ordination – Salvaged Faith

No More Denial

Posted on May 13, 2012Leave a comment

Seventy five years ago, I probably would not have been welcomed in this pulpit. As a woman, ordination was out of the question. A combination of tradition and a patriarchal society and a way of reading the scriptures precluded the church from welcoming women as preachers and pastors.

But here I stand… robed, ordained, my calling from the Holy Spirit confirmed by the church.

As a young woman, I have always lived in a church that ordained women. I have always been a part of a church that valued the contributions women made in ministry, in leadership, and in the world. It has been a given.

And so it was a wake-up call to remember at General Conference this year that this church has not always welcomed everyone.

Of the many things we celebrated – one was the fortieth anniversary of Cosrow – the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women. CSRW has worked tirelessly these past forty years to make sure women have had a place in the church… and continue to work hard in places like Nigeria, Tanzania and the Congo to help the United Methodist Church there continue to affirm the calling of women in a culture that has traditionally been led by men.

We also had a time of celebration of full-communion with our African Methodist brothers and sisters. For students of history, the historically black Methodist denominations in our nation were formed out of discrimination and exclusion… beginning with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The AME Church was founded in 1816 by Richard Allen who left the Methodist Episcopal Church. At the time, black congregants were segregated to the second floor gallery and although the church affirmed his calling to be a pastor… Allen was only allowed to preach to and minister to other black Methodists.

After the AME Church came other Pan-Methodist denominations like the AME Zion church, the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Union Methodist Protestant Church and the Union American Methodist Episcopal Church.

Twelve years ago, the United Methodist Church repented of our acts of discrimination and exclusion towards our brothers and sisters and this year, we celebrated full-communion together. We now recognize one another’s churches, share sacraments, and affim the clergy and ministries of one another’s denominations.

I think that it is important to have this backdrop of our own exclusion, presumptions, and history of discrimination as we read our text from Acts for this morning.

You see, Peter has been sent on a missionary journey to the home of Cornelius… a gentile. A Gentile is a non-jew, someone who was not a part of the family of Israel, someone who was an outsider as far as the faith was concerned. Gentiles would not have been allowed into holy places of the Jewish temple. They were excluded because they were unclean. They were different. They were not welcome.

But while Peter is in this community, he has a vision of the clean and unclean joining together. He has a vision of a new sort of body of Christ. And when he goes to preach to Cornelius and his family, the Holy Spirit descends upon them and they recieve the gift of faith.

Peter’s world has just been turned upside down. Those he thought were outside of God’s love and power have just had it poured upon them. And exclaims: “These people have received the Holy Spirit just as we have. Surely no one can stop them from being baptized with water, can they?”

No one could deny their gifts. Water was brought and Cornelius and his whole family were baptized on the spot… they were part of the family of God.

I wonder if at various points throughout our history faithful folk stood up and exclaimed about women or people of color: These people have received the Holy Spirit… just like we did – How can we stop them from being baptized? How can we deny them a place at the table? How can we stop them from being ordained when God has so clearly spoken in their lives?

I wonder what kinds of upside down realizations helped people to reverse traditionally held views about who was outside of the call and power of God? John Wesley, the founder of Methodism was against women preaching in principle… until he witnessed the Holy Spirit working through the lives of women like Sarah Crosby, Grace Murry, and Hannah Ball. He relented and licensed them for preaching in the circuits across England.

And I wonder where we need to have our worlds turned upside down once again?

In a small community like Marengo, we are not exceptionally diverse. And so when we come to church we find a lot of people who look and think and talk like we do. Or at least it might appear that way.

When we dig deeper, we find that we are young and we are old. We are rich and we are poor. We are healthy and we are in need of healing. We have been educated by the streets and we have been taught in universities. We vote republican and we vote democrat. And yet, we have made room here in this place for all of this difference. God is good!

And yet, there are still people missing from our midst. There are still people in this community and in this world who either do not know that they are welcome here or who actively feel excluded from this community and from leadership in our church. Our sign outside might say, “All Welcome…” but do we truly live that out with our lives? And do we actively let people know with our words and our deeds that they truly can enter this building and be a part of our community? Do we go out into the world to discover where the Holy Spirit is active and moving in the hearts of children of God?

In our gospel lesson this morning, we are reminded that we have been chosen by God. We are friends of Jesus… but not because of anything special that we have done to deserve that recognition. No, God chooses who God wants. And as we look through history we find that God choose people like the murderer, Moses; the deciever, Jacob; the prostitute, Rahab; the tax collector, Matthew; and the super-religious, Saul.

