STATEMENT OF FAITH
REV. JIM MERRITT
MAY 2009
I have spent my life getting to know God. As a child I loved going to Sunday School and church and fell in love with the stories of the Bible. I enjoyed the fellowship I experienced with my family and friends, most of whom attended the same church. By the time I was eight years old I had come to the basic understanding that God loved me and had a plan for my life, so I walked the aisle and dedicated my life to Jesus. I was baptized shortly thereafter and began the next phase of an incredible walk with God.
During my teenage years I excelled in church music, which was the means through which I frequently expressed my faith. I played the piano and sang, joined the youth choir and a small ensemble. I sang Christian music anywhere I could, including during programs at our public Junior and Senior High Schools. I was unusually out about my relationship with God. During Youth Weeks I would teach the older men’s Sunday School class and they often told my Dad in a somewhat prophetic way, “Jim, you’d better get that boy a license to preach.” When I was sixteen years old I felt the very definite call of God on my life and dedicated my life to Christian ministry.
My relationship with God continued to develop through our local church, through frequent camp experiences, and through my own exploration of Pentecostal and Charismatic churches like the Assemblies of God and the Church of God. I experienced God in many ways and in many forms of worship, all of which I loved.
I struggled over my own sexual orientation and how that would be assimilated into my ongoing commitment to God and to ministry. I read every book available on the subject in the 1970’s and 1980’s. I begged God to make me straight. I participated in Exodus International for two years, and finally late one night God and I came to and understanding that I was the man God created me to be, in God’s own image, and deeply loved by God and that God was happy with me being gay and that no one could ever change that. For the first time, really, I embraced God’s real and true love for me; all of me, and that revolutionized my life.
Through the many years of struggle, God never failed me. I am aware that my relationship with Jesus in at the core of my being. I depend on the voice of the Spirit to guide me through every step of my life. During the years that I was very active in politics I worked to bring the presence of God into that arena, especially as it related to LGBT people in the political world. I preach a message of inclusion that affirms God’s love for all of creation. I believe in the God of Liberation and the Gospel of Liberation that sets people free and that when we find freedom in our relationships with God, we are truly free.
My understanding of God is still developing. I believe in a God who is still speaking and acting on our behalf. I'm still listening and learning what God has in store for me on a daily basis. I continue to find new ways to express my faith. I am deeply concerned for the well-being of the world in which we live. I attempt to live all areas of my life in ways that show God's presence and love in me. I trust God to guide all my steps.
I am a believer in love. I practice, as best I am capable, in all my relationships the kind of love I have experienced from God; a love that accepts others where they are, a love that goes out of its way to share love with others, a love that acts itself out in the lives of others in every way possible. I believe in hope. That hope comes from knowing that God is in control and God can be trusted. I believe in Joy that comes from knowing that in the name of Jesus I can make an impact on those around me and on our world. I believe in peace; the peace that really does pass all understanding as I place my faith in God in good times and in difficult times. I believe in radical inclusion that sings the mantra, “include, include include!” I include because God has included me.
Living in intimate relationship with God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, all the ways God expresses God’s self, revolutionizes my life all over again each day. That experience makes me want to share the goodness with my sisters, brothers, friends and family all over the world. That is both God’s promise to me and God’s calling on my life, to receive God’s unconditional love for me, and to be an instrument of that same love for the good of all.
