My Life in Christian Music (Or: How a Gay Kid Accidentally Toured the Country Singing About Jesus)

I was 14 years old when I first stepped onto a church platform with my family — The Uplifters. We were exactly what the name promised: earnest, enthusiastic, and held together by equal parts harmony and hope. Dad played guitar, Craig held down the bass, Mom sang alto like she was born doing it, and I was the kid at the piano trying to look confident while silently praying my fingers wouldn’t betray me. That little church was our world, and for a while, it felt like enough.

But then the road started calling.

At 15, I joined a local group called The Traveliers — spelled like that because Christians love a creative vowel. We mostly played within 150 miles of home, which meant I was still close enough for Mom to worry but far enough to feel like I was doing something big. I even recorded my first album with them: Sail On Christian Friend. I was a teenager with a vinyl record. You couldn’t tell me anything.

By 16, I’d leveled up to The Redeemer’s Quartet out of Jacksonville, NC. I came on as the pianist, but when their baritone quit, they looked at me like, “Well, he’s breathing — put him in.” Next thing I knew, I was singing on an album called Introducing the Redeemer’s. My first recorded vocal. Immortalized forever. God help us all.

We toured up and down the East Coast, and I learned two things:

1. Gospel music people are some of the wildest folks you’ll ever meet.
2. A 16-year-old with a suitcase and a two vinyl records under his belt is unstoppable.

At 17, I left the Redeemer’s to follow their tenor — also named Ray — to a group called The Singing Journeymen. (If you’re noticing a theme in these group names, yes: Southern Gospel is 50 percent harmony and 50 percent branding.) I recorded my third album with them, God’s Handiwork, while the group reorganized more times than a church potluck committee.

Then came 1979 — the year I won both the local and regional talent competitions in the Pentecostal Holiness Church. I walked into Nationals ready to conquer the world… and promptly choked. Third place. I was not playing my best that day, and honestly, I’m still a little salty about it.

I graduated high school that same year and briefly worked as a bank teller, which is hilarious because I should never be trusted with other people’s money. Thankfully, fate intervened: I got an audition with my all-time favorite group, The Rex Nelon Singers.

Rex Nelon was gospel royalty — years with The Lefevre’s, an iconic Gospel music family with a massive recording studio in Atlanta, a nationally syndicated TV show (Gospel Singing Caravan). I idolized him. So when I drove nine hours to audition at his house in January 1980, I was a wreck. And it showed. I bombed. Hard. Rex called a few days later to say he was “going in a different direction,” which is Christian for “Bless your heart, but no.”

I was devastated.

But the universe wasn’t done with me. A few weeks later, Rex and the group were singing at a church near my hometown. I went, marched up to him afterward, and begged for another chance — this time with the whole group. And honey, I delivered. I played every song they threw at me and left scorch marks on that piano. Rex offered me the job on the spot.

Two weeks later, March 1980, I moved to Atlanta — my first time living on my own. I was 18, terrified, thrilled, and absolutely certain I was exactly where I was meant to be.

And honestly? I had some incredible experiences with The Rex Nelon Singers (later just The Nelons). I played the Grand Ole Opry at 22. We were nominated for a Grammy in 1983. We won two Dove Awards. We toured the U.S., Canada, and parts of the Caribbean. From the outside, it looked like a dream. I did studio work, met some amazing musicians/performers like Ricky Skaggs, Larrie London, Crystal Gayle, Minnie Pearl, Dolly Parton...and so many others.

But inside… something else was happening.

I was becoming aware — painfully aware — that I was attracted to men. And in the world I came from, that wasn’t just inconvenient. It was a crisis. This was the height of the AIDS epidemic, when Christian media was full of fear, condemnation, and “turn or burn” sermons. I carried shame like a second skin.

Still, loneliness has a way of pushing you toward truth. I ventured out. I met drag queens. I met other gay men. I made friends — real friends — like Rodney, Kathleen, and Ron, who saw me without judgment, without fear, without the theological fine print.

And then, in 1986, Rex found out I’d been going to gay clubs.

Suddenly I had a choice: deny who I was or walk away from the only life I’d ever known.

I walked away.

Atlanta had become home over those six years, so I stayed. I worked whatever jobs I could find. And then the AIDS crisis hit my world like a tidal wave. Friends got sick. Friends died. Ron — sweet, gentle Ron — was one of them.

