General Conference 2008

I joined a church today . . .

I joined a United Methodist church today . . .

I took the step of becoming an affiliate member of a wonderful congregation, the church of Saint Paul and Saint Andrew, in New York City.  It was the third time I have taken membership vows and become a member of a UM church.

The first time I took the membership vows, I was 13 and in the 8th grade.  It still stands out as one of the high points of my life.   

The second time I took the membership vows it was a transformative moment in my adult life.  I joined a church that had become a Reconciling Congregation and which had supported me in my coming out process.  I took the public act of truly formalizing my relationship with that powerful faith community - the First UM church of Vermillion, South Dakota.  It was a great celebration and one of those proverbial mountain top experiences. 

Today was supposed to be one of those pro forma, paperwork transfer, occasions.  I didn't expect there to be any emotional component, but then I got to the point in the service where I had to respond to the vows.

As I listened to the familiar language, which I have heard countless times in churches and repeated twice myself, I grew angry.  The anger really started during the powerful lines about resisting evil and injustice in whatever forms that they present themselves.  Then it outraged me when I was asked if I would be loyal to the United Methodist Church, and do all in my power to strengthen its minstries.

What?  It is almost laughable.  How could these two statements - that are in direct opposition to each other - both be answered affirmatively by me, a gay man? 

I heard and thought about these lines in the light of all that has happened in recent years.  Since the Judicial Council ruling 1032 allowed a minister to deny membership to a gay man.  I have heard the testimonies - some related on this blog - from those who ave been denied membership, just I as today was granted it.  The lines in the vow only served to remind me of my own second-class status in the UMC.  That somehow I should be glad I was able to join a church, because others like me have been turned away.    

Today, I joined a congregation that I love.  A wonderful community which loves me, which has taken the justice step of becoming a reconciling congregation.  I will faithfully - and joyfully - work to strengthen its ministries through my prayers, my presence, my tithes, and my service.

But also, today I realized that taking those vows was an act of defiance.  It was an act of civil disobedience against the UM church.  A body which has shown through its words and actions that I am unwelcome and unwanted. 

I joined a United Methodist church today and I publically took vows of membership.  I also privately committed that I will resist the inustice and oppression that presents itself in the United Methodist church.  Peace with Justice

“Fearfully and Wonderfully Made”

Being gay and Christian seems somewhat oxymoronic. Being gay and fundamentalist Christian borders on masochistic. But in high school anyway, I seemed to be entrenched in both lives. It took me a solid four years to come to terms with my sexuality in middle and high school. Even just acknowledging to myself that I was gay involved years of denial, lies to myself and others and trying to believe that I was straight, and then resignation that this is who I am. I think it took another four years for me to feel the grace of God afresh in my heart and feel like a child of God and not as a victim of an unjust world.

At the same time that I was coming into my own and growing into my sexual orientation, I was growing in my understanding of Christianity. In high school, I felt like my United Methodist church youth group was focused too exclusively on how to get youth to come to church by using secular activities such that they abandoned exploring what it meant to be Christian sufficiently. So, instead of regularly attending MYF, I attended Christian Fellowship – an evangelical Christian club at my high school that was not school sponsored due to Separation of Church and State “issues.” When I attended Fellowship, I felt energized by their contemporary worship service held in a U.S. History classroom and intellectually stimulated during our bible studies held in the Foreign Language department. Fellowship largely influenced my spiritual formation in terms of what it means to be Christian.

Barely three weeks into my senior year, September 11, 2001 occurred. As a Christian I felt immediately the need for us to offer students the time and space for prayer. I ran to my Fellowship co-leader and began to ask her when we could start planning some prayer services. Before I even finished my sentence, she informed me that she and the rest of the leadership team had discussed my “situation” and determined that although it was okay for me to be struggling with and resisting my unnatural lifestyle, it was unacceptable and inappropriate for me to be a leader within Fellowship as an “active homosexual.” I was speechless and felt betrayed by the faith community I had come to love more than my home church. Part of me died that day and I did not feel like I belonged to any church or as a child of God for the next three years of my life.

