Alicia Johnston was a Seventh-day Adventist minister in Arizona until she came out as bisexual and resigned from her post.

In a heartfelt Facebook video, Johnston said she left because she'd reached a point of “complete disagreement with the Adventist Church on its teachings on LGBT people."

The 20 million-strong Protestant denomination teaches that “homosexuality is a manifestation of the disturbance and brokenness in human inclinations and relations caused by the entrance of sin into the world.” As a result, out LGBT people aren't allowed to be church members, and pastors are forbidden from marrying same-sex couples.

"I've decided to be fully honest about who I am," Johnston wrote. "This is my coming out video, and I'd like to share with you my reasons and what I've learned along the way. #loveislove"

Johnston, who was the sole pastor at Foothills Community Church in Chandler, Arizona, explained that her spiritual beliefs were at odds with her innate sexuality. That disconnect depressed her, but after a great deal of soul-searching and studying, she decided the church's stance was not only theologically incorrect, it was harmful.

“I knew that shame of feeling inconvenient and like you weren't a part,” she explains with tears in her eyes. “I couldn’t ignore the fact that our church is causing that to people... It really made it difficult for me to feel okay with God."

Now that she's no longer a pastor, Johnston is on a mission to share her story so other LGBT Christians know they're not alone.

"I want to break the deadly silence that exists in churches that don't affirm LGBT people for who they are," she says. "That silence has to be broken to reach queer people who feel today like I used to feel: ashamed, unwanted, and inconvenient."