The Shock and the Pain
I’m sitting here tonight with my heart cracked open. For months, my wife and I have been attending Oaks Community Church in Naples, Florida. We felt safe there — which, as a lesbian couple, isn’t something we take for granted. We showed up. We worshiped. Our oldest daughter joined us. We even planned to decorate our trunk for their Trunk or Treat event this weekend , bought supplies, baked a pie, ready to love on people and celebrate community.
And then tonight, everything shattered. My wife got a call from a man at the church saying we were not welcome to participate. Why? Because they didn’t want anyone to think they “condoned our lifestyle.”
In one phone call, everything we believed we’d found there: belonging, grace, community… it disappeared.
The Personal Impact
My wife was devastated. I could see the heartbreak in her eyes; the kind that comes from being told you’re unworthy by people who claim to speak for God.
At first, I was angry. Then, I was sad. And then, I was deeply disappointed not just in one man, or one church, but in how small some people’s love still is. Especially when they stand behind pulpits preaching about a Savior who ate with outcasts.
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The Biblical Reality
What frustrates me most is the hypocrisy. The selective theology. Out of all the laws in Leviticus, this is what they cling to? When the Bible was written in ancient Hebrew, the word “homosexual” didn’t even exist. Those verses often referenced men sleeping with young boys (a cultural power and purity issue), or the idea of one man “lowering his status” by being “treated like a woman”…which says more about sexism than sin.
And even if we were to take Leviticus at face value, Jesus already fulfilled the law. The crucifixion tore the veil. The old law no longer binds us.
As Paul reminds us in Galatians 3:28:
“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Or John 17:21-23:
Jesus says “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
That’s the gospel. Equality. Unity. Love.
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The Deeper Truth
The prohibitions in Leviticus were about preserving patriarchal order – not defining God’s heart. The New Testament moves us toward freedom from that system. And interestingly, Leviticus doesn’t even mention female same-sex relationships, which dismantles the argument that this is about “gender complementarity.”
The Bible isn’t about condemning love. It’s about transforming hearts. And if studying it taught me anything, it’s that God is far more inclusive than His followers often are.
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The Reflection
This isn’t my first heartbreak from a church. Years ago, I walked away from organized religion for the same reason-judgment hiding behind smiles and worship songs. I thought maybe this time would be different. I hoped it would be.
But tonight, I realized: faith doesn’t live inside those walls. God isn’t confined to a building that closes its doors to love.
I still believe in Jesus, just not in the version some people have rewritten to fit their fear.
And as painful as this is, I will keep showing up in love (Not at Oaks Community Church!) Because the world doesn’t need more churches that gatekeep grace, it needs more people who live it.
We may not be welcome in their parking lot, but we are forever welcome at His table. In fact, I believe if Jesus were here today, He’d stop by our car first at Trunk or Treat.
With grit and grace,
Jen
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