Andrew recently graduated from an open and affirming Lutheran seminary in the mid-west that warmly welcomes people from the LGBTQ community. Each person from that seminary community goes there because of a desire for all people to come to know the deep love of God.
What Andrew has learned over the years is that God really is love and uses the circumstances of our lives to form us and build into us a capacity to communicate God’s love to others. Every moment is truly eternal. Sometimes this eternity surrounds us with joy, and sometimes it sucks every ounce of hope out of us. Andrew finds beauty, serenity, and purpose in the triune God, who binds all of eternity together.
Andrew’s Story
When I was six years old, my dad was incarcerated for robbing several banks. He was a witty, intelligent, sarcastic, introspective, self-loathing, alcoholic, manic depressive, who happened to be sober until I was six years old. He had serious addiction problems and became delusional. My dad would collect-call me periodically from prison, and I would visit him on a regular basis. My paternal aunt faithfully took me to visit him. She loved her brother, and what could have been a traumatic experience for me helped to form love and compassion instead. I really value that time with my dad.
My mom is an incredible person—loving, aloof, over-protective, hard-working, kind, genuine, and compassionate. She worked very hard to raise my sister, who was two years younger, and me, working 40 to 50-hour weeks as a respiratory therapist. Mom and dad divorced shortly before the armed robberies.
My childhood was marked by prison visits, with a struggling, overworked mother sustaining a middle-class lifestyle, a co-dependent, loving paternal aunt, and faith in an ever- forgiving, loving, gracious God.
There is much I can say about how being the child of a prisoner influenced me as a person. Reflecting on how it influenced my call to ordained ministry, I can say that I was forced to face the complexities of “right and wrong” from a young age. The questions, “Why must I suffer for my father’s crimes? Why must children and loved ones of those incarcerated suffer?” is something with which I continue to wrestle when reflecting on my childhood and relationship with my father. I also had to face the privilege my skin color and ancestrygiven me;most of my ancestors had a college education and land. My family received better treatment from the prison guardsthan most visitors did, and we were almost always the only white, middle class folks there. In the words of one of my mentors, “your life has been marked with extreme privilege and extreme oppression.” Simply put, this experience has given me a passion for justice that is restorative rather than oppressive. The justice Jesus Christ preached about, lived for, died for, and most of all rose for.
I remember growing up feeling ashamed. My dad was in prison and my mom was a single parent but we received support and encouragement from our extended family and that really helped. My sister and I would spend summers with our mom’s sister at her home on the Jersey shore, and with my father’s sister while we took swimming lessons. From time to time, my grandparents helped us to go on family vacations.
My mom was raised Presbyterian and my dad Roman Catholic, so when they married they attended an Episcopal church. After the divorce, my mom started attending a Lutheran church closer to our home. The church had several rifts while we were there, conservatives versus the progressives. When I wrote a story about the birth of Jesus that was inaccurate, it didn’t go well there so we moved on to the Episcopal church. We attended church once a month until I was confirmed.
I stopped Sunday school altogether when I did not get a particularly great response to my question on creationism. Our Sunday school teacher asked us how the big bang could be true because, “one cannot blow up a junkyard and create a Corvette.” Me being raised a free thinker by my mom, pushed back. I asked, “But couldn’t God? Why can’t both be true?” After that, the teacher argued with me. When I told my mom about our exchange, she told me I didn’t have to go to Sunday school anymore.
My faith formation really happened when I started going to a Lutheran summer camp at age ten. Everything changed after several summers spent at Mar-Lu-Ridge (MLR). There, I learned about and experienced a God that loved and accepted me for who I was. It was there I made my first life-long friends. At first, games, songs, Bible study, and team-building helped solidify these friendships. We expressed ourselves fully with each other there, sometimes this was euphoric and at other times it required patience and forgiveness. The natural beauty and the culture of shalom at Mar-Lu-Ridge opened our eyes to the divine presence that promises to be with us, especially when most vulnerable.
The love, faith, and individuality of my counselors inspired me to spend four summers as a counselor at MLR. I could make the holy almost tangible for my campers, like my counselors had for me. My eyes would always water during the closing worship because the new spark of faith and shalom in each of them was so moving. Mar-Lu-Ridge demonstrated the transformative power of Gospel-inspired shalom.
When I was eleven, my dad was released from prison and my sister and I had the opportunity to see him once a week. Visits were supervised by my aunt. I have fond memories of meals with my dad when he was home. He was an amazing cook and made incredible crab cakes.
Despite my unusual circumstances, I was just a regular kid. I loved to play outside in the woods and I also loved strategy games. Swimming was also fun. I was an athlete and played recreational soccer until in high school, then ran hurdles for the track team.
When I was twelve years old, I started to experience same-sex attraction. It was easy for me to ignore for a while because I was also attracted to girls. I consider myself bisexual. The homophobia in society prevented me from admitting what I was experiencing. I was raised by women that I highly respected. So, locker room talk was very offensive to me. It was difficult to know where I fit. So, I just stayed quiet about it.
High school was an interesting challenge. I did not date in high school because I did not know how. I remember hearing derogatory remarks about the gay community. “Faggot” or “gay” was yelled out but not toward me. These hurtful words were made in passing. I would hide to escape from hearing them.
My dad relapsed, while I was in high school, and he found himself back in prison. I was fifteen. This made it more challenging to have him directly involved in my life. He remained in prison until I was twenty-one.
I attended college with the goal of majoring in international affairs with development studies. I wanted to study to be a diplomat because I saw it as a career where my gifts for working with people and history, and my desire to help people, intersected. After six months, I became disillusioned with American foreign policy, and the dream of becoming a diplomat quickly floated from my brain. This led to a brief crisis, especially when the idea of ordained ministry floated into my head—a career path some of the church ladies tried to encourage.