I watched the LGBTQ+ community show up for each other with a fierce, tender love I had never seen in the church that raised me. And I watched that same church — the one that preached love — turn its back.

That was the real education. The real gospel. The real awakening.

And it changed me forever.

Looking Back at Sprint: The Job That Raised Me

Every now and then, I get hit with a wave of nostalgia so strong it practically knocks me off my chair. Today’s wave? Sprint. Yes… that Sprint. The one with the pin‑drop commercials, the long‑distance plans, and the customer service reps who could troubleshoot a customer issue while eating a breakfast burrito from the daily "roach coach" food truck.

My time at Sprint was one of the most defining chapters of my life. I didn’t just work there — I grew up there.

I was 26 years old when I was hired full‑time in July of 1987 in Atlanta. Before that, I’d spent a year as a temp in telemarketing, which I absolutely hated with the fire of a thousand suns. But full‑time? That felt different. That felt like a door opening.

I started in the correspondence department, typing up customer updates and replying to questions and concerns. A few months later, they moved me to the phones — live calls, real people, real problems. It was trial by fire, but I learned fast.

And this was a wild time to join the company. When I walked in the door in 1986, we were still US Telecom. Then came the merger with GTE Sprint. Within my first year, we became US Sprint. New name, new logo, same Ray trying to figure out how to work the phone system.

I spent two years in customer service before transferring from Atlanta to Sacramento in October of 1988. Originally, I was supposed to go to Burlingame, but that center gradually shutting down, and Sacramento said, “Hey, we’ll take him.” So off I went — 27 years old, cross‑country move, new city, new life.

My job was to help set up a brand‑new shift: Saturday through Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. I was the team lead for a group of freshly graduated customer service reps who were still trying to remember their login passwords. It was chaotic, hilarious, and one of the best experiences of my early career.

Eight months after moving to Sacramento, I was named a winner in the annual Achiever’s Club. They flew us to Scottsdale, Arizona for a week of celebration. I learned to drink tequila poppers from one of our managers (a skill I have rarely used since, for the safety of everyone involved). I even ran into folks from Atlanta — a little reunion in the desert.

The next month, I was promoted to QA analyst. I spent two years there before moving into Billing Services in 1991. And that… that was home. I spent the next 14 years in that organization, and I loved it. I made lifelong friends. I learned how to lead, how to collaborate, how to survive office politics, and how to laugh through the chaos.

Then I made the mistake of leaving for MCI for a couple of months. Let me tell you: worst experience of my entire career. When that company went out of business, I nearly threw a kegger. I’m not proud… but I’m also not sorry.

In October of 2004, Sprint told me my job was being eliminated. I had three months to train my replacement in Kansas City. I even offered to move, but they said no. So I trained a young guy fresh out of college. He lasted less than six months after I left before he quit. January 31st, 2005 was my last day...21 years ago from the date of this post.

It was sad — but also, the company had changed so much in those last few years that I was ready to go. And the severance package? Generous. I took almost a year off. I went to Disneyland ten times for their 50th anniversary celebration. Took a cruise to Mexico. Visited my family in North Carolina. And in November of that year… I met my husband. Not a bad trade‑off.

The old adage “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone” is painfully true. I honestly grew up at Sprint. I learned about life, friendship, responsibility, and the “real world” there. I still have relationships with those people — group texts, reunion lunches, birthday dinners, memorial services for those we’ve lost. No other job has ever come close to being as meaningful or as magical.

I miss it terribly.

And if you’re wondering, “But Ray… what about your time in Christian music?”

Ah, my friend. That’s a story for another day.

There’s Going To Be a Reckoning

We have watched too long

as sanctuaries applauded hate

and called it holy.

We have felt the tremor in the pews

when cruelty passed for courage

and the name of Christ

was spoken like a weapon.

We have mourned

for the church that sheltered a predator

and named it forgiveness.

For the church that defended a fraud

convicted of deceit

and named it discernment.

For the church that excused a man

who broke vow after vow

and named it grace.

We have grieved

for the church that baptized racism

and called it heritage.

For the church that justified the deaths

of unarmed, innocent bodies

and called it order.

For the church that looked at immigrants

and saw “less than,”

forgetting the God who wandered as a stranger.

For the church that mocked diversity

as “DEI nonsense,”

forgetting Pentecost’s wild, many‑tongued fire.

