General Conference 2008

UMNS Audio Cuts: Young Adult Rally

Joey Heath talks about rejection as a member of the church because he is gay, and about Judicial Council decision 1032.
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Gay rights rally held across from the convention center. Report from Mike Hickcox. [Audio: Miriam, Shaun Delmorre, Joey Heath]
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UMNS: Rally urges inclusion regardless of sexual identity

According to the United Methodist News Service:

“Change is coming,” says one young adult leader who says The United Methodist Church is getting closer to welcoming everyone regardless of their sexual identity.

“Don’t worry; it will happen because nothing can stop the force of this generation,” said Rachel Birkhahn-Rommelfanger, chairperson of the United Methodist Student Movement.

Rachel Birkham-Rommelfanger speaks at a rally at First Christian Church. A UMNS photo by Maile Bradfield.

Birkhahn-Rommelfanger was among speakers who addressed more than 200 people gathered for a noon rally on April 26 to support inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons in the denomination.

The rally took place outside of the Fort Worth Convention Center, where the 2008 United Methodist General Conference is meeting April 23-May 2. The church’s top legislative body will decide policy for the denomination for the next four years and is expected to vote on legislation dealing with membership and ordination of homosexuals.

The church’s law book states “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. Therefore self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church.”

The Division on Young People, United Methodist Board of Discipleship, is sponsoring one resolution that asks the denomination to offer membership “to all who have been baptized and those who have professed their faith regardless of age, class, ethnicity, gender, race, and sexual orientation.”

“We are offering bold pieces of legislation,” said Theon Johnson III, co-chair of the division. “We are not called to do church but to be the church.”

Supporters of Reconciling Ministries Network march in downtown Fort Worth, Texas. A UMNS photo by Maile Bradfield.
Shalom Agtarap, a member of Young Adult Seminarians Network, Board of Higher Education and Ministry, asked the young people to remember that General Conference is a “family meeting.”

“How would you speak to your mother or your father?” she asked. “In our discussion, remember you are talking to members of the same family.”

“We all have a special interest in God’s justice,” said Bryan Schlemmer, coordinator of On Fire, a young adult group within the Methodist Federation for Social Action. “My salvation depends on your salvation.”

Young people drummed for 24 hours leading up to the noon rally. After the event, participants went inside the convention center and prayed outside of conference rooms as delegates worked on legislation.

Full story:
Rally urges inclusion regardless of sexual identity
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Young Adult March and Rally

MoSAIC and OnFire marched to General Worth Park to hear four speakers: Brian Schlemmer, Joey Heath, Mirriam Wood and Sean Delmore. "I have so many friends that will not come to church with me because they believe the church does not want them and God does not want them," Joey Heath told the crowd.  "If we are going to have policies like [Decision 1032], then we are going to have to stand before God and explain why we turned his children away," he continued.  Joey Heath is the young adult who was denied membership in a South Georgia Church he liked and wanted to join after graduation from college.  Heath told how he grew up in the church, at 11 was elected to the district youth council and then the conference youth council, then Wesley Foundation leadership.  When he came out at the Wesley Foundation, he was asked to step down from leadership.

Heath reminded the crowd that "John Wesley once said 'all the world is my parish.' We must be united in making all of the world our parish, including our lesbian, our gay, our bisexual, our transgender, our black, our white...our whatever!” These labels too often divide us and keep us from coming together as the body of Christ at his table.

Sean Delmar, a master's student and transgender person at Boston, on the deacon track, observed, "I see a church that is already doing what it is supposed to be doing.  Some of you have already heard my story, about how when I was in the midst of becoming a man and I did not know the love of Jesus, the local bishop's office reached out and said, 'how can we help you?' When I had no hope, this church reached out and said 'How can we love you?'"

If this church can find ways to do this kind of loving and welcoming, the young persons we so much want will begin to come back and transform this great church.

