Our Story
Sensing the Church had largely failed to balance grace and truth for the LGBTQ Community, Patrick and Esther moved to Hillcrest, a local LGBTQ hub. We believed people had been hurt by the Church and that God wanted us to be His heart, hands, and feet. My own (Patrick) complex journey of sexuality and gender only helped me see more of the difficulty that people faced.
Living in Hillcrest changed us through the many experiences we have had trying to show God’s love, in relationship. We served in and with the Community. We invited people to dinner and celebrations. Put simply, we did the work of starting friendships. In doing so, we even had to ask our Christian peers to refrain from preaching to LGBTQ+ people they just met. We sought relationship, trying to encourage honesty and authenticity. Sure, we hoped the people would know Jesus and we even told them of our love for him and why we were there.
In small and incremental ways, we started to become locals. LGBTQ+ people knew us and we knew them. We started to see what God was calling us to be a part of.
Through the journey, we have sensed the Holy Spirit call us to do the thing we think we cannot. We saw a certain quote on the Vermont Bridge as God’s challenge to try and make meaningful connections in with the LGBTQ Community–spaces to explore God, receive biblical counsel and care, and grow in Christian spiritual maturity.
In relationship with LGBTQ+ background believers and non believers, we eventually encountered our end goal: LGBTQ background believers, who continued to experience same sex sexuality and gender dysphoria but were choosing the better life in Jesus, conforming more and more into His image and purposes for creating them. Those who meet standard Christian qualities of leadership, have given us the end goal: a mature Believer who can lead others towards the better life in Christ, while living honest about their journeys with same sex sexuality or gender dysphoria. These have become, for us, Rainbow Ministers.
After we saw the end goal, we realized we needed other Believers to fulfill the heart of God to reach LGBTQ+ peoples by building authentic friendships with LGBTQ+ people around them. We started desiring to help local churches be the Church in and for the LGBTQ Community and organized in hopes the offering of our lives can catalyze the work of the Holy Spirit, through Jesus’ holy Bride.
We continue to see a growing group of intergenerational members of the Body rise up. These bridge builders are helping us build authentic friendships founded on God’s love and are bringing the Gospel into the of family members, congregants, co-workers, neighbors, and all throughout society. LGBTQ+ people are responding to Jesus’ pursuit and drawing and thus are being transformed by the Holy Spirit. The more we are in this work, the more Rainbow Ministers we see at work.
We have seen the challenges of this reality, but we hold on by faith that God wants to and is able to use envisioned Believers to raise up a bunch of LGBTQ individuals into vibrant lives with the Trinity, where they can lead in the Church.
Our Mission
We exist to build bridges between the Church and the LGBTQ Community, so that a multitude of Christian leaders who are primarily motivated by their identity in Christ rise up from among them, leaders who are surrendered to the LORD and living vibrant lives with the Trinity.