For the church that shrugged at stolen secrets

and called it loyalty.

For the church that traded the kingdom of God

for the kingdoms of men

and pretended not to notice.

We speak this not in fury

but in sorrow ripened into truth.

Because hypocrisy always bears fruit—

bitter, heavy, impossible to hide.

Because every compromise of conscience

returns home eventually

and asks to be reckoned with.

There’s going to be a reckoning—

not thunder, not flame,

but the quiet collapse of what cannot stand,

the slow undoing of what was never rooted

in justice, mercy, or humility.

The natural consequence

of choosing power over compassion,

fear over welcome,

idols over the living God.

And still—

we believe in resurrection.

We believe the church can remember

her first love.

She can lift the wounded,

welcome the stranger,

protect the vulnerable,

and tell the truth even when it trembles.

Hope is not gone.

The Spirit still whispers in the ruins:

Begin again.

The Long Way Home: A Life Told in Key Changes

 I came into the world in 1960, in North Carolina, back when the air smelled like tobacco fields and Aqua Net, and children were raised on Jesus, casseroles, and the occasional spanking “for your own good.” My parents, Horace and Diane, were good Southern people who believed in hard work, Sunday services, and the kind of hospitality that involved feeding anyone who walked through the door whether they were hungry or not.

My brother Craig arrived two years later, and one of my earliest memories is of us watching the news the day President Kennedy was assassinated. I didn’t understand death, but I understood my parents’ faces — the way the room felt suddenly smaller, quieter, heavier. It was the first time I realized the world could break.

We lived in Weldon until I was seven, in a duplex close to where I attended a Baptist kindergarten and sang “Away in a Manger” for the Christmas pageant with the kind of sincerity only a five-year-old in a paper-plate halo can muster. Then my parents bought a ranch house on seven acres outside of Roanoke Rapids — a place with enough land to raise pigs, grow vegetables, and lose yourself in the woods for hours.

It was also the first time I learned that adults — especially church adults — could say some truly awful things with absolute confidence. When Dr. King was assassinated, I heard things no child should hear. I didn’t understand racism yet, but I understood cruelty. And I understood that sometimes the people who preached the loudest about love were the ones who practiced it the least.

Around that same time, something happened to me that I didn’t have the language for. A teenage boy sexually assaulted me for about a year. I thought it was a game. Years later, he apologized and told me he’d been abused himself. I forgave him. Pain echoes until someone decides to stop the sound. I chose to stop it.

But childhood wasn’t only shadows. I was a Southern boy through and through — climbing trees, feeding pigs, shooting guns, running barefoot, and pretending to like girls while secretly swooning over Keith Partridge. I didn’t know what it meant yet, but I knew it wasn’t something I could say out loud. Not in the 1970s. Not in the Pentecostal Holiness church. Not in my family.

Music became my refuge. I started piano lessons in second grade with Miss Mildred Oxenham, who smelled like Chanel No.5 and had the patience of a saint. By 15, I was improvising like I had something to prove, worshipping at the altars of The Carpenters, ABBA, Streisand, and eventually Barry Manilow — whose chord progressions were so complex they would make Einstein scratch his head and give up.

My baby brother, Michael, arrived in 1970 and I loved every minute of taking care of him. My mom would have to wrestle me like Jesse Ventura to pry him out of my arms.

Christmases were pure magic — cousins everywhere, food everywhere, laughter everywhere. To this day, I tear up thinking about those gatherings. If heaven doesn’t feel like my grandparents’ house at Christmas, I’m not sure I want to go.

At 15, I hit the road playing piano for Christian bands. My dad hated it because he wanted me in my home church on Sundays. My mom — a woman who could stare down a hurricane — won that argument. But one of the men I played for turned out to be a predator. When he crossed a line, I walked five miles home and never told a soul. Decades later, he was arrested on 50 counts of indecent liberties with a child. I still wonder if speaking up might have saved someone else. That’s a weight you don’t ever fully put down. He died from a heart attack before going to trial.

I graduated high school in 1979, joined The Rex Nelon Singers in 1980, and spent six years touring the country, playing the Grand Ole Opry, and collecting Dove Awards like they were commemorative spoons. But behind the curtain, I was fighting myself. The Christian music world had more closeted gay men than a Broadway cast party, and I was drowning in shame.

My first gay bar. My first gay experience. My first gay panic spiral. AIDS was emerging. Fear was everywhere.