In spite of our pasts, in spite of our present, in spite of where we were born or who we were born, God has chosen to love us. And God also chooses to love people outside of these four walls. The Holy Spirit is out there in the world right now moving among people in this community: parents with little kids; single moms; drug addicts; gays and lesbians; the elderly who are homebound; folks who partied too much last night; and people who don’t want to know Jesus Christ.

God is out there moving! It was the Holy Spirit that led our apostle Peter into the community of Caesarea and into the household of Cornelius. Cornelius may have been a Gentile, but God was moving in his life. Cornelius actively supported the local synagogue and Jewish ministries… even though he was not allowed in the Temple to worship like those who were born Jews.

God chose to speak through him. God chose to act through him. And Peter was the one who needed the wake up call to see that the Holy Spirit could move even outside of the traditional bounds of faith.

In his farewell message to his disciples, Jesus not only called them friends, but he also reminded them that they were sent. Sent out into the world to point to where the Holy Spirit is moving. Sent out into the world to love the people, to love the creation, and to bear the fruit of the gospel. And as we go, we need to remember that God can and does choose people who don’t look like us, talk like us, love like us, minister like us.

In May of 1956, the Methodist Church began to ordain women with the same full rights as men. And in May of 2012, the United Methodist Church voted to fully recognize and value the ordination and sacramental authority of men and women that our church had shut the doors to 200 years ago. And this General Conference, we began to make the first steps towards reconciliation with Native American brothers and sisters – who we as United Methodists have actively pushed to the margins of society.

As we experienced those acts of repentence at General Conference, my heart couldn’t help but wonder who we are leaving out today and are not yet ready to even admit… who are we still excluding? Who has God called while we remain in denial? May we have open eyes and open hearts and open minds to see the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the lives of people in this world. May we always be ready and willing to share this church and this ministry with all of those whom God has chosen. And together, as friends of God, may we all go into this world ready to bear the fruit of the Gospel.

what you may not realize about the loss of guaranteed appointment #gc2012

Posted on May 4, 201215 Comments

Tonight, my heart was stilled from its racing on the guaranteed appointment issue.

I have felt the both/and of a desire for a clear, mission process for appointments AND the deep desire to protect my brothers and sisters who might unfairly be discriminated against in the process where homophobia, sexism, and racism still exist. I was not of one heart on the issue. When asked how I would have voted on the floor had I been seated, I honestly could not answer… perhaps I would have abstained.

But tonight, a colleague of mine – Sean McRoberts – and I dove deep into the legislation to figure out what the actual implications are.

1) this is not a simple power given to the bishop or cabinet to dismiss you to ministry… there are checks and balances all throughout the process. According to the legislation we passed and the BoD, either a lack of missional appointment placement OR an ineffective pastor who is not appointed has to be approved by the Board of Ordained Ministry AND the clergy session. Someone who recieves the status of “transitional leave” must be voted on by the order and so as clergy, if we feel uncomfortable with this process, we need to remember that we have the ability to vote and support one another if the process/boom/cabinet is acting discriminatorily…

2) the appointive cabinet, Board of Ordained Ministry, and Clergy Session all have to agree for a person to move to transitional leave (it is a status change). Transitional leave has a two year maximum according to the discipline. A person cannot simply be returned to transitional leave again and again. If a person is being transitioned out of ministry due to ineffectiveness, that two years gives time for a process of healing, discernment, counseling, and new calling to occur. In Iowa, we currently have a three year process to counsel and support clergy who are ineffective so that they can either grow or discern a new calling.

3) some important work was done in the legislative committee. They added a requirement for accountability that says statistical reporting on the people put on transitional leave and/or appointed to a less than full time position (age, gender, race) has to be sent to the executive committee of the BoOM and the conference and jurisdictional committee on the episcopacy. Committee on Episcopacy should then include those statistics in the annual evaluation of the bishop. (we also approved at this general conference a switch from bi-annual to annual episcopal review).

Prior to this GC, bishops were not evaluated on their appointment making activities, only on the other areas of their ministry. If there were complaints, we could use administrative process to require remedial action and/or bring charges. This is still the case, only this way we have a process of statistical information to help evaluate if their are patterns, intentional or unintentional, that exclude persons from the table. The process already is in place for helping ineffective or discriminatory bishops transition out of ministry (we just never use it!)

4) there is an important addition, also from the legislative committee, that calls for a group of four laity, two clergy, a district superintendent and the bishop of the annual conference to determine annually criteria for missional appointment making. These criteria are then to be used by the cabinet in their process of discernment. This adds the voice of clergy and laity into the process.

