Today, I, a gay, non-binary ordinand in the Church of England, taught small people about church, led evening prayer and Bible study and served at the altar. I prayed, and I loved, and I was thankful God has called me here. This is my resistance. Ordinary hope, faith and love. 🌈
So, I'm utterly overwhelmed and full of joy that I'll be training to be a priest from September.
God willing, in a few years' time the
@churchofengland
will have this queer, autistic priest, praying, serving and loving with all their might. 🌈
How long, O Lord, must LGBTQ+ clergy and layfolks – those who this Sunday will again pray, preach, sing, love, serve, feed, baptise, anoint, hold, bless – be portrayed as issues to be resolved rather than gifts to be cherished?
Come, Spirit of God. 🕊️🌈
#Synod
It’s been the most amazing weekend, and I am so full of love and gratitude.
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
— ‘When I am Among the Trees’, Mary Oliver
When we met in 2022, Hannah got a photo of us (at
@greenbelt
) made into an illustration. We had a feeling it might be important.
In August, we got engaged on that very leaf.
Today, we got Civilly Partnered, with our best pals as witnesses. God has blessed every step. ❤️🔥
This time last year, I was on my way to Leeds to see the person I was falling in love with. She was brave enough to go on our first date with my sister in tow.
When she went to the loo, my sister looked at me and said, ‘She’s amazing. She’s got to be the one.’
Correct. ♥️
While LLF debates continue as though they don’t affect real LGBTQ+ people, we’ll just be over here, being your priests, deacons, ministers, siblings in Christ.
Not abstractions, or points of division. Beloved children of God, loving all God’s children.
Hey, Bishops. Our siblings in Christ. Whatever your outcome is and may yet be, leaking to the BBC? Really? Letting your clergy, and all your faithful worshippers, scrabble for scraps of news that shapes our lives? Pastorally, that’s pretty grim.
Oh, apparently today is International Non-Binary People’s Day!
Hi. I’m Molly. They/them, please! I’m not confused, and my body is not ‘wrong’.
I am happy, and I am myself — I just don’t quite colour within the lines.
Totally just applied to theological college to train for priesthood. Another step.
If you need me, I'll be nervously clutching a cup of tea and taking some deep breaths for a while. 🙃
Well. Apparently, I spent most of today making this.
Design your own fresh expression!
Mine's 'The Mustard Tree: we're an ecochurch, but we also have a bakery.'
In 2022, I took a leaf out of many a
@greenbelt
-er’s book, and fell in love.
Feeling so much braver and more joyful walking into 2023 holding your hand,
@HannahBarraclo8
.
so God and Mary mothered Jesus together and chose a sweet non-biological dad to help out, so only complicated queer families should parent, sorry I don’t make the rules
DDO: How do you cope with the loneliness of being single?
Me: I have the most amazing friends and family. Loneliness is a narrative written for single people, but it's not ours.
Here's to not believing the lie that wholeness is only found in romantic or sexual relationships. ✨
Well, here it is. Shine Jesus Shine: Plainchant Edition (Tonus Kendrickus), with an original antiphon by
@e_m_clark
, verses set to tone ii and notated by me.
Lockdown brought us to this point, folks.
Full version here:
Pride month 2019: first
#Pride
, in the closet, told by a mentor I’d have no options for Baptist ministry if I came out, truly terrified.
Pride month 2023: 3 weeks until ordination in the CofE, very much in love, becoming my queerly beloved self, truly happy.
It gets better. 🌈
Lots of blessings given, the Body of Christ broken and shared, I cannot believe that I get to do this – be this – for the rest of my life.
A pre-service vestry selfie with Caroline (fellow curate) and honorary God-mum extraordinaire
@KathrynCanonsOn
. What a gift. ❤️🔥
Happy
#PRIDE2020
, everyone! 8 years ago, I thought I had to repent of ‘same sex attraction’.
