NATIONAL COMING OUT DAY / 6 YEARS LATER

In honor of today, October 11, being 'National Coming Out Day' ( +National Coming Out Day on Facebook), and because day after tomorrow, October 13, is the 6th anniversary of my publicly coming out, I have a few reflections and observations that I'd like to share...

First of all, I'm amazed at how time flies, and at how much things have changed in my life, in my thinking, and in the world at large concerning what it means to come out.

As of this writing, Ken and I have been together for going on 5 years, and have been legally married for nearly 2 of those years. We are very happy, very much in love, very committed to one another, our kids and grandkids are good, I am still in the ministry, still a Bishop, and for the most part live the life that I at one time only dared to imagine.

The avalanche of hate mail that I once regularly received from the mainstream Christian world after coming out has pretty much completely disintegrated, and has been replaced by a fairly regular stream of supportive correspondence from around the world. Haven't had a death threat in several years now, and most of my loudest detractors in the Christian media have either lost interest in my story or have died off.

My ministry is considerably scaled down now in size from what it was, which is frankly the way I like it, and the majority of the people who attend Metron are those who have been in covenant with me for many years. Most of them are straight, most of them are married, and most of them were a part of Church In The Now. I'm very proud of the megachurch that I started and pastored for 30 years, but I don't miss the stress of maintaining the budget, physical property and staff that was required to keep it going at all. I just do the part of ministry now that I love, and I live a happy, stress-free life because of it.

I have more to say, but I'll put the rest of the post into video form.
Please click on the link for the video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahcaY0Vc3ZY

ATLANTA PRIDE 10/12/14

ATLANTA PRIDE 10/11/14

THEN AND NOW

Post by Bishop Jim Swilley.

CHURCH IN THE NOW MIDTOWN IN THE GA VOICE

CLICK HERE FOR ARTICLE: http://www.thegavoice.com/community/sports/6732--religious-organizations-at-pride-in-abundance - Or read it here (paragraphs about CHURCH IN THE NOW MIDTOWN in blue)

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RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS AT PRIDE IN ABUNDANCE

Written by Ryan McKenzie

Friday, 25 October 2013 12:47

Religion is often a controversial, hot button issue when it comes to the LGBT community. Although many of the more devout members of various faiths are notoriously anti-gay, numerous Christian churches as well as the LGBT-led Congregation Bet Haverim came to the 43rd annual Atlanta Pride to show their support and love for those who identify as LGBT. Pride festival attendee confronts anti-gay protestor, who refused to reveal the name of the church he attends. Clearly, they were in the majority. However, there was a small contingent of anti-LGBT individuals – most armed with placards quoting Biblical scripture – who attended specifically to protest. St. Mark’s United Methodist Church has been attending Atlanta Pride for several years and is a well-known place of worship in the Atlanta gay community. Eighty percent of the congregation is LGBT, according to church member Larry Lucas. St. Mark’s has seen its fair share of opposition, especially from First Baptist Church of Atlanta. “They were boycotting us because of our support for LGBT people, but First Baptist is no longer in Midtown. They moved to Marietta,” said Lucas. The Episcopal Church has several locations throughout the metro Atlanta area that are welcoming of the LGBT community. This year marked the 25th anniversary of Atlanta’s chapter of Integrity, which is the national Episcopal organization for its LGBT members. The Catholic Shrine of the Immaculate Conception displayed its booth to let Pride goers know that the Catholic Church is accepting of LGBT people, despite statements made by the previous Pope. “We believe that everyone deserves God’s love. We are open and accepting, no matter who you are,” said Immaculate Conception member Joe Agostini. Bishop Jim Swilley of Midtown’s Church In The Now made a bold move when he came out to his congregation a few years ago. He claimed to have lost about 2,000 of his members when he revealed that he was gay. However, he is impressed with the progress that has been made since his church has been affiliated with Pride.  “This is our third year, and each year I have been able to tell how much things have progressed,” said Swilley. “The first year I was here, I didn’t notice any families or straight couples, but this year I have seen so many people with kids and even straight couples attending. Pride is sort of a touchstone for me to see how much things have progressed, and this has been the best one yet.” Although messages of love and tolerance from churches resounded throughout Piedmont Park, there were some with a not-so-accepting ideology just beyond the park’s gates. Protestors with blaring megaphones and signs touting hate and intolerance towards gays gathered outside of the park to let Pride goers know that their church viewed the LGBT community as immoral. This led to several shouting matches between the protestors and those attending Pride. One group of Pride members sang Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” to counter protest the negative messages. One protestor, who called himself “Brother Ben” but would not identify the specific church he was affiliated with, claimed to be “upholding the righteousness of the Bible and Jesus Christ.” When asked if he would be attending the Sunday parade, Brother Ben said, “Oh yeah. We’ll be here for that. We’ve been coming to this for 13 years.” The array of churches and religious representatives with differing viewpoints on the LGBT community that showed up at Pride exemplified the contrasting attitudes among denominations. In response to the religious protestors, Swilley said this: “Everybody has a right to say their thing. My issue with these guys is if they feel so passionate about six verses in the Bible, then why aren’t they everywhere where people are doing things that go against the Bible? I don’t understand why they are picking on this [LGBT] group specifically.”

CHURCH IN THE NOW MIDTOWN: CITNM AT ATLANTA PRIDE

CHURCH IN THE NOW MIDTOWN: CITNM AT ATLANTA PRIDE:   Pastor Tony, Pastor Avery, and Ken setting up the night before... It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood! Lady E. ...

REACHING OUT AT ATLANTA PRIDE 2013

What an excellent weekend we've had here in the ATL at this year's Pride! In two days I never even left our booth to go look around, except to grab a quick bite, because the stream of thousands of people coming by never stopped or even diminished. So many from around the country came up to me to thank me for coming out (today was the third anniversary of doing it publicly), and for continuing to minister to the LGBT community. I was able to do several interviews, network with other churches, ministries, and charitable organizations, advertise CHURCH IN THE NOW MIDTOWN, and make hundreds of new friends. Here are a few highlights...more pics to come on the CITNM blog...

 

 

Doing an interview with The GA VOICE...

 

 



Signing copies of 'FIRST, THE GOOD NEWS...

 

 

With the staff of David Magazine...

 

 

1,000 CDs of 'A Real Message to Real People' passed out...

With Cori Lamont from CHURCH IN THE NOW EAST...

 With Philip Bray of Safehouse...