On April 6, 2013, Jamie Frazier—an openly gay Black minister—launched the Lighthouse Church of Chicago. With the motto "Passionate about Jesus. Serious about Justice," Thursday nights at the Daystar Center in Chicago offered a church environment free from homophobia, judgment and ostracism, and abundant with affirmation, inclusion and unity.
In an interview with Windy City Times last year, Frazier said that he hoped to transition the church into Sunday morning services by February 2014. He said that he "hungered for a place in which one could experience lively and spirited gospel music, prophetic preaching, and a loving community."
If the morning of Sunday, March 8, was any indication, Frazier has found it. Since October 2013, the Lighthouse Church of Chicago has been located in the Coach House of the Glessner House Museum on Prairie Avenue in the South Loop. The room once served as John and Francis Glessner's stables.
The irony of similar humble beginnings for both the Lighthouse and Jesus Christ aside, Frazier said that the move was one of necessity. "The Daystar Center informed us that we would no longer be able to worship there," Frazier smiled. "Some of that I think had to do with the noise level because the center is connected to a coffee shop. So we started looking for a place where we could make a joyful noise."
That joyful noise began at 8:30 a.m. with a spirited discussion between early bird arrivals and Frazier—lovingly referred to by attendees as "Pastor J." The subject centered around people who feel that a pause button has been pressed on their lives be that in matters of a career, a marriage, searching for acceptance or in relationships. "I've heard pastors say that nothing increases one's prayer life like trial," Frazier told the group. "Sometimes during a pause or a setback, we are in such desperate need for God, such desperate need of a breakthrough, it pushes us into prayer. Sometimes, for us to recognize that God is able to bring peace, it is best learned through strife."
"In my life's journey I've had a few pauses," one member nodded. "Incarceration was like a pause for me. My last incarceration was really significant. I used to cry out 'why am I like I am? What's wrong with me?' In my seeking God I found answers that were always there."
"I'm not doing nothing but looking for a job right now and it's teaching me patience," another man smiled. "The pause has given me time to self reflect and get myself together. I am closer to God because of it."
After the discussion, the Coach House was filled with the kind of raucous noise level Frazier had referred to as the service began with songs led by a choir of four and taken up by the rest of the congregation. They covered a wide spectrum of races, backgrounds, sexual preferences and identities but seemed completely allied in both smiles and tears.
"There are moments of our lives that we feel distant and disconnected from God," Frazier said during his passionate sermon. "You read the scriptures and they sound like hollow promises. You bow your head to pray and it seems as if you are talking to air because you hear nothing coming from the mind and mouth of God."
In looking for answers, Frazier covered texts found in the the Old and New testaments of the Bible, finding a positive message in each. He never once spoke about abominations, damnation, detestable actions or the threat of hell.
"We have to be honest about what we are facing and experiencing because that opens us up to confronting the issues in our lives," he passionately stated. "Might I just suggest that your balcony of haters who are watching and wondering if you will die during the pause in your lives might just be unpleasantly surprised that this pause will shift you to the next dimension of where God wants you to be."
After the service, many people seemed reluctant to leave. They stayed for the small selection of drinks and pastries available. Christopher Lewis was attending the Lighthouse for the first time since he discovered a card advertising the church at a study group for Black men. "I am totally blown away," he said. "I've been searching for something like this and to find it was an automatic connection. When I met with Pastor J. he asked me 'what can the church do for you?' That has never happened to me before!"
Lewis—who was reluctant to wipe either the sweat from his brow or the elation from his face— said he has come a long way in his journey to Frazier's church. "I was out on the street, selling drugs and gang banging," he remembered. "But like Pastor was talking about today, I stepped back and God opened up to me and showed me that I am valuable and I am worth something. I am out and proud."
Looking back over the past year, Frazier is proud of the growth of the Lighthouse. "When we started off on Thursday nights we had three or four people," he smiled. "Now we typically see between 20-30 on Sunday mornings. It's been incremental but it takes a while for people to trust that this is a community that will embrace the fullness of their identity and to trust that the God we preach and present is one who heals and loves and does not condemn and hate."
Frazier said that some of his new members come to the church wondering when the hate speech is going to begin: "It takes coming again and again for them to realize that the hate isn't there but what is there is love and acceptance."
Frazier labeled the five passages in the Bible that are often referred to by other pastors in order to condemn LGBTQ people —such as Leviticus 18:22 and Romans 1:26—as "clobber passages." He said that he encourages his congregation to take their own power back and to understand that the basic story of scripture is love, inclusion and liberation. "When we read those passages in Leviticus and Romans, what we see there is a history lesson and not a transcendent truth," he stated.
He added that using scripture to harm rather than help and to condemn rather than support are using a form of terrorism. "I don't worship the Bible. I worship Jesus," Frazier said. "For me, the Bible describes what that relationship can look like. The danger that the far right has slipped into is that they have turned the instrument into the end. They have taken a conduit that helps get us to God and they have turned that conduit into God. They have begun to worship words on a page rather than the one to whom the words point. They have a literalism that I think makes God cry."
Frazier described the Lighthouse as a space where people—no matter who they are— can talk, share, laugh and worship. "We must not allow the hatred to win. I think the soul has an enormous capacity for self healing and regeneration," he said. "I'm inviting them to the greatest party that's out there."
Frazier said that he was not surprised by both the failure of the Defense of Marriage Act and the passage of marriage equality in Illinois in the year since his ministry at the Lighthouse began. "Love has always triumphed," he said. "What we have seen in this nation is a resurrection of truth, that love will win the day and that people have the right to be happy. It's only a matter of time before the light becomes so contagious that it blocks out the dark voices."
Part of the Lighthouse mission of social justice involves the education and wellbeing of the congregation and the community. Frazier's upcoming sermon on March 30 will be part of a series called "I'm Covered" which details how to ensure good healthcare, particularly through the Affordable Care Act.
"We're building a community where we lean on one another and love one another," Frazier said. "I encourage more people to try faith again. Because we need more people to make the kind of changes that we want to make in this city."
For more information on the Lighthouse Church of Chicago, please go to www.lighthousechicago.org .
There is also a gofundme campaign for the Lighthouse Church. Donations can be made at www.gofundme.com/2x372k .
