Unlearning shame, reimagining faith, and finding God in queer company

The word “church” is hard for me.

It always has been. As a kid, it carried a negative weight: church was long, boring, and something you had to do on a weekend—which made it somehow worse than school. Church meant uncomfortable clothes, being quiet, holding in laughter, and performing perfect behavior.

Luckily (or so I thought), I didn’t have to go. My dad had endured enough religion for the whole family, and we were free to stay home. I didn’t miss it—until I did. Something unnameable stirred in me, a kind of longing. A missing. A curiosity.

A high school teacher I admired held a deep faith. I never had the nerve to ask her about it, but I watched. I wondered. That wondering would grow quietly for years until, after a suicidal crisis, I found myself at the University of Santa Monica in a master’s program in Spiritual Psychology. That’s when things began to change.

Yes, I’m one of those people—spiritual, not religious—but every time Jesus was mentioned, I leaned in. There was something there.

Then came Stephen McGhee, a spiritual coach and guide, who shared stories of Jesus that cracked open something deeper. (Check out his blog. Trust me!) The seed was planted. Over the next decade, curiosity bloomed into calling. One day, from what felt like out of the blue, I knew: I’m meant for ministry.

I dove headfirst into it all. I found the closest United Methodist Church. I started attending, then seminary, then the ordination process—all in a single breath.

I enrolled at Iliff School of Theology, a progressive seminary in Denver, known for welcoming the “others”—nonbinary, queer, Wiccan, radically loving, and boldly questioning. Iliff’s philosophy centers spiritual formation that is inclusive, justice-driven, and unafraid of tough conversations. For the first time, I wasn’t the outsider in faith spaces—I was surrounded by people who didn’t fit the mold, and that felt like home.

And it was disorienting. I was swimming in new waters. I met my own prejudice. My own blind spots. My own cages.

It was everything. I thought I was going to seminary to meet Jesus.
Instead, I met myself—and yes, Jesus too.

And yet… the church I was training to serve didn’t always match the liberating spirit I met in seminary.

Why were queer people still excluded from ordination in so many conferences?
Why were sermons policed?
Why did some pastors seem so deeply unwell—isolated, underpaid, overworked, and silently suffering?

I got reprimanded for saying “fuck” in a sermon. For how I conducted a memorial service. For letting a man living in his car use our church bathroom.

I tried to bring forward a motion to make our church an affirming space.
NOPE.
“We don’t want that.”

Then came my coming out.
As a gay pastor.
In a denomination entrenched in a schism over homosexuality.
In the middle of losing my mentor, getting married, divorced, and surviving COVID.

When I needed support the most, I asked for a mental health leave.
My local church said yes.
The Board of Ordained Ministry? Not so much.

I missed one Zoom meeting—and they discontinued me.
No call. No concern. Just a vote.
Out.

I was crushed.

How do you get kicked out of church, of all places?

Turns out, it’s surprisingly easy.

I took my heartbreak and hid.
Even sitting in a pew made me feel sick.

I had given the church my love, my voice, my heartbeats.
And when I needed them… the doors shut.

I didn’t know how to grieve it.
The rejection. The abandonment. The betrayal.

Then I found myself at Brandi Carlile’s Mothership Weekend, surrounded by queer joy, community, and music. And onto the stage floated

dressed in all white, pausing mid-song to sip tea from a porcelain teapot. I couldn’t look away.

He spoke of Mother Mary, of faith, of church.
And he invited us—this messy, beautiful crowd of Bramily—to be church.

“The only thing you need to do is show up as you.”

YES.

Jake, I agree. So deeply.

And then he sang “God Bless”:

God bless the straight man in a dress
God bless threesomes when I’m celibate
God bless doing mushrooms with an atheist
God bless, it’s a beautiful fucking mess

God bless the trans kid in Texas
God bless the gods that don’t exist
Sometimes I wish it all would end
But God bless, it’s a beautiful fucking mess

I stood there, soaked in sound and rain and something holy, weeping not because I was broken, but because I finally felt whole.

These weren’t just lyrics.
They were a benediction.
A reclaiming.
A permission slip.

A messy, magical reminder that maybe—just maybe—God blesses all of it.

🎧 Listen to God Bless by Jake Wesley Rogers on Spotify

And I got to meet Fancy Hagood at his songwriting workshop…EPIC!!!!! (I love you Fancy!!)

So here I am, blessing the mess.
Naming the grief.
Reclaiming the word church for something more honest, more expansive, more alive.

Maybe we don’t need pews and pulpits to find God.
Maybe all we need is a field, a song, a friend, and the courage to be ourselves.

This is my church.

A beautiful fucking mess.

And I’m home.