It's still my birthday.

Last February, I was listening to a sermon from a church in the deep south and at one point, the pastor, in front of about seven hundred or so people (I don't know the exact number because I've never been there in person), started basically bashing gay people. I spent four hours that night writing an email explaining why it wasn't Biblical or Christian to bash gay people. A couple of my friends read the email and said it was well-written and well thought out. Without sounding too prideful, I really did argue it in a way that made it hard to not realize that this kind of hate, even if it's socially acceptable in some areas (or many areas) down there, is not Jesusy at all.

After that email, to which I never received a reply, the church stopped updating their sermons online. For weeks, the site sat unmaintained and unchanged. Eventually, I gave up checking it, deciding it wasn't worth the effort especially since the guy I was seeing who grew up in that church got rid of me in January. I felt that even though the pastor was relatively new, this particular church had helped shaped the guy I was seeing's heart into the cold, broken, selfish, hard heart it was, and by preaching hate, I worried that this small town church might somehow start to change my heart in bad way.

There is a fine line between a church community and a closed-minded clique and the small town churches I've listened to online cross that line sometimes.

My goal in listening to sermons online was to hear the Gospel. I already know of churches who mishandle it and twist it into religiosity for their own gain. Those kind of churches I can find right here, all over my city. That's not what I was looking for online. The thing is, after hearing so many Gospel-centered sermons online, I couldn't sit back and let a pastor spread hate unchallenged. I couldn't do it. That's why I emailed. I might not be able to change anything in the churches around me but maybe I could affect one pastor- the first pastor I had ever talked to without being forced.

Anyway, over the months since then, I've prayed for him so many times. I've prayed that God would open his heart. Over and over, I'd pray it. Please, God, open the pastor's heart. Help him teach the Gospel from the heart for Jesus.

Four months have passed, and I still pray for him. And tonight, for some reason, I decided to check the website. The homepage was exactly the same, so my hopes for the sermons page to be updated dropped. I clicked it and sure enough, there they were: all the sermons from the past four months, completely up to date.

At first, I thought, "Do I start with the February ones?" and then I wondered if hearing his voice again, and hearing his strong southern accent might stir up unwanted memories from an era that has long since past.

As I scrolled down the page, I saw it... My birthday sermon. So I opened it.

The beginning was completely different than the sermons he used to give. He was throwing Bible verses out so quickly, I had to keep pausing it to have enough time to look them up. His sermon had far more substance and Bible teaching than before. And then towards the end, he was talking about the leaders God chooses to spread His word and the responsibility and sacrifice that comes with being chosen and he just broke down. I won't go into detail because without the context, it would lose it's power, but his heart juices were just spilling out everywhere. He preached from the heart so movingly that it made me cry. He just took his heart right out in front of all those people and left it there.

But after months and months of praying for it, to hear it happen in my birthday sermon is a little overwhelming.

Of course, I had to email him again and spill my own goosh all over the place. He may not be a perfect pastor, but he was the first one to help me and to answer my questions at the very beginning. He told me where to start in my Bible study and the basics of how to start. And if I could reciprocate what he did for me through prayer that God would answer, I think that's an awesome thing.

God does the most awesome things.