Now, I am confident of my Christianity and queerness, and that is in no small part due to LGBTQ+ role models on Twitter. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Nearly two years ago, I met my favourite person. What a joy. What a gift of God.
Completely delighted to love you and to be loved by you,
@HannahBarraclo8
. ✨
I really love being a queer Anglican, and would really like it if people didn’t make it untenable, you know?
Just wanna crack on with loving Jesus and serving his people. Please.
Happy Sunday evening to everyone, but especially to the 5-year-old who came straight up to me after communion, said ‘YOU ARE SO PRETTY’, and gave me two dandelions. 🌼🌼
The sense of disconnect watching Synod proceedings as a queer CofE cleric is bizarre.
My partner + I serve in God’s church as diligently as we can, praying together and loving one another deeply, all flowing from Christ’s love.
LGBTQ+ Christians are not hypothetical. 🌈
Got a happy little distinction in my MA in Theology, Ministry and Mission from
@durham_uni
today!
Thanks to
@StAugustinesCo
for letting me write on nuns, art, sex and visions for the last couple of years. Yay. 🎉
My lovely spiritual director suggested doing something joyful in Lent, to remember (in all the chaos) that God rejoices over us with singing.
I’m going to play my violin a few times a week. I love it so much.
So here’s permission to seek joy in Lent. You’re so very loved. ✨
The best thing in my life right now is that I have a partner, who I adore, who is helping me to want to be kinder to myself.
Here’s me in a library, grinning, because they cheered me on enough to get here and do some studying. ♥️📚
I was supposed to be confirmed today. I really, really wish I was being confirmed today.
It’s a fairly strange sacrament, but it was supposed to mark a new start.
If you pray. Yeah. Thank you. 💕
A year ago today. A year of deacon life, of following God to the edge places, of learning to speak love to these precious communities. Of failing, of trying again, of seeing redemption at work.
Tomorrow, I go on ordination retreat again, to be ordained Priest on Saturday. ❤️🔥
Preached the weirdness and wonder of the presence of Christ.
Broke bread.
Poured wine.
Invoked the Spirit.
Presided at an altar consecrated in 1315.
I can’t believe I get to keep on doing this.
Hi, people who pray. Could you, please? Autism makes working out Covid rules so exhausting. Discernment for the future seems pointless when all is so uncertain. Most of the things that give me life are off-limits. Anxiety is so loud, all the time.
Hi, friends. I've hit a bit of a mental health wall (I'm safe and well supported, just burnt out), and would be deeply grateful for your prayers.
Thank you all for existing so beautifully. Be very kind to one another, and I'll see you in the New Year. 💜
Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone whose love – of all kinds – adds light and colour and fabulous, quirky, queer joy to this world.
And, the happiest Valentine’s Day of all to
@HannahBarraclo8
, who has brought more love into my life than I knew it could hold. 🌈
Approaching ordination (this spring, God willing) is the strangest, most surreal, fragile, beautiful, fearful thing. Lent this year feels very much like a trust fall in that direction.
Pray for me? I’d love to pray for you, too. 💜
I am proud to be an LGBTQ+ person in the Church.
Today, as an act of resistance, I will *checks notes* lead the daily offices and teach kids about the feast of Corpus Christi.
I’m just going to keep loving Jesus, and praying against the evils of homophobia in his name. 🌈
It's a huge day for LGBTQ+ folks in the CofE. So far yet to go: and yet, movement. Finally.
LGBTQ+ friends: God adores us. God rejoices over us and our beloveds with singing. The corner of the church to which I belong desperately needs to get more in tune with that song.
2023 highlights: London goodbyes + Gloucester hellos, engagement, ordination, a(nother) master’s degree + a civil partnership.
Making a home, healing up + loving fully.
It’s been a good year. God, hold us in 2024. You have held us this far.
