Demonstrators confuse worship services at churches in Florida

Pastor Terry Steed Pierce has encountered hatred before. People were standing outside her church, and as a gay woman, she cried out that she was a humiliation to the gospel. Her sermon video has been modified to make her sound like a cartoon character and is being used in social media campaigns to lightly par the women and the LBGTQ+ community.

However, on March 9, it was the first time that hatred had found a way inside Joy Metropolitan ministries as protesters entered Orlando Church and interrupted her service, shouting “synagogue of sin” to the majority of LGBTQ+ congregations.

“They actually came into our sanctuary and spewed hatred from our safe space,” Steed Pierce said.

Another Orlando church – along with a gay pastor – faced a similar protest this month. At both churches, leaders are currently hiring non-non-working police officers to serve as security guards for Sunday morning services.

According to Glaad, a national LGBTQ advocacy group, protests at local churches reflect national trends, with over 1,100 anti-LGBTQ cases doubled over the past two years from June 2023 to June 2024.

“We’ve received emails from people who are saying, “I’m going to come back to essentially remove Donald Trump from your kind and revive the church I woke up,” said Rev. Kimball, pastor of Broadway United Methodist Church, who has faced protests for the past two weeks.

Last Sunday, an Oregon couple stood outside Kimball’s church with signs saying, “Abortion is murder” and “Homosexuality is a sin.”

The Central Florida Pledge, a group formed last year to promote kindness and respect, said at least two other Central Florida churches are facing similar protests. Last week, the group issued a “call to protect our neighbors and freedom of worship,” with about 70 people from the Pledge Group standing outside Joy Metropolitan to form a “circle of protection” to allow church members to worship without any confusion.

The church at Steed Pierce is “subseniorly gay,” and the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting was a daily gathering place for those who mourn the deaths of 49 people in the shooting massacre, where many members of the LGBTQ community mourned the deaths of 49 people.

Broadway United is a more traditional neighborhood church, but he is being targeted because he preached while wearing makeup at a pride event in St. Petersburg, as videos spread last year, earning millions of views, lots of hatred, and sometimes violent comments.

Oregon couples Kasse and John Peterman who protested outside Kimball Church said they were with friends in Orlando who showed them Kimball’s video. In it, he supported Drug Queens, they said, which urged them to show up on Sunday morning with their signs.

“We do this in our hometown too. We have a lot of churches,” said Casie Peterman. “They always ask us, ‘Why are you here?’ Now, this church affirms sin. ”

The Orlando Church added that it is “all that God hates.”

In November, Maurice Price, Orlando resident, his wife, Brittany, and their young daughter, stood outside the church in Kimball with cameras and “repentance or corruption”! “sign.

A video of the incident posted to his YouTube page by Price, who played for the Canadian Football League and the NFL practice team, shows him grabbing the Bible and yelling at the microphone that being gay is a sin.

The video was viewed by over 10,000 people. Price’s channel includes other videos, including one shot outside of Joy Metropolitan in January.

“We want to make it clear that we are not merely protesting outside of LGBTQ affirming churches. We are there to close them down in the name of Jesus,” Brittany Price said in an email this week. “And we haven’t stopped. We’re there again for October pride, in order to continue to reveal this lie.”

On March 9th, when Kimball arrived at his church, he was greeted by a group of men who were recognized as members of Sanford’s Remnant Revival Autreach Center, a group with an active social media presence.

“Their hands were raised in prayer. They were like Pentecostals, they were trying to get rid of the demons and some sort of things, and at that point I felt there was more of this gut.

The group is led by Richard Lorenzo Jr. He has an Instagram account with nearly 300,000 followers. He opposes gay preachers, labels people who sacrificed other people of faith, and worships Hindus, such as the devil of worship.

Lorenzo’s group was told by police to leave Broadway United. After a while they appeared at Joy Metropolitan. There they were there for worship and acted as if they were welcomed inside by the congregation, Steed Pierce said.

A group of seven adults and three children waited until the children’s sermons began, she said before leaving their seats to scream, “Synagogue of Sin!”

The church band then began to perform, drowning out the words with music.

“We made a plan. If something happens, we start singing. We can make it own. There’s drums. There’s a piano where you can turn the volume on.

She said Steed Pierce and other church officials opened the back door to escort the group, leaving the building without fighting. At Steed Pierce, someone on staff called the police. But by the time they appeared, the group was already gone.

Lorenzo declined to request an email comment or a phone interview.

According to Steed Pierce, the encounter seemed to scare some members of the Joy Ministries Congregation.

“We have some families with small children, and I don’t blame them because they weren’t there on Sunday.

However, the congregations that appeared saw the people gathered by the Central Florida pledge that gathered around their church.

“When we heard that this had evolved into a pattern, and when we heard that many churches were targeted by these same people, we organized a community stand-up with a two-day notice,” said Joel Hunter, the group’s chair and longtime Central Florida religious leader.

No one appeared that day to destroy the service, but the pledge group waited outside until the service was finished.

Orlando’s Pledge Members and the First Presbyterian Church are also paying non-non-working police officers for the next two months to protect Joy Metropolitan Church.

The couple protesting outside Kimball’s church recently stood on the sidewalk rather than the church property, showing disgust towards the gay clergy, leaving as soon as the service was over.

Val Mobley has been in service at Broadway United since 1997. She has only seen protesters in recent months and was shocked by the poison that erupted on church leaders.

“They are so mean. They can’t get over the meanness of being told that they’re right in his face. These should be Christians,” she said.

Mobley said church members came to the service to support Kimball and show solidarity, just like everyone else in the community.

“Everyone in the neighborhood hates that,” Mobley said of the protest. “Everyone who has encountered Rushing loves him.”

Kimball said police officers and other safety measures appear to be a requirement at his church. On Wednesday evening, he was standing at the door of the church when the couple passed by, the man told the woman, “This is Bassoon Church.”

That same day, the neighbor reported seeing a woman spit at the signs of the church.

“I’m experiencing a new level of anger among people in ways I haven’t experienced,” Kimball said.