I think there's pressure when you're a pastor that you have to have all the answers, and if you don't, your faith is built on sand. For me, faith is about believing in those things you can't see and at times can't understand. I've been really blessed to have people who are open to that and stick around. Not everyone does stick around, though.

Jesus explains that the church is like a hospital. But this hospital doesn't want to let any sick people in. I feel like people like that have had to lead these secret lives because they're so afraid of how people will react. I think we have to get to the point where we're restoring people and caring for them, and when they fall, we pick them up. My thing is that we need to love this guy and pray for him and his family and open our homes to him if need be. I don't know if he wants to come sleep on my futon here in Brooklyn, but he's welcome to if he'd like.

I try to love my neighbor as myself but I'm not trying to be a people pleaser. Sometimes that's hard, because my human nature is to want people to be happy with me. But sometimes I feel my convictions are so great that it would be compromising the truth if I didn't do that. So sometimes it's a struggle to say, "This is what I think; this is what I believe, and if you don't agree with me, oh well." The hardest thing for people to accept is the gay-affirming issue. It's hard for people to agree to disagree on that one.

I'm pro-gay marriage. I don't believe that that's a sin.

Grace saved my life; it can revolutionize yours.

I had a lot of gay friends and even had some congregation members who were gay, and I just wasn't sure where I stood. In my heart, I was like, "How can I condemn these people for their love of one another?" I started looking deeper into the Bible and studying and then I went to a gay-affirming church. It all came together at one point.

Well, these tattoos aren't really rebellion. These tattoos are all tattoos I've had since I have been a pastor.