The Lord of Life Lutheran Church is not the big church, not the small church and not the gay church, said Rev. Steven Sabin Wednesday evening.

“[Since the trial] people look at our church and think ‘Oh, that’s the gay church,'” Sabin said. “But we’re just the church, and I’m not the ‘gay pastor’… I’m just the pastor.

“Apart from being publicly gay, which is an incidental thing, nothing separates me or makes me different [from heterosexual pastors],” Sabin said.

Sabin has been the pastor at Lord of Life, 913 Carroll Ave., for 13 years and was voted off the ELCA roster in February for being in a homosexual relationship.

Sabin appealed the decision in March. The Committee on Appeals will announce its decision by Sept. 15.

“I think they’ll go against me, but I hope that they don’t,” Sabin said.

If the appeals committee upholds the ELCA’s decision, the congregation will have to decide if they want to keep Sabin as pastor, he said.

“The ELCA can remove me from their roster, but they can’t force the congregation to fire me,” Sabin said.

Sabin said his homosexuality has not been an issue with the congregation of Lord of Life.

He said he disclosed his sexuality one Sunday in January of 1997, but the congregation had already known about it.

“People in the congregation have been aware of the fact that I’m gay and [have had a partner] for a number of years,” he said. “People would invite [my partner] and I out to dinner and we’d do things socially.”

Sabin said his sexuality was not discussed at Lord of Life in order to prevent the church’s policy on homosexual clergy from being enacted.

“[No one] made an issue out of it until the bishop decided to make an issue out of it in ’97,” Sabin said.

Church policy in the ELCA states it is acceptable to have gay and lesbian clergy as long as they remain celibate.

Sabin said he, his lawyer and some members of the congregation have found that the ELCA policy contradicts scriptural and confessional positions on pastoral celibacy.

“Article 23 of the Oxford confessional says that the church cannot require celibacy of its clergy,” Sabin said. “I’ve been trying to engage the bishop, the synod and the national denomination in a dialogue and try to get them to offer a rationale and a justification for the [ELCA] policy.

“Their argument at the hearing and whenever the bishop has talked to the congregation has simply been ‘it’s against the rules, and we have to uphold the rules,'” he said.

Sabin said his trials as a practicing gay minister have helped him to become a better minister.

“The honesty and being able to be open has helped me integrate my faith and family life,” he said.

Even though Sabin’s publicity has stereotyped Lord of Life as a “gay church,” it also has given the congregation a positive image of being welcoming and accepting, Sabin said.

“People will look at our congregation and say, ‘if they’re safe to talk about that issue, then maybe they’re safe to talk about other issues, too,'” he said.

Incest survivors, people in abusive relationships and divorced people can feel alienated by many other churches, Sabin said. “It’s nice for people to know we’re open to everyone.

“I’ve become much more sensitive to people who feel alienated by society because I know I am suspended by God’s grace and that I need it,” he said. “None of us can make it alone.”