Our founder, the Reverend Charlene E. Hios, has always shared openly with others how God opened her eyes to the fact that she was living a lie by believing that she was born 'gay'. Many who have come out of their homosexuality keep this quiet because of the stigma the Church attaches to it. Charlene knew nothing of this stigma and was not ashamed to share how God came into her life and brought her out of the lie she was living.
It was through this openness that Charlene's story became known to many. People started coming up to Charlene and they shared with her how someone in their life identifies themselves as a homosexual person. Then the most frequent question Charlene would receive from those who shared with her was: "How do I now relate with _____ now that I know they are 'gay'?"
Charlene was also approached often by folks who struggled with their own same sex attractions. As she started speaking with these strugglers she started hearing from them that they could not speak to any one at their church about it because they feared they would be thrown out of the church.
Finally Charlene started getting the attention of many who were fully immersed in an openly 'gay' life. She was bombarded with hatred from many of them. She finally realized the hatred was not against her personally but towards her mesasge that she had come out of her life as a lesbian and that she credited her home church with being used as God's instrument to minister to her through that struggling time of her life.
You see many people feel that the Church is the enemy. "If ever there was an organization that has hurt more people and pushed more people away it is the Church. Why don't they just be more like Jesus?" This is a common reaction to the question "if you could say one thing to the Church what would it be?"
Charlene believed that God was bringing this ministry to her. There were so many gaps between so many group of people and the Church when the subject of homosexuality was involved. She sought out Godly council on this matter and decided to start this ministry.
The drafting of the ministry was started while Charlene was attending Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in 2006. Many thoughts and ideas for the ministry were bounced off of many of the staff, student body, and faculty there.
In July of 2009 Bridging The Gaps Ministries became an official non-profit organization in the state of California. Much more history still to be written and much more history still to occur.