NOW WHAT?! – WHY I STAY?
Kevin E. Taylor
A Gay Man’s Commitment to Christ (and the Church)
In the 2017 edition of this LGBTQ-affirming faith-based issue, I had a young man answer the question “WHY DO I STAY?” In it, he spoke of power and sense of purpose he felt and still feels in being a part of the traditional church and its connection to our Culture, with a capital “C.” As a Black gay man who is senior pastor to my local church, jurisdictional elder to my denomination and community leader to many, I am often asked the same question: WHY DO YOU STAY IN THE CHURCH?
Since we last visited this subject, the world has turned on its head in new and nefarious ways–senseless murders of Black men and women, killed while simply being various degrees of Black people living their daily lives; a pandemic that wiped millions from the planet and the planet feeling like it is trying to autocorrect, with the weather causing clear skies where they had never been in our lifetimes and a heat streak across the country. Who do you still believe? Is this all for show? Are Black people just more religious because our oppressors “trained” us to be in order to be obedient? I promise you, while people are screaming about not being religious or not going to church anymore, they are sliding into my DM’s like politicians looking at tween social media posts!
And that’s why I stay! The conundrum of faith and religion, spirit and spirituality, the soul of the person and the heart of the problems we face are the complicated, complex conflict of mankind and as long as being a pastor, being a servant of faith, fire, focus and forgiveness vs. reconciliation helps, I will serve. I get it. So many have seen people have “faith” or yes they did and when things fell apart, that faith flailed and faltered. I have only seen the opposite. In the pandemic, unemployed for the first time since I was 12 years old, I tried for weeks to set-up my account to receive benefits. I called in whatever favors I could imagine and prayed that something would happen, someone would help. I got up at 3AM to make the attempt, thinking it was the gridlock of the century. And then I prayed and let it go, unsure what to do next. The following morning after receiving my fears and frustrations, my phone rang at 7:55AM. I heard a small voice say “answer that…it could be Unemployment.” I couldn’t imagine that a government office would call a person directly, especially one who hadn’t even been able to set-up an account in their offices. “Good Morning” I said, hoping that whoever was calling me this early was at least a morning person who would bring some measure of glee. “Good Morning. May I speak with Kevin Taylor please?” “This is him,” I replied. “Oh good morning. Thank you for answering. This is Ms. (HER NAME) from The Department of Labor, Unemployment and when we return most people’s calls, they don’t recognize the number so they don’t answer.” When she finished, not only had she assisted me, but my downstairs neighbor as well. After she had been so helpful, assisting me with the filing and the pieces that I needed when there was a slowdown in the process, I wrote a letter to her supervisor, just to celebrate her great work ethic and smiling tone. She called me the following week to say that her boss had read my letter, and promoted her. In a pandemic.
Being a bright light in a dark, dank season can be exhausting because I am called “Pastor” by people who will never step into my church, but those people mean it and live their lives feeling like they are cool, kept and covered because they have a pastor and his name is Me. So I stay because I believe that people want to believe and when they cannot believe the version of the vision that their parents adhered to, they want to toss it aside, even when they taste samples of how great God is and want to have a full meal. I am passing out plates of that possible power of God, in God, and when they witness it on a little fat, Black, asthmatic, gay nerd from the projects of Southwest Washington, DC who is now on television and in magazines and publishing books and feeling amazing about the BLESSINGS ON BLESSINGS OF GOD, then they believe that ALL things are indeed possible. So I stay because God keeps on doing great things for me, and God knows it’s me. I stay because pastoring and speaking and pouring into my community is something I got from my Momma and this is my particular ministry and it happens, through my life and lens, to be actual ministry. I am grateful for the capacity for audacity placed in and on me and if that’s sometimes a bit peacockian–big, bold, bright and blessed–then so be it because somebody’s got to show them how it’s done and how nothing about us being who we are is new to God or news to God!
We are the Temple of God and the manifested examples that confound and confuse some, based on their own histories. But I stay and I am committed because I am a person who loves words and The Word and when I heard that NOTHING can separate you from the love of God, I believed it and I still do. And will till my last blessed breath.