So… with these four clarifications/implications… what do you think?

questions/implications re: Paragraph 304.3 #gc2012

Posted on April 28, 201212 Comments

This afternoon, the Faith and Order legislative committee passed an amendment to paragraph 304.3 in the Book of Discipline that discusses qualifications for ordained ministry. The change actually removes language that would bar a “self-avowed practicing homosexual” and removes language that talks about from service and instead inserts this language:

I have a LOT of questions about this amendment that I hope are discussed before we decide to pass this change.

1) Does this amendment refer to only ONE marriage, or does it leave open the possibility for someone to be remarried. As it stands, it talks about a marriage between a man and a woman and makes no comment on the reality of divorce and remarriage, remarriage after death, etc. Clearing up that question is important. We have many re-married clergypersons in our midst and if we are already concerned about the retirement tsunami in the next 10 years – this impact might be HUGE.

2) while our standards previously called for “fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness” (and still retains that language earlier in 304.2) there were no particular stipulations re: appointment for those who have failed to live out the highest of these standards. Clergy who today have committed adultery may have sanctions, but we leave room for forgiveness, repentance, etc. This language seems to preclude that by now including unfaithfulness in marriage (as well as co-habitation) in the list of things that will make a person ineligible for commissioning, ordination, AND appointment.

3) Point two leads to deeper questions if the answer to my first question is “only one marriage.” With the new language that is listed here, are clergy persons who have divorced and how have remarried not eligible for appointment?

4) What about sexual conduct outside of marriage that happened in the past? What if I was a wild child as a younger adult and have since matured and changed my ways… does this amendment preclude them from being a candidate for ministry? What if a person co-habitated before marriage? Does this amendment apply retroactively to their behaviors and now as an ordained elder or deacon mean they will not be appointed?

5) **thanks to folks who talked with me in person and in the comments here** WHAT IS SEXUAL CONDUCT?! genital sex? kissing? smouldering eyes at one another over a table? Lord help our unmarried younger clergy (which we are trying to recruit) if they have to constantly fear something they are doing might be construed as sexual conduct.

I could go on and on and on about questions and implications of the wording of this amendment… the language needs to be CLEARER or else it might have implications on our current clergy that we have not for seen.

On the other hand, I’m guessing that someone who would respond to some of my questions might see that little word “may” in the fourth line from the bottom. It says that those persons “may not” be certified, ordained, appointed. It doesn’t say “shall not.” It says “may not.” And that means that Boards of Ordained Ministry and the Appointive Cabinet can exercise judgment and flexibility and can leave room for grace and compassion and forgiveness.

And that is because legislatively speaking, “may” language is permissive language. It has flexibility. It leaves the question up to the person who is exercising judgment, rather than simply following a set, prescribed rule.

And actually, for friends of the LGBT community… that means it is a step in the direction of inclusiveness. Previously the paragraph read: “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.”

“Are not” is very different from “may not.”

Words matter.

Saturday night with the drag queens

Posted on January 5, 2011Leave a comment

Saturday night I had an awesome time helping my super best friend since fourth grade celebrate her impending nuptuials. AKA – Bachelorette Party!!!

If I had been wiser, I would have taken Sunday off as one of my vacation days… but I am saving one for this spring when her wedding actually occurs. As it was, I had to get up early, teach and preach the next morning. Yet I promised her sister when I wrote back to RSVP that I would be there, but that she could count on me for a designated driver.

As it worked out, I didn’t have to drive at all until the very end of the night. We had a blast stopping by the piano lounge, the downtown fieldhouse, and then making a stop at Club Basix. For those who are not familiar, Club Basix is known as a “gay club.” Which was more than obvious when we walked in the door and the drag show started.

Now, if I am being honest, I have been to more than a few drag shows in my day. We had them to raise money for the AIDS project of Central Iowa. We went to them in divinity school (as a lady… it is much more comfortable to dance at the gay clubs – less guys hitting on you all the time!) And now, I can say that I have been to one back home.

As someone leaned over and mentioned soon after it was getting started: Where else can these people go in Cedar Rapids? (more on that thought later)

The show itself had its highs and lows. There was one particular number that I was pretty appalled by… okay – it was raunchy and I had to turn away… but for the most part I enjoyed the experience. I think the best was a rendition of “Bad Romance” by a queen in mismatched pastel boots, gold knickers, a red tutu, rhinestone glasses and a tie-dye shirt… it was ah-mazing.

Later that evening, we were dancing and headed outside for a second for some fresh air. That particular queen was outside also and we struck up a conversation. My friend, Cara, had been called out at the end of the show because of our celebrations and so she was asked about the wedding. As she and I stood there, at one point, Cara replied – and she is marrying me!

