How to be unashamed?

That's a question for me to answer - I'm struggling with this.

I'm not ashamed of being gay. I'm not ashamed of being a follower of Christ. I brandish Romans 1:16 as my banner. I can quote scripture that has shown me over the years how I am made with His plan in mind, with His loving hand on me. I am learning to walk with Him as my teacher, my unconditionally loving Father. But I'm not being totally honest to those I hold as friends. More specifically, my gay friends.

I tweeted today that one of the hardest things to do as a Christian was to tell your gay friends. I know so many of them are atheist or agnostic, and they've known me longer as gay than as Christian. I've never had a problem coming out about my sexuality. The church I currently attend knew about that before I first ever went there (a whole other story). And for some reason, that way around works for me. What I stumble on, is how to be totally up-front about my Christianity with my gay friends.

To all extents and purposes, my gay friends here (in NZ) are like my family; heck, we even say "He's family..." when talking about someone who's gay! It's a home away from home, thousands of miles from my blood relatives with whom I may or may not have a particularly close familial bond.

Over the past few years, there has been another family that I've grown part of. That's my church family, my homegroup, my community, and the trinity of faith all around me. These families are quite separate. I don't go to church with any of my gay friends. I don't talk about my Christian faith when I'm at events where there are primarily gay people. But it's worse than that.

I post a lot of links on facebook. I post links to blogs, news articles, videos, songs, a whole range of stuff. BUT, I'm wary of posting certain links because I worry about how they will be perceived. If I post a link to a Christian song on YouTube, I'll exclude (most of) my gay friends. However, I don't curb my enthusiasm for posting gay links to the whole of my friend list. Why?

I don't know yet. I'm working on it.

Someone asked me today if there was anything I needed prayer for. I'm guessing this is one of those moments. Maybe I need to make a video like this one - and then of course I'd have to post it to everyone...