The House of Rainbow.

The evening is warm and sunlit as I walk down a quiet suburban street in outer London. Houses foster little glass keeps over their front doors, filled with school shoes and dog leads, and the sounds of family life echo from somewhere distant. At the far end a battered, red-brick community hall that could be in a village in on Lewis rather than a pulsing metropolis plays host to the mysterious sounding "House of Rainbow Fellowship," an inclusive prayer group for gay, lesbian and straight people run by Nigerian Jide MacAulay.

I am the third to arrive. Jide is putting up laminated posters; "God Accepts You" "God Adores You." Instantly his warmth and humour feel welcoming. "You are early." He chuckles. I look at the clock and it is only a few minutes till half six, the appointed time. We chat in the summery coolness of the hall, his calm manner is pepper with burst of camp flamboyance. The fellowship began in 2006 in Lagos, at first very openly, before going underground and eventually leading to Jide needing to flee the country in self imposed exile. He has building up the group in London for over a year, and now has a group in Manchester too, though the fellowship is represent in a number of African countries too.

He goes to greet some arriving congregation and I take a seat (or a pew I suppose) towards the back of the rectangle of chairs he has laid out. More people are arriving, as a researcher I feel I should be jumping up and finding out all about them but my natural shyness prevents me. I am relieved when a Alice, a self assured lady from the west indies sits next to me and introduces herself. She greats the news of my project warmly and happily tells me of her own experience gaining status in the U.K.. I now feel bad that I am focusing purely on men for this project, as she seems so eager to share.

Jide takes her to one side to give her some duties for the service, and Robert, a quietly spoken American takes her place. I ask if "This is his first time?" Not quite sure how to present the fact that I am here to research rather than praise. He says yes, but probably his last. It transpires Robert is also an artist working on insectionality between immigration and sexuality. It seems Jide is the man to go to.

The service starts with Alice leading a prayer. She asks us to stand, and lets us know that when she feels the spirit she has to move around. I think of Philip Larkin in his poem "Church Going";

"Hatless, I take off/ My cycle clips in awkward reverence."

I feel I should join in, do something, though I hold no kind of faith at all. I stand but find I needn't worry. As I listened to Alice's words and the low hum of people (there must be about 15 in all, about half are white British) adding their own bursts of amens and Hallelujahs, I quickly feel deeply moved. "Bless the asylum seekers," she is saying, "And those who fear to be themselves." I cannot help but mumble "Amen" in agreement.

A  young man stands at the front and leads a series of chants, clapping his hands and stamping his feet. For a fleeting moment I see a group of bearded devout looking Muslim men walk past. So often the images of religion instill a kind of fear in me, but here this was different.

Jide leads his sermon. There is something so beautiful about it. Here in this quite hall, now around 20 people sit, felling free in a generous and pragmatic religious space. In front of me a beautiful lesbian couple sit, hand in hand, listening to his every word. Whilst I have no faith, his reiteration of the idea that we are all loved by god regardless to this small group of people, many of whom had overcome such suffering and who were such outsiders in relation to their nation of birth and faith, was profoundly moving.

A woman in a wheelchair reads the notices with a deft comic touch, and a collection is taken. I have been so anti-religion through out my life, but the help and guidance the House of Rainbow gives to people who do have faith in Lagos and Ghana and Lesotho, as well as London and Manchester, must be of such astonishing value to them, I emptied my pocket of all the pound coins I had (sadly only about a fiver).

We all held hands for a final prayer. The three other men I held hands with swayed and mumbled, and I felt a little fraudulent again. I gave in. Just in my head I said, with a wary tone, "Well God, if you are there, I think these people are doing something incredible so please protect and help them." I think it is the only time I have ever truely prayed and the only time I have meant what I asked for. We said the Lords Prayer together, and I actually rather enjoyed the familiar and poetic words coming from my lips, unsaid for many years.

Jide's blog; http://revrowlandjidemacaulay.blogspot.com/