Photo Set

Video: Joey Heath

Video: Sean Delmore
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Video:  Mirriam Wood
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Video: Brian Schlemmer
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Young Adults Speak Out

Rachel Birkhahn-Rommelfanger, American University senior at the "Young Adults Speak Out" event yesterday emphasized "The generation is changing. We're in a different place and we want be listened to.  We would like the church to meet us where we are.  I know that it's hard to change, but I want you all to know that the change is coming.  Young people have chosen a future of hope: that all people will be welcome in our church today."

That was the theme of much of the witness of the young adults who spoke at the event, which started at First Christian Church and continued with a two-route march to the General Worth Park in front of the Convention Center.

Photo Set

Video: Rachel Birkhahn-Rommelfanger:

Video: Theon Johnson III:
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Video: Shalom Agtarap:
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Press Release: Young Methodists Speak Out At 24 Hour Drumming and Rally

RECONCILING MINISTRIES NETWORK – Mosaic Youth Network
3801 North Keeler Avenue, Chicago, IL 60641

Contact Persons:

Ann Craig, Media Coordinator
craig@glaad.org, 213-703-1365, cell

Rev. Troy Plummer, Executive Director
troy@rmnetwork.org, 773-315-9225, cell

Monica Swink, Board Chair
monicaswink@cox.net, 405-473-3942, cell

YOUNG METHODISTS SPEAK OUT AT 24 HOUR DRUMMING AND RALLY

Drums pulsed the air for 24 hours and culminated in a young people’s rally calling for the church to listen to the Gospel’s message of inclusion in the United Methodist Church as it votes on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender welcome at its General Conference. 

Every four years, elected delegates from around the world gather to set the policy of the church.  United Methodists have debated issues relating to sexual orientation for more than thirty years and the votes are gradually moving toward inclusion. 

The drumming intensified as young people and delegates gathered for a noontime rally in the General Worth park.  When the drumming stopped, young speakers went to the microphone.

Rachel Birkhahn-Rommelfanger said, “Young people have chosen a future of hope. That hope is that all people will be welcome.  Today we claim our voice, our future and our place in the church.  As the younger generation is elected to General Conference, it will change. It is changing. We have already accepted LGBTIQ friends and want to bring them to church; a church where they will be accepted for who they are.” Rachel Birkhahn-Rommelfanger is the co-chair of The United Methodist Student Movement.

Brian Schlemmer, coordinator of On Fire, a young adult group within the Methodist Federation for Social Action, reminded those in attendance “God’s yes is always bigger than the Church’s  no.”

The rally leaders led the way back to the convention center and prayed for the delegates as they returned to their meetings.  The General Conference will take most of its votes on these controversial issues midweek. 

Miriam Wood said, “It is time for The United Methodist Church, the church that I love, to include. I feel so strongly.  It will happen in my lifetime, and I will feel comfortable being called a United Methodist.”

Rev. Troy Plummer, executive director of RMN, reflected, “Young people know gay people and are leaving anti-gay churches.  The recent Barna research revealed that 80% of young people, 16-29, with church homes are embarrassed by anti-gay policies and reluctant to invite friends.  If United Methodist seek to have a vital church in the future in the US, they must pay attention!”

First Ever Young People's Address: "Many Voices, One Call"

As we enter MoSAIC's youth and young adult weekend, it is important that we listen to the voices of youth and young adults. The voices of young people rang out powerfully on Thursday as they addressed the 2008 General Conference for the first time. Here is the video of each person: 

Young People's Address: Kira Volkova
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Young People's Address: Annie Arnoldy
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Young People's Address: Andrew Craig
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Young People's Address: Rebecca Farnum
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Young People's Address: Matt Lockett
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Young People's Address: Jason Rathod
Windows Media | QuickTime

MoSAIC 24-Hour Drumming Circle

Friday evening when the young people held their 24- hour drumming circle, several self-identified Christians appeared to protest against LGBT people with signs and shouting. They attempted to exhibit superior understanding of the Bible and quickly escalated their attacks to denounce women with short hair and women in leadership positions.

Early in the evening, Reconciling parents formed a line between the groups facing in to the drums and joining in the faithful witness. For a time several young people engaged the protesters to divert the attacks and reduce the harm.