In 2003 as a sophomore in college, I lived in Spain and studied the religious confluence of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism during the Islamic polity of the Iberian peninsula from 711 – 1492. Before school started, two Catholic friends and I decided to journey along the pilgrim trails to Santiago de Compostela, where James the Apostle is buried according to legend. For two days we walked roughly 50 km of the pilgrim trails that start in France and Italy and traverse the entire length of northern Spain. We would spend an hour walking and talking – getting to know each other better. Then we would walk for an hour in silence – reflecting on ourselves, our lives, God, wherever our hearts led us. I remember feeling like I was walking on holy ground. As a Protestant, I am not one to venerate the saints or the apostles but there was something about walking the same pilgrim trails that Christians have traversed for nearly 1,200 years that enlivened me. I was in the company of brothers and sisters in Christ of ages past, present and future. It was here that – maybe for the first time ever – I really listened for God. And I know that in the silence of this our pilgrims’ journey, I heard the voice of God calling me home to the United Methodist Church.

When I returned to the States in 2004, I began church shopping. I knew that finding a church was going to be challenging not because of the lack of reconciling congregations as there are a dozen or so in the Chicagoland area but more due to my own standards. I am always troubled by congregations – and there are a lot of them – that in their journey to be inclusive, equate inclusiveness with not offending anyone and therefore water down Jesus and begin to dismantle the Holy Trinity. I needed a church that would accept me for who I am and not be afraid to claim the name of Jesus, the Christ. I wanted to feel the Holiness Movement in the 21st Century.

During Advent of 2004, I found Holy Covenant UMC and immediately fell in love. Here was a church that upon walking in the door welcomed me and treated me like I was a part of their family. The first two people to welcome me at Holy Covenant were Troy Plummer and Walter Treash, and I’m sure they knew I was already a part of their family. I was blown away by the passionate worship and music – songs of praise I had not sung since my days in Fellowship, which was a union of pain and rejoicing. It was my first experience of hearing God as Father and Mother of us all. If there is one thing that Pastor Trey Hall emphasizes at Holy Covenant, it is the Great Invitation and that all our welcome at God’s table. It was the first time that I had heard gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people named as called by God and welcome at the Banquet. Since that first worship service, I have been actively involved at Holy Covenant and became a member on Easter Sunday of 2005.

The primary reason I decided to run for election to the General Conference is my experience of Holy Covenant. Holy Covenant UMC has been such a place and a community of healing for me. Coming out as a gay man in retrospect seems for me to have been so much easier than reconciling my sexual orientation with my religion. For years I had not felt like a whole person and confused my relationship with the institutional Church for my relationship with God. Holy Covenant gave me a home to feel safe and proud of who I was and am: a fearfully and wonderfully made child of God. Holy Covenant has given me a glimpse of what the Banquet can be like. I want so much for the United Methodist Church to experience a revival of its roots, to claim God and God’s great, all-inclusive invitation. I ran in order to be a voice and a testimony of these things. As an elected alternate delegate from the Northern Illinois Conference, I pray for God's grace that I might be a humble and worthy example of Christ.

Home for Easter

Last Sunday was Easter, and I was home from school on break. I went back to the church where I grew up--the church where I was baptized and confirmed, where I attended youth group and worship weekly, where I preached for the first time, and where my call to ministry was nurtured. I haven't been there for Sunday worship in a long time because I attend graduate school out of town, and before that, I served another congregation as pastor for two years. It was good to be back.

This is not a perfect congregation, and I don't mean to present it as a congregation without flaws. What I will say, though, is that I am grateful for this congregation, and in spite of its shortcomings, it is among the primary reasons I remain United Methodist.

You see, it was in this congregation that I learned to read the Bible pray. It was in this local church that I learned the tenants of the faith. It was in this congregation that I first encountered the hymns, the liturgies, and the doctrines of our faith tradition. It was in this congregation that I learned about prevenient grace. Before anyone ever told me I was incompatible with Christian teaching, a sermon at this church taught me that God's love seeks all people.

It was in this congregation that I was invited to be an acolyte, a liturgist, and even a pulpit supplier--long before I knew about any prohibition against self-avowed, practicing homosexuals in ordained ministry.

It was in this congregation that I first encountered and continually heard the beautiful words, "Christ invites to this table all who love God," a phrase that affirms the sacred worth of all with no ifs, ands or buts attached.

