Letter from the New Zealanders

I'm sorry to be such a downer today, but I just got an email from the church in New Zealand that I was hoping to intern at. They are no longer interested in having me as an intern because they do not believe homosexuals should be in leadership. Here is the email:

Hi Charles,

I have been concerned for some time as to why we did not seem to be getting a very clear picture of who you were either from you or your referee and we were considering setting up a skype interview. I guess this explains something and I am glad you have told me about this. Unfortunately it does make a difference. Our church’s stand here is that homosexuals are not able to be in leadership. As far as we are concerned it would make things very difficult and we have so much going on for us in terms of our ministry already that this is just not a consideration for next year. I am also now planning on taking study lave from June to August so chances are coming here would not have worked out very well for you.

I am sorry this is unfortunate. We do have a couple of young men in our congregation who believe they are gay and this is ok with us so don’t think we are hardened towards you it’s just it just wouldn’t work out.

We will have to leave it there.

Helen

I guess it's all for the better because I need to find a new church to sponsor me for ordination, and it would probably be difficult for me to develop a relationship with a new church from the other side of the planet. I guess I'm just the world's punching bag today.