian sites this would be a good place to start.

God bless you, Katie

You mentioned the Pope's stand, by which my guess is that you are a Roman Catholic, right? I suggest you contact New Ways Ministry (www.newwaysministry.org). They have a directory of gay-friendly Catholic parishes, which is also regularly published in their quarterly magazine called Bondings. They would certainly be able to give you further advice.

Have you checked out www.gaychurch.org, the church directory? Elaine checks all of the churches listed there.

quote:

Originally posted by Katie42:
Dear disabledglbt

I'm not sure whether you said where you are living but you can check the following website for some information regarding "welcoming congregations".

http://christianlesbians.com/congregations/

You may also wish to check out the home page for this which is as follows....

http://christianlesbians.com/

Katie I don't think Anita has updated her site in quite awhile. I believe it's been 2-3 years since she last updated the church listing - unless she's just done it. But last time I looked she hadn't. The largest and probably the most complete church directory is on our own site www.gaychurch.org. I say complete because I personnally email every single church on that list, if they have an email address, to confirm that they're a welcoming church. Also it's not just an open registration where anybody can add their church. Every church that requests to be added is screened, as much as possible that is, to make sure they're legit. In addition to churches sending requests everyday to be added every year I go through a massive 4-5 month long search for new churches to be added to the directory. By massive I mean I go through every welcoming geographical group and denomination's web site to see if they've added any new congregations. This process used to take 1-2 months of fulltime work. That has grown to 4-5 months of fulltime work once a year. It's a pretty complete directory. In fact the directory has been ranked the #1 by the yahoo and google search engines for the past 9 months and counting (praise God!). Saying that... I'm sure we've missed churches and get emails daily from churches from around the world that wish to be added. I just got a new one from Hong Kong this morning. That's really exciting to me because gay welcoming Christian churches are rare in Asia - so praise God for this new assembly!

If nobody has mentioned it lately, Elaine....You rock!!!! That's what I call hard work & dedication!!!

I second that Doc.......

I know isn't Elaine amazing??? I just wish I had my own seperate income (from an outside work force) to contribute to this webiste. One day. One day I will give what I can, but in the mean time, I give my prayers to Elaine and gaychurch regularly. God knows how thankful I am for this site.

Thank you Elaine. ((((Elaine)))) You are pretty special woman.

God Bless you,
~Byrd

Aaron thanks for sharing this website. www.newwaysministry.org

In my country about 80% of the people are Catholics.
So I know it is good to have also this kind of information that would be helpful for the GLBT's catholics and there friends, families and other denominations.

Doth

Elaine does rock. I think sometimes we forget that Elaine has a life outside this website. I know, it is hard to believe! So with lots to do, it is incredible that she can accomplish as much as she does.

While I have your attention, I want to remind everyone of something Elaine reminded me of a few weeks ago. If you buy ANYTHING from Amazon.com, go through the home page of this site and order there. http://www.gaychurch.org I come directly to the message board, so I don't see it. But, I often order things. I will search online and find Amazon to have the best deal. I just need to come back and go through the website to give GALIP 5% of my purchase.

Thanks Elaine for all you do. I know you have touched many lives.

Thanks Doc, Groucho and everyone. Actually I've been focusing a bit more these past several weeks on the thousand and one things going on around our home. Kids graduating(!), applying for jobs, coaching, starting to work out again(yea!!), and the thousand and one things that need to be done to keep the family and household running.

Doth I've emailed that web site to find out more about them. Another rich resource for Catholic 'stuff' is in the section of the web site titled "Affirming Denominations and Groups" found at the bottom of the Church Directory web page. In there you will find several awesome web sites that keep tabs on the gay (GLBT) Catholic community. Finding and corresponding with welcoming churches and priests in the Catholic community is tricky because officially they can't be welcoming without facing excommunication (sp?). Saying that though, some of the most awesome correspondances I've had with ministers through the years have been with Catholic priests. Especially the Jesuits (sp?) and the Pauline Society. I have to handle the Catholic churches different than all the other churches in the directory because officially none of them can be welcoming. It's all with a friendly email and something like 'we can't OFFICIALLY be welcoming but ...' and from there the love, warmth and heart rending message of acceptance comes forth. Awesome people. Of course I'm a little partial being raised Catholic myself. I no longer consider myself Catholic because I don't follow the Catholic doctrines and/or the doctrins of the Pope but I have the utmost respect for those who worship and minister in the Catholic denomination.

You're welcome. I was raised Roman Catholic, and although I've left the Church years ago, I still enjoy reading about developments there, especially when it comes to gay rights. New Ways Ministry seems to be doing really good job in the US (possibly elsewhere also).

quote:

Originally posted by Doth:
Aaron thanks for sharing this website. www.newwaysministry.org

In my country about 80% of the people are Catholics.
So I know it is good to have also this kind of information that would be helpful for the GLBT's catholics and there friends, families and other denominations.

Doth