It was in this church that I attended many weddings of family members and other church members, all before I realized I could never hope to have a wedding in that very sanctuary or performed by a United Methodist pastor.

It was in this church that I met Sunday school teachers who were intentional about including everyone who came in the classroom, no matter where they were from or what their abilities were; no one was excluded.

It was in confirmation class at this church that I learned why United Methodists use grape juice instead of wine for communion; I loved the idea of a table where everyone felt free to be an authentic person without temptation, even before I learned that our denomination's polity requires some people to lose their authenticity in order to keep their jobs.

It was in that same confirmation class that I learned about baptism as an act of God to which humans respond, even before I learned that our denomination refuses to see human sexuality as a gift of God for God's people.

It was in this church that I learned our faith tradition of encountering questions of faith using scripture, tradition, experience, and reason, and I learned that before I understood that the rules of our denomination are often based on none of the four.

It was in this congregation that I made a promise to accept the power God gives me to resist evil, injustice, and oppression, even before I learned that my own denomination could be a manifestation of the evil, injustice, and oppression I was promising to resist.

It was in this congregation that I experienced the church's magnificent ability to love. At moments, that congregation is the Body of Christ at its best, and I'm glad I've seen it. I've also experienced the darkness of the church. I've read the Book of Discipline, which tells me that the way I love is a chargeable offense--in the same paragraph as embezzling money or abusing a child--and that hurts. Yet, I remain United Methodist, and I remain a member of that congregation that taught me so much about who and what and how God calls the church to be. At the center of God's call for the church is the love of Christ, where I find hope, and at the moment when I needed a visible sign of that hope, I am sure glad I went home for Easter.

Watch Renewal or Ruin?

Renewal or Ruin? documents The Institute on Religion and Democracy's Attack on the United Methodist Church.

Since its beginning in 1982, the Institute on Religion and Democracy has continuously undermined the United Methodist Church and other mainline Protestant denominations by attacking the character of church leaders. This organization, funded by some of the world's most powerful foundations, undermines the witness of the church by fueling controversy to its own benefit.

"Renewal or Ruin?" looks into the IRD's claim that it exists to renew the spiritual life of the church. Researchers, church leaders, and others talk about their findings and experiences with this Washington, DC organization that foments dissention in the body of Christ.

Here is Renewal or Ruin?

"Renewal or Ruin?" from Steven D. Martin on Vimeo.

Wishes and Cranes

I have always had great hope for the church, even when I was a child. At the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, my Sunday school decided to fold 1,000 paper cranes to be sent to the remembrance.  There were only about seven students in my Sunday school of any age, but we worked for over six months on those cranes. We cut all the paper, and folded all the creases, laughed and played until there were 1000.  At the University of Chicago, where the atomic bomb was first conceived,  there was a ceremony for peace remembering the history of the bombing. We took our 1,000 cranes to be sent to the Children's Memorial in Hiroshima as a sign of friendship.

Legends say if you fold a thousand cranes you get a wish. I believe at the time we wished for peace in the world and an end to all war.  Today I wonder if we had better understood our church if we would not have used our wish to ask that hate and exclusion be removed from the world.  At the time as a young member of a Reconciling Congregation, I saw in my church that all people were welcomed and loved.

When I made those cranes I did not understand polity or know there was a Book of Discipline in my Church. All that I knew at that time was that G-D loved all her children.  I continue today to know in Christ that the love of God is for all.  There are people who seek to exclude, who are blinded by ignorance, anger, or misunderstanding.  Today if I made those cranes again I would wish that there would be no need for me to fold cranes because we would live in a world where all people would see what I saw: God does not hate or discriminate.

