Like Paul, A Conversion
I was there in ’88 and ’84 and before, and I remember… grace. Yes, there was fear, lots of it. I’d been captive to it earlier, but I was a convert —> from vehemently anti-gay converted like Paul…
I’d had some bad experiences with a priest, been exposed to some stuff in California in the early 70’s. But then in my graduating class at VST (Vancouver School of Theology) in ’81, I knew it would change, could feel it coming before it happened—when K. chose me to be a part of his small group some kind of integrated learning.
The guy dripped “call to ministry”—call oozed from his pores. I was more sure of his call than my own. And I knew in the small group he’d come out and it would change everything. He did. And it did. And like Peter with the outpouring of the Spirit on the Gentiles, I knew in that moment that everything was changed.
If God could call K. as he was into ministry, fully, just as he was—and God was doing that—it meant everything I had thought/believed was wrong. A few months later I would be sent to a Deaf Church that had previously supported a gay member and fired a pastor who cruelly outed him… and through the 80’s we somehow walked into promise, surrounded by grace and kindness… somehow it was all as it should be. I am so deeply grateful for the grace, the kindness, the conversion…
Signed, Bill Millar in Manitoba
(Shared with permission. Photo: Wix.)