(A lil engagement pic for you. ♥️)
So proud. The proudest. Delighted for my person, and for all she, the people of Tewkesbury and the Holy Spirit will get up to in the coming months ❤️🔥🕊️
It is my joy to announce that I have accepted the role of Associate Vicar of Tewkesbury Abbey.
I look forward to working with the local community in Priors Park and with specific responsibility for children and families.
Licensing @ Pentecost evensong - final deets tbc.
Off to
@greenbelt
trustees this morning, but not before being yelled at and called ‘vile’ on the platform at Gloucester.
I actually thought my jumpsuit was pretty snazzy. ✨🌈
#ComingOutDay
I came out 2 years ago, realising that it wasn’t okay to be made to choose between being a Baptist minister and being myself. 🌈
Now I’m very queer, often joyful, extremely determined trainee priest, and oh my, liberation is possible and good and holy.
The Feast of St Thomas is, to me, a feast for autistic folks.
He needs more information.
He needs to touch — to let all his senses engage with a new and awesome truth, which re-makes the fabric of his reality. Christ honours his sensory-seeking, boundary-breaking act of faith.
When I went through discernment, I was so anxious about being openly queer in the CofE.
Bishop Alan Wilson offered to help me navigate the process whilst celebrating all of who I am before God. He was kind, honest and resolutely hopeful.
May he rest in peace and rise in glory.
Given that our (CofE) Bishops have clearly condemned Conversion Therapy, I hope that there will be serious disciplinary consequences and safeguarding investigations for those CofE ministers who have signed the ‘Ministers Consultation Response’.
This queer ordinand is feeling cautiously hopeful for the Church of England today.
The church I call home might be learning to love our kin better.
Come, Holy Spirit ♥️🌈✨
To anyone who was told that their mental illness is demonic,
that faithful christians don’t get anxious or depressed,
that prayer is more powerful than antidepressants,
I am so sorry. Me too. It’s not true.
Our God knows distress and woundedness, too.
#ItsOkayToNotBeOkay
A love letter to the CofE:
You were only supposed to be a rebound church; I did not expect to fall in love so quickly. You confuse me. You’re broad and narrow, loving and hateful, beautiful and ugly.
You’re a bit of a mess, but so am I. I still think you’re worth loving.
It is my bewildered joy to ask you to pray for me (or send pictures of your dogs) as I approach my ordination to the Sacred Priesthood in just over a month’s time. Eek!
Please do come along! ❤️🔥🕊️
The way that people write about us (the terrible gays destroying the church), I think many would be disappointed that we’re just quietly getting on with being very gay, very Christian and very happy.
Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus, and show us what boundless love looks like. 🏳️🌈❤️🔥
Hannah and I have just finished going through our sermons and orders of service for tomorrow. She’s preaching in the morning, and I’m deaconing and preaching for her in the evening as she presides.
What a terrible threat to the fabric of the church these gays are… 😘🌈
I was told not to go to the police, because the process would be too harrowing — I would be treated as though I were lying.
Fierce prayers, love and courage to those who tell their stories, and those who ponder them in their hearts. You are full of dignity and light.
#MeToo
When I was commended to train for ministry, I gave all the right answers. I played the game. I hid inside a very small closet.
Now, I will be myself. I will do justice. I will learn and listen with integrity.
‘Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire’
In an academic year characterised by anxiety, trauma and the slow recovery from abuse, I have no words for how shocked I am by this.
I got a distinction in my master's.
To those who carried me through it, the deepest gratitude.
Oxford didn't break me. Onwards.💜
At church this morning they told me that I’m ‘young and with it’. You know what, I’ll take that!
What a joy to break bread, and share Christ with these glorious people. ❤️🔥
Everyday of Synod, this account will be dedicated solely to puppies.
Here are your Monday labradors. Imagine cuddling one next time you have big feelings about church politics. 🐾
Friends! Exciting news. I’m so delighted that I’ll be joining Leadon Vale benefice and the brilliant Rev’d Kat Mepham (
@ratryn
) as Assistant Curate this summer.