The 'F' Word

Face Facts

i am Furious sometimes

Fed up

with

Factions

Fence-sitters

Fair weather Friends

legislative Firing squads

False Frames

& Fallacies

like

Fags are Freaks

Fidelity in marriage

Frozen in singleness

Fatalism

exercises in Futility

Fever-pitch Fear

Fictions so Far from truth

Fed up, Foremost

with the status quo

where we end up Flogged and Forlorn

Feeling like Failures

let’s Flush this Feces down the toilet

start Fresh

Flirt with the Future

 

what iF

we fantasize

about

Fort worth

Framed ourselves

outside this Foolishness

Flagrant in Flouting their Fictions

we are, in Fact,

Free within ourselves

to Fashion our Future

we are Fertile territory

for the Favor of god

 

what iF

we decided to be Fearless

Forget what’s Feasible

i Foresee:

all the Fairies Flooding the conference Floor

‘Far-Flung Family members’

a Fabulous reunion

queer as Folk

Face-to-Face with Friend and Foe

oFFering a Feast of Fancy

Forging a Faith community

that appears as more than a Facelift

we are a Fountain of renewal

Fools for christ

who Finally Forego legislative Formalities

Fighting power

Fomenting change

wouldn’t that be Fascinating

not to mention, Far more Fun?

A Word for us on the journey

Isaiah 30:18-21, NRSV

The LORD waits to be gracious to you;
    therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you.
For the LORD is a God of justice;
    blessed are all those who wait for him.

Truly, O people in Zion, inhabitants of Jerusalem, you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when he hears it, he will answer you. Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself any more, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a  word behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it."

In Appreciation for Allies

The Human Rights Campaign just awarded the HRC Ally Award to actress Anne Hathaway. As I have been reflecting on the many allies to LGBT people in the United Methodist Church, I want to say thank you.

Thank you for your passion, dedication and love.

The Reconciling Movement lost one of our best and brightest allies last week with the death of Rev. Bruce Hilton (I wish I could have met him). Rev. Hilton co-founded the Parents Reconciling Network. His passionate commitment to justice was celebrated in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Sacramento Bee.

Here is actress Anne Hathaway accepting the HRC Ally Award. I hope you enjoy this lovely acceptance speech as much as I did:

Youth and Young Adults: These Are Our Stories

"These Are Our Stories" is part of the MoSAIC witness to the 2008 General Conference of the United Methodist Church. We will feature a new story at Generalconference2008.org each week leading up to General Conference. Here is Matthew's story:

You may visit MoSAIC's YouTube Channel at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/MosaicRMN

You may visit MoSAIC's Blog at:

http://mosaic.rmnetwork.org

Reconciling Conversations

I really like the RMN focus on telling stories as we approach General Conference. I love stories: hearing them, telling them, and reading them. Even as someone who has participated in academic debate and who studies and teaches persuasion, I am convinced that stories are powerful for effecting positive change in people's hearts, minds, and lives--perhaps even more powerful than the best-written syllogism or the most rational and evidence-supported argument.

For this reason, I want to introduce a new term into the RMN lexicon. I don't downplay the importance of reconciling Sunday school classes, reconciling campus ministries, and reconciling congregations, but I contend that even more important than all of those are reconciling conversations. If a reconciling ministry is one that welcomes all people and works toward the full inclusion and dignity of all people into the life of the church, a reconciling conversation is an interpersonal exchange that does the same thing. By a reconciling conversation, I mean conversations where we tell people our stories. We tell people about our lives, our faith journeys, and our processes of discovering our sexuality and gender identity. As we tell these stories, we build relationships, and my hope is that as people come to know me, they realize that those stories--the story of my life, the story of my faith, and the story of my claiming my sexuality--are not incompatible at all. Conversely, they are interwoven, beautifully connected, each a fulfillment of the others.

I encourage you to have reconciling conversations. However you identify--LGBT, queer, straight ally, or no label at all--tell your story. As we tell these stories, the people who listen will develop an enlarged understanding of what people of faith look like. I continue to be amazed that I still meet people who have never heard someone say that God loves and accepts lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. When I have those kind of reconciling conversations, I feel at least two contradictory emotions simultaneously. On one hand, I am excited to have widened people's understanding. After all, when someone learns that she or he is not alone in the world, that makes a difference. On the other hand, I am profoundly saddened that in 20 or 40 or 60 years of life, the person across the table from me has never heard an affirming word about LGBTQ persons spoken by an individual of faith.

We may not all be members of reconciling congregations, but we all have the opportunity to engage in reconciling conversations. As we near General Conference and as we sort through the results of General Conference, let us be intentional about having reconciling conversations whenever we have the opportunity.