In 1984, I confessed everything to a pastor who then tried to seduce me. I left shaking, peeled out of the parking lot, and nearly drove off a bridge. I didn’t. I went home and cried instead. Sometimes survival looks like nothing more heroic than staying alive for one more night.

I tried dating a woman named Nancy. I broke her heart. I broke my own. I spiraled — drinking, drugs, clubs, self-loathing. Being told by the church that you’re an abomination makes you act like one if you believe them…and I did. Also, being told that you deserve to die with AIDs is something no one should say to another human being.

In 1986, I lost my music job after being seen at a gay bar. I hit bottom, then found community: a drag queen named Kathleen, chosen family like Rodney Webster, laughter, and people who saw me.

Then came Ron — brilliant, funny, 19, and eventually HIV-positive. We became like brothers. When he got sick, he moved to California to get better treatment. He met Jeff, the love of his life. Then I arrived in a U-Haul with his dog, Ross, and they welcomed me like family.

Those years were magic — Christmases, cocktails, friendship, my first real boyfriend (Tom…I loved that man and that story could be its own novel). And then Ron declined. Fast. I watched him waste away. I held him as he died. I stayed up all night with Jeff telling stories, drunk on vodka and grief. We stood on the porch and waved goodbye as the coroner drove away with his body. That moment is tattooed on my soul.

Loss piled on loss — my dad, my grandfather, my sister-in-law, my aunt. My relationship fell apart. I came out to my family. Depression swallowed me whole. On New Year’s Eve 1992, I drunkenly tried to end my life. I drank too much, took too many pills, and threw them all up. I woke up covered in vomit and regret.

But the important thing is: I woke up.

That’s when Marilyn Graham entered my life — a counselor who helped me deconstruct the shame of evangelical Christianity and rebuild myself from the inside out. My 30s became a renaissance. I worked out. I healed. I grew.

In 1997, I returned to music — opera lessons, theater, conducting, performing. I played Daddy Warbucks eight times, Sweeney Todd once (and loved being the villain), Jud Fry, Horton the Elephant, and even Oscar Madison with four days’ notice. I sang a lead role in La Boheme. Theater gave me back my confidence.

In 2005, I was laid off from Sprint after 18 years. I took a year off, taught voice, partied, took my mom and aunt on a cruise, and went to Disneyland more times than is medically advisable.

Then came James.

I was 45. He was 25. I almost didn’t go on the date. He barely spoke. I thought he hated me. Turns out he was just shy. Twenty years later, we’re still here — married, battle-tested, loyal, imperfect, and deeply in love. We’ve survived unemployment, illness, financial collapse, grief, and the occasional disagreement about whose turn it is to take out the trash. That’s marriage.

In 2012, we lost our condo in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Hard choice, no regrets. It freed us. We rented. We rebuilt.

Then — irony of ironies — after 26 years away from church, I took a job as a Methodist accompanist. I told them I was gay and married. They said, “Welcome home.” I stayed 13 years, decided to go down the path to become a lay minister, and learned that spirituality can be expansive, not suffocating.

In 2015, we bought our dream home in California. Ten years later, the world shifted, and we felt the need to find safer ground. We sold the house in three days, packed up our lives, and moved to Washington with no home lined up. We found our mid-century gem in Aberdeen — trees, rain, quiet, space to breathe. It feels like the right place for this chapter.

But here’s the truth: turning 65 hit me harder than I expected. I feel slower. I feel invisible sometimes. I feel “less than.” James jokes about my memory — not maliciously, but it stings. My mom died of dementia. The last time I saw her, she didn’t know me. That fear sits in my chest like a stone.

I’m anxious about losing friends. I’m anxious about my health. I’m anxious about becoming irrelevant in a world obsessed with 18-to-35-year-olds who think they invented everything from fashion to music. Meanwhile, I have more disposable income now than I ever did in my 20s. Come at me, tech bros.

But here’s what I know:

I’m not done.

I’m learning new systems at work. I joke about retiring “soon”, but the truth is I don’t want to. I’m diving into community. I’m exploring my spiritual path again. I’m renovating a house with the man I love. I’m grieving, growing, laughing, doubting, and reinventing — sometimes all in the same afternoon.

Life hasn’t been easy. But it’s been full. And I’m still here, still curious, still singing, still becoming.

Stay tuned. The next chapter is already humming in the background.