I’ll be ordained Deacon at Gloucester Cathedral by
@BishGloucester
on the 25th June. 1/2
I don’t know. I just think that the Holy Spirit is more loving, joyful and creative about the future of the church – however strange that may seem to us – than we are.
Gently, friends. In the words of a college tutor of mine, ‘there is a redeemer, and it isn’t you.’ ♥️
45,000 words. 46 weeks. A lot of hours of therapy for anxiety and trauma. One global pandemic.
Oxford theology master’s complete. Four wonderful, painful, years as a student at
@UniofOxford
finished.
Deeply grateful for the astonishing support through it all. Laus Deo.
Look at my favourite human. A huge weekend, and she’s doing just beautifully.
Life is changing a lot in the next few weeks, and we can’t wait. Watch this space… 👀
A week of hiking, great pubs, cooking and DIY. So glorious. My person is just the kindest, brightest and best of people.
Now we crack on with serving God in our parishes, and trying our best to be and proclaim Good News. 🌈
Hi, you. Yes, you.
You don't have to wait or plead for God to show up. God doesn't need coaxing.
God is already right there: within you, before you, beside you, behind you. And God is delighted to be there.
It’s the Epiphany!
Wear something shiny! Get the sparklers out! Star gaze! Give extravagant but unsuitable gifts to small children! Refuse to collude with oppressive and murderous regimes!
I am finding it very difficult to be present in Holy Week and the Triduum this year. Emotional engagement abilities very low.
And yet, Jesus reminds me that he’s much better at staying with me than I am at staying with him, and he’s not going anywhere.
🕯️
Ways in which Bake Off is like church:
1. Cake
2. Inexplicable intro = all age worship segment
3. I can only imagine they yearly misplace the marquee
4. Prue – quirky associate priest
5. Paul – HTB pastor
6. Noel – Alt-worship practitioner
7. Matt – hapless church warden
Thankful for James Acaster, who talked about phoning
@samaritans
in a stand-up gig, and for the amazing volunteer who listened to me today.
I’m a bit embarrassed, but want to encourage anyone looking for somewhere to turn. We all have someone to sit with us. 💚
116123
*whispers* finding a curacy is extremely hard. No one seems to say this.
This period is confusing, destabilising + overwhelming, ordinand pals. ❤️
CofE: you need keep thinking about how to support us in this bit, + how to practice equity in the way that curacies happen, please.
@JillLCDuff
@GenSyn
@churchofengland
@Christianitymag
That you refuse to see the grace of God at work in the glorious diversity of LGBTQ+ relationships is a great sadness. If you’d ever like to hear about my relationship, you’re very welcome to a cup of tea. It’s prayerful, kind and reflective of God’s glory in such beautiful ways.
8 years ago: praying the gay away ⚠️
2 years ago: begins to emerge from closet 👀
1 year ago: actually out everywhere yay 🌈
This weekend: first time clubbing, at a queer club night in Brighton 🥳
I am terrified and excited please send supportive + celebratory things ✨
I would like to remind my LGBTQ+ siblings to have some good food, a hot drink and an early night. Do something small and good for yourself if you can: clean sheets, a bath, a film, a good book. We can’t fight full-time. I love you. God loves you more. 🌈
When I became a Christian in a conservative evangelical church, I was taught that *only* conservative evangelicals were serious about God, and everyone else had a kind of private, cultural Christianity.
Well, thank God that that was bullshit. 👍🏻
Alfie is visiting his other mum at work.
He likes evensong, and has met three other dogs.
He especially likes the bit about filling the hungry with good things. He reckons this definitely means chicken.
I was just sent a job description that includes the line ‘must be orthodox on sexuality’ — as though LGBTQ+ affirmation cannot be ‘right belief.’
I was sitting on the tube opposite a lovely advert showing a queer couple.
TFL was more loving than a church today. Maranatha.