These folks were not United Methodists. But their actions are related to the same message we hear in the UMC when LGBT people are excluded from full participation in quiet ways… by votes, by inaction of friends, by silence, by being portrayed as “extreme” when we desire to belong at our local churches.

Homosexuality is not sin. We thank the young people for showing the path to authentic and exuberant welcome.

Photo Set

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

YouTube: Drumming Circle 1

YouTube: Drumming Circle 2

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Challenge of Campus Ministry Funding

“…no board, agency, committee, commission, or council shall give United Methodist funds to any gay caucus or group, or otherwise use such funds to promote the acceptance of homosexuality. The council shall have the right to stop such expenditures.”  ¶806.9

The above statement has always seemed strange to me. How does one promote the acceptance of homosexuality? If I buy rainbows for a worship service—is that promoting homosexuality?

Why is this promotion dangerous enough to ban. I have had many LGBTQ friends.  I love them and support them and share my life with them, and they share their life with me—does that mean that I am promoting homosexuality?  Is a lack of condemnation seen as promotion?

What does the larger, seemingly heterosexual church, have to gain by denying money, support and rights to a group of people?   Heteronormativity has already won out in society.  Only straight people can be married, and they are the ones predominantly seen on TV.  Heterosexuals have all the privilege and all the power.

In a faith where our Savior, Jesus Christ promoted over turning systems of privilege, how can we commend exclusion?  How can we promote or maintain that it is moral to continue the situations of oppression?

It was in the last year that this funding ban began to fully affect me as an individual and the place where I worshiped.  I work with the United Methodist Student Movement, and I had known that there I had to “be careful” about how we spent our money and what we did related to LGBTQ inclusion in our church. These words touched my life during the judicial council meeting. The issue was whether or not “reconciling” campus ministries could be funded by a UMC Annual Conference, since they were “promoting homosexuality” by being welcoming.

The thought of the church removing money from the important ministry of campus ministries hurt my soul.  I have seen so many students find the UMC and Christ in these campus communities. As a member of a reconciling campus ministry, I had seen my community welcome many new students. I have seen this used as an outreach to whole new groups of people.  Since we have become reconciling, reaching out to all people has become more important to our mission on campus.

During that judicial council meeting I was even more distressed by the church because we celebrated National Coming Out Day on my campus that week. During a worship service, we had a sermon about the need for inclusion in the church.  We lifted up the church in prayer as an institution that needed to healed from its hatred. In my 22 years of life it was the only one day I thought of leaving the United Methodist Church.

I had never known an institutional church denomination that was fully welcoming of LGBTQ persons (since I was born in 1986), and as horrible as it seems that hatred was one I have always known.  While I disagreed with the institution, it was part of the normalcy of being a United Methodist for me.

In a church where we talk so much about how we are aging, and dying, what good can it serve to push out our young adults by cutting funding to programs that serve them?  Young people are already marginalized by our church. By denying them funding for creating a community that is authentic to who they - who we are -  was painful. The hate seemed to be so deeply embedded in the church, that it would make more sense to push out young people than allow them to bring their friends.  That is all reconciling campuses do—allow all people to come to church.  The action reminded me a  wolf caught in a trap, who would rather chew off it's leg than die their from starvation.  In the case of the UMC cutting funding to campus ministries is how we predict our own death.

In that moment and amidst the frustration, as we prayed for the church, and for all those Coming Out across the nation,   I cried for the United Methodist Church. I prayed that the institution could understand that this practice of cutting funding based on prejudice and denying young adults authenticity, would not stop their belief in inclusion.  Rather it would only further alienate all young people, straight allies, and LGBTQ persons from the church of Jesus Christ, especially the UMC.

In the next moment I prayed a pray of joy and thanksgiving. The action of trying to "cut off" the reconciling campuses, only shows the success we are have achieved.  Shows that young people will take our church in a new direction, and already living out faith in a  radically new way.

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 Warren'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

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 Jessica'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