You are as welcome at our Church as
Jesus Christ Himself.

***November 10, 2010 ***
New Syracuse Location and time.
New  Elmira time for Sunday Worship
Morning Prayer Sunday through Friday mornings at 7:30 AM
See  all changes at Locations And Meeting Times


*** attend Sunday morning worship ON LINE through a Yahoo Conference.
Click here for easy to follow instructions to view and participate on line. ***

The truth is, Ray Of Hope Church Of Our Lord Jesus Christ
is the original Christian Church in Central New York State
founded, fostered, and supported by
the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender
and Enlightened Heterosexual Communities.

To be perfectly clear, we are not an "open and affirming" or "accepting" or "reconciling" congregation, etc. of this denomination or that one.... We are the Church Of Our Lord Jesus Christ and therefore,

ALL PEOPLE ARE TO CELEBRATE LIFE IN CHRIST with us.

We openly celebrate ALL sexual orientations and gender expressions, as pure gifts from God.

You may be:

• a white collar conservative
• a blue collar worker
• "goth"
• "punk"
• a single parent with your children
• husband and wife in a "traditional family"
• a "skater"
• an "intellectual"
• doctor
• lawyer
• teacher
• unemployed
• retired
• from any state in life

and you have found your church community.

We have been serving Central New York since we were founded in Syracuse New York in 1983. 
By God's grace we are now serving in Syracuse, Elmira, Cortland, and Ithaca, New York.


Our website has grown into a very large, multi-paged document. The Index page has been divided into three pages to facilitate faster loading of the site on your computer. You will want to return here often to read all the information and the updates. It is our hope to especially reach out to those of you who must participate in our ministry from a closeted position.

You are welcome here, and we hope you feel safe in Christ.

HELP US BUILD OUR NEW WORSHIP CENTERS
Now you can make a direct tax deductable donation to Ray Of Hope Church Of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Inc. by using PAYPAL, the Internet's safe and secure electronic financial transfer service. Click on the DONATE BUTTON to make your tax deductable donation to our Building Fund. Our Federal Tax Identification Number is 16-1294176. A letter for receipt of your donation will follow if you email us and request it.
COME OUT AND BE PART OF THIS GREAT WORK GOD IS DOING FOR ALL PEOPLE. LEAVE A SOLID FOUNDATION IN CENTRAL NEW YORK FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF GLBTQS YOUTH AND FAMILIES!
Thank you for your generous support. God bless you.

We understand why many people do not believe Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Multi-gender, and Heterosexual persons are in God's Eternal Grace and Security.

Only people who are truly born again by the power of the Holy Spirit are able to understand that one is saved by faith (believing in God), not by behavior, and certainly not by one's sexual orientation. While many of the so-called "churches" continually tell us we are not saved, we continue doing God's Will, quietly and faithfully.

We find the Word of God to be crystal clear on this topic. 

Unspiritual people cannot understand spiritual matters. Holy Scripture is crystal clear on this: 1 Corinthians 2:13-16

13 "These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. 16 For "who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?" But we have the mind of Christ."

Yes, we have the mind of Christ! What is the mind of Christ in this case? Welcome all people as Christ himself. Direct all people to the coming glories of the Kingdom of God.

"For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."
Romans 10:13

We have discovered an excellent book that takes apart each of the verses that are supposed to be indicators that the Bible and God is sending all people other than heterosexals to Hell and shows using the LITERAL method of interpretation this is not what God says. As you know, Ray Of Hope Church Of Our Lord Jesus Christ uses the same exact resources as every fundamentalist and conservative pastor. We use their own resources to show the Bible does not judge us as the pastors say it does. The shocking truth is they have to know the Bible does not cast this on us and that of course means they are not telling the truth. The book is "Openly Gay Openly Christian: How the Bible Really is Gay Friendly" by Rev. Samuel Kader. The book is published by Leyland Publications - San Francisco, 1999. We do have copies available for sale if you email or call us.

Rev. Kader does an outstanding job of showing the verses in their original languages of Greek and Hebrew using the Strong's Concordance, and all the other conservative resources. This book supports what all the other study sources we use show, namely that the conservative Christians are not telling the truth. Conservative pastors and theologians know beyond a doubt that there is a tradition of human opinion that has enslaved the true study of the Word Of God when it comes to sexuality. Human tradition attempts to rewrite the Bible and say that any sexual orientation other than Heterosexuality is condemned in the Scripture. This is not true when you study the verses in Hebrew and Greek. We highly recommend Rev. Kader's book as well as the other resources listed on our pages on Homosexuality and the Bible. Visit our pages on this subject by clicking here: Homosexuality, Bisexuality, Transgender and the Bible - NOT CONDEMNED IN SCRIPTURE! CLICK HERE.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO PAGE TWO OF THE INTRODUCTION TO THIS PAGE.