Stan Mitchell's Story Part 1 

Thank you so much for sharing your story! ❤

I m at the beginning of the Evangelical Destruction journey. My new gay affirming church voted to become affirming. They are doing the right thing for the wrong reason. I want to get the message of love to the chastised gays that don’t have a way to connect to Jesus. The church has hurt so many even themselves. God Bless your broken kids. Former AG worship and on the road to pastor. Couldn’t take one more word of condemnation.

Beautiful testimony Stan. Thank you for sharing your heart.

Even though I didn't live in the Bible Belt, out west in Utah this was the world I grew up in as well. My dad was a pentecostal preacher and I grew up in a legalistic sphere where my mother couldn't wear makeup or jewelry or cut her hair. We couldn't go to movies or dances. It was very different from the Mormon culture that surrounded us and I was forever ostracized by society in my town because our way of life was so different from most of those around us. However, from the time I was a small boy, I knew I was different from the other kids not just because of my family's religious views, but because of something else that I could never really articulate. By the time I was in my early teens, though, I was able to put a name to why I was different. I am a gay man in my late 50s now, but back then there were much uglier labels that my peers attached to what I was. In my late teens and early 20s, somehow I got it into my head that if I could just "get the Holy Ghost" and speak in tongues, that I would be healed of this demon that plagued me and I would be able to live the rest of my life as a godly heterosexual man. I spent countless hours at the altar crying and begging God for this gift that I was sure would completely change me. In my mid 20s I was a musician at a local Church of God. Although I had never confessed who I was to the then current pastor, he knew that I had been "seeking the baptism" for a long time. One Sunday evening, after a long arduous altar call, this pastor talked to me about obedience. "God says if you will obey me, I will bless you". The pastor told me that he wanted me to run around the perimeter of the sanctuary and if I was obedient, God would grant me what I sought. Then he said, "Come on, I'll go with you." So... Arm in arm with the pastor I sheepishly began running around the outside perimeter of our small sanctuary and before I made it halfway around, I felt as though something hit me in the middle of the forehead and I began dancing around, with some sort of unintelligible gibberish spilling out of my mouth. Now, years later, I can't tell you exactly what happened to me that day. It may have been just like you have said here, a physiological experience that I somehow manufactured after years of desperately seeking a way to just be "normal" and not be ostracized anymore. However, the change that I so urgently sought never came that day. I was still just as gay when I walked out of the building as I was when I walked in. There's much more to my story, but this isn't the place to share it and I've already written more than I intended. I hope there are more parts to this video, Stan, I'd love to hear more of your story. Thanks for sharing it.

Thanks for sharing your story, Stan. Blessings

You are telling my story in part as a Missionary Baptist thinking we were the true religion those Uppity Methodist and Lost Presbyterians and God help the ignorant Pentecostals, sorry Stan. 🤣 I grew up with these people, went to elementary school and high school and loved everyone of them they were wonderful people and to this day I’m still connected but more informed that we are ALL God’s equal creation .

I heard you preach when you were Apostolic at a small church in Arkansas.

Where’s part 2???