On a day when Gene Robinson led the congregation of St. Martin's Episcopal Church in singing "All are Welcome," the country's first openly gay bishop was interrupted by demonstrators as he sermonized and talked with church members between services.

And while Robinson's second service went off without incident, two members of South Concord Church of God were waiting on the sidewalk, Bibles in hand, when members of St. Martin's walked out afterward into the noontime cold.

"False prophets," Richard Pope shouted. "Wake up, people. Wake up and read the truth of God. Quit believing lies."

Robinson, according to those who witnessed the earlier incidents, handled the interruptions calmly.

When loudly confronted during his sermon by one of the demonstrators that "Sodomy is a sin," the bishop responded that the homosexual prohibitions cited in the Bible are words from another era, not the timeless message of love for all that permeates so much of later Scripture.

In his second sermon, he called on the audience to pray for the demonstrators.

"I ask that they pray for me," Robinson added.

"We're all trying to do the best we can. We're all trying to figure this out."

The bishop appeared at the church as part of St. Martin's yearlong birthday party celebrating 125 years as a congregation, a century in its sanctuary on Seventh Street in Elizabeth.

While in town, he spoke at a fund-raiser for the Regional Aids Interfaith Network in Charlotte and also met with students at UNC Charlotte through a visit arranged by the Department of Religious Studies.

After a long procession led the New Hampshire bishop to the altar for the 10:30 a.m. worship, St. Martin's pastor, the Rev. Murdoch Smith, stood before the crowd and asked visitors to respect the ceremony.

"We ask that you worship alongside of us and not interrupt," Smith said, "so that we can all celebrate the presence of God in this place."

Robinson, limping on a recently broken foot, took it from there. He called on the 300 people in the pews before him to work harder to integrate gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people into their spiritual lives.

He named his sermon, "Hospitality ain't enough."

"It's not bad as far as it goes. Tolerance is better than intolerance, but it's not near enough," he said. "It's not near as good as affirmation, respect and embrace. It stops short of where we need to be, where we need to go."

He took listeners on a history lesson, arguing that believers - and churches - have used Scripture to justify slavery, to subordinate women and now to treat gays as sinners and spiritual outliers.

"It's not enough that we pull drowning people out of a raging stream," Robinson said. "We have to go upstream and figure out who's throwing them in the first place.

"God is calling on you to change a system that tells people they are not worthy of God's love."

Robinson, a native of rural Kentucky, was ordained bishop of New Hampshire in 2004. He wore a bulletproof vest to that ceremony, and the election of a gay man, who has since married his longtime partner, continues to be a source of discord for Episcopalians and other denominations around the world.

Sunday, Robinson helped deliver communion, during which the church and the assembled choirs roared through "All are Welcome."

After the last verse, Robinson paused the service to tell a story. In 2008, he was the only bishop not invited to a once-a-decade gathering of church leaders that's been going on since 1867. Those on hand also sang "All are Welcome."

Robinson reflected on the "irony and cruelty" of that musical selection, and how joining in with the voices at St. Martin's "had healed a place in my heart that still was in pain.

"You sing it like you mean it."