For nearly 15 years, Olu Brown, Lead Pastor of Impact Church, located in what was once an abandoned warehouse in East Point after small beginnings in the auditorium of Brown Middle School, has quickly become one of the fastest-growing United Methodist Churches in the country by “doing church differently.”

A native Texan, LGBTQ+ ally, and divorced father of two, Brown leads a 21st-century congregation that is diverse and inclusive—two buzzwords that often serve as signals to LGBTQ+ Christians that a house of worship is safe and welcoming. But unlike many African-American ministers who embrace Black liberation theology concerning the oppression of Black people—but take a literal approach to the Biblical condemnation of queer people—Brown is explicit about the evolution of his theological position and why his support for the LGBTQ+ community, along with conversations with conservative clergy about LGBTQ+ issues is not only the right thing to do but is also a social justice issue.

It’s been 14 years since Bishop Dennis Meredith, 68, stood in the pulpit of Tabernacle Baptist Church (TBC), which he has led since 1994, and publicly disclosed that he was bisexual. On any given Sunday, the pews in this 100-year-old church formerly located on Boulevard in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward would be filled, and this Sunday in 2007 was no different. There had been rumblings among members of Meredith’s congregation that the charismatic pastor who was married to former First Lady Lydia Meredith for 27 years and bore three sons, was gay, or at the very least bisexual. But until the words escaped his mouth, no one expected the revered spiritual leader with everything to lose to disclose the truth about his sexuality, including Meredith himself. This moment was the culmination of a progressive shift in membership and theological approach that would spur a mass exodus for some straight and Biblically conservative members while becoming a Genesis for those who identify as LGBTQ+.

Before Lady Gaga released her gay anthem “Born This Way” in 2011, singer Carl Bean, an openly gay Black man signed to Motown Records released the soul-stirring disco gay anthem “I Was Born This Way,” 34 years before it was in vogue to be anything other than heterosexual publicly, or even an LGBTQ+ ally. The gay-affirming single, which cracked the top 20 on the Billboard charts is one of many groundbreaking achievements by Bean—the recording artist turned social justice activist and minister with deep roots in the Black Pentecostal experience, dating back to his childhood at Providence Baptist Church in his native Baltimore, Maryland.