Once I had reconciled the fact that this idea, which would set me apart from my friends and many in my generation, had taken root, I felt more and more called to nurture peoples’ spirituality and create a culture of shalom. In those moments, the dreams of presiding over God’s table and feeding God’s people would take hold. The thought of being a part of grassroots social justice movements, sustaining and renewing the spiritual life of a community, and standing in firm and vocal opposition to forces within the church that ignore the Gospel proclamation of shalom, was a signal that I had to seriously discern my vocation. With those thoughts racing through my head, I decided to send an innocent email inquiring about any internships relating to advocacy. I casually mentioned considering seminary. Next thing I knew, I had an email cc’d with about ten church leaders offering me all kinds of opportunities, except for an internship dealing with advocacy. It was through that interaction I was connected to Project Connect[1].
Project Connect provided with me a grant to work at Luther Place for one academic year to discern whether I felt called to parish ministry. I facilitated Bible studies on Ruth and Esther at N Street Village, was one of four adult leaders for a new youth group, taught senior high Sunday school, preached, organized a young-adult-led Good Friday service, served on the young adult leadership team and the Steinbruck Center steering committee, and got hands-on experience with church administration. I also had weekly spiritual direction from a mentor. The entire experience was valuable, but the most transformative experiences in terms of the call to ordained ministry were my spiritual direction and being a part of the women of N Street’s Bible study.
It was also in college that I felt the freedom to come out as bisexual. I dated two women before coming out but it did not amount to anything serious. I remember being attracted to guys, but I did not want to become a “college gay” (someone who comes out because of the freedom college allows), because I am bisexual. I did not want to publicly close myself off to being with women. I do remember going to a party where I got drunk and pinched a man’s behind. My friend jokingly said that I was “bisexual.” I called her later to tell her she was right. She also admitted to being bisexual.
I think it’s important to note that same-sex relationships develop differently and have different dynamics than heterosexual relationships. I believe that this is because of the culture of homophobia. So, for a long time, I explored my sexuality in private because I feared being exposed. I found myself attracted to people, but I never voiced my feelings for someone unless I was sure they had feelings for me. I fear rejection, but I think that has more to do with my family dynamics than my sexuality.
I did try different ways to meet people, however. I enjoyed being a lifeguard at the gym, but nothing ever came out of my scanning the pool for “safety reasons.” Eventually, I worked up the courage to meet someone online. We hung out, but we were not in a relationship. I wanted to explore the physical aspect more than the emotional. After we graduated, we just stopped talking, and I think we were both okay with that. I did fall in love with someone over the course of two months, but it ended abruptly when the guy “ghosted” me. We had a misunderstanding and he just stopped all communication. Eventually, he responded and told me to stop trying to contact him through text messages. It was a very painful experience. About two years later, he apologized but I have no plans to have any contact with him in the foreseeable future. Why invest my energy in someone who flippantly abandoned me?
Coming out was more of a progression for me. First, I told my good friend Samantha that I was dating men, when the conversation arose. She was so affirming. Then, I started telling people in my seminary. It was a little more complicated to explain what bisexual meant. That changed as I got more experience telling my story. Bisexuals can often be discriminated againstbecause it has been thought to be a stepping stone to being gay or straight. Many people do not understand that one can be attracted to both sexes.
I was twenty-one when my dad was released from prison because of health reasons at age sixty. He had been hospitalized after a fall and had back problems. I saw him periodically but at age twenty-four, I became very frustrated with him and did not talk to him for a year. After a year of no communication we reconciled, and I am so glad we did. My dad died six months ago from an aneurism. He just collapsed one day and he was gone.
I really did not come out to my family until I started dating my partner, Eric, three years ago. My mom responded that she “had a hunch.” She wanted me to be protected. My dad was accepting but always referred to my partner as my “friend.” My stepdad was uncomfortable at first but came around later. My sister was my greatest ally. She had done gender studies in college in her study of statistics and psychology, so she was very supportive.
There have been a few people in my life that have had a profound impact on the person I have become. I am grateful for the influence my mom, dad, and aunt have had in my life. We have walked life’s journey through the joy and the pain. I have learned much about love from my experience with visiting my dad in prison. I do know that despite his choices, he never stopped loving me. My aunt faithfully strived to make that relationship continue. What a gift. My mom was always devoted to giving me the best life that she could. I am amazed at her strength and courage. She has loved me consistently well. The faithfulness of my family and friends has made me realize that I could have come out sooner. Through them, I have experienced God’s love in a new way.
My call to ministry has developed over time. Before realizing that I felt called to ministry, I would have written off my time spent at my home church and the congregation there as insignificant. Now, I see it as the place that has been a steadfast support for me, a constant presence on my spiritual journey. It was the place where my Christian journey began in the waters of my baptism and is a place of constant affirmation of my call to ministry. My call is to proclaim the manifold and mysterious ways God is alive in this world through my words, and my sharing of the ancient sacraments of church and tangible grace with all who desire them.
As far as sexuality is concerned, we must always remember that we are made in God’s image and should never be ashamed of who we are. He loves us no matter what. Feel the freedom to question and explore, always remembering that we are loved.
Andrew graduated from seminary in spring 2017 and has been called to pastor a congregation in the Lutheran church. He lives in the mid-west near his partner of three years, Eric.
Excerpt from Who Do You Say I Am? Personal Life Stories Told by the LGBTQ Community, by Carol Marchant Gibbs.
[1]Project Connect is a ministry of the eastern cluster of Lutheran seminaries with the mission of assisting young adults with vocational discernment,
[2]Accompaniment in the context of the ELCA Global Mission’s way of doing “missionary” work.