It’s true. I am marrying her. Well, I’m doing the marrying. I’m doing the wedding… well, I’m a pastor – that’s what we do! However your phrase it.

So it came out that I was a minister. And not a “get a license over the internet person” who performs weddings for people who frequent establishments like Club Basix. (I was asked that.) But a genuine, ordained, main-line pastor. Out at a gay and lesbian night club at 1:30am on a Saturday night/Sunday morning.

And do you know where the conversation turned? To faith sharing. Our new friend shared with us that she was baptized Methodist. We talked for a bit about the places we came from. I was asked about gay marriage in Iowa and if I could perform those types of ceremonies. And she asked me to pray for her. And I will. I am.

My adventure at Club Basix began with a simple statement – where else can these people go in Cedar Rapids? And it ended with the realization that there are a lot of hurt and broken people in that building. Folks who have been shut out of families. Individuals who feel scared and alone. Friends who have built new families around one another… new communities of support because their churches turned them away.

What better place for a pastor to visit? What an amazing place to be able to talk, for even two minutes in the freezing cold outside, about the love of God? To leave my own comfort zone, to go and be there on their terms, to listen, and to just be Christ’s presence in that moment. There is no place that I would rather have been.

Both/And #reverb10

Posted on December 12, 2010Leave a comment

Being a fan of postmodern/emergent sorts of thoughts, I dig the “both/and.” Down with dichotomies. Yay for integration.

This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?

What an amazing question!

Looking back on the journey of this year, there are two moments that really stand out as moments when I moved past the artificial distinction between my spirit and body and really claimed the fullness of who God created me to be.

The first would be my ordination. So much of that day was surreal. It was so large and expansive and crowded and yet intimate and personal. My biological family and my church family came together to celebrate the day with me. And kneeling up there with my mentors pressed in close around me, with three bishops’ hands grabbing a hold of me, I felt bodily the spirit that is within me. “Take authority!” came the voice and the spiritual calling and the physical person became one. The feel of the linen cassocks, the brilliant reds of the stoles, the warmth of the hands, the weight, the smell of bodies and perfumes, the light, the word being proclaimed, the touch of the bible under my fingers… each of those experiences of my senses was intensely spiritual and holy.

The second moment is a bit more casual. At a training session for the church, five folks gathered together at lunch. We were lamenting the fact that we had rushed through the process and felt like we were fumbling. We had come up with a theme – a launching point – a framework – for this process we were leading the congregation through and it had flopped. It was forced. It didn’t work. And we let go of it.

We sat there at lunch, near the warmth of the fire blazing at Pictured Rocks Camp, and we let the Spirit take over. As we waited and listened and ate – we realized that eating is a spiritual discipline for our congregation. Food is holy. It brings us together. The physical and the spiritual are one. And when we got our own perspectives out of the way and made room for God it was amazing. We transformed our entire process during that half an hour.

it causes me to tremble…

Posted on June 6, 2010Leave a comment

Day two of our annual conference has completed. We have voted on exactly 7 items of legislation. And we have celebrated and praised and prayed and remembered and sung and danced and ate and hugged and sat and walked and listened.

Some brief highlights for me so far:

“Hi, I’m Fred.” Our “priest” for the conference introduced himself and welcomed us into a spirit of worshipful work and I truly have felt this particular time of conference has felt different because of it.
advocating for young adults at our legislative section and dreaming up possibilities for community college ministries
Rev. Doug Ruffle’s challenges to be a sign, a foretaste, and an instrument of the Kingdom of God…
crazy fast and delicious dinner at A Dong
even though clergy session was inhumanely long – it had a wonderful spirit to it as we gathered to worship (thanks clergy band!) and celebrate the ministry we share… and have good conversation about itinerancy
ordination!!!!!! being surrounded by family and church members and friends, the weight of all of those hands upon me, the feeling of the bible underneath my fingers, singing with joy
the reminders throughout the day of the gift of the scriptures: Bishop Kulah talking about Jesus expounding the scriptures; Barbara Lundblad’s take on radical love enfleshed in John’s gospel (love that bends down, that reaches beyond, that puts people before rules, that is here in this moment, that renews itself as soon as you think it has ended); Bishop Job sharing what a day, a year, a decade’s worth of living in the word can do for our lives; a friend’s amazing rendition of a song from the musical Philemon during prayer;
the Rethink Rock video
the voices of young adults who stood to speak out of love for what they care about on the floor.
sharing deeply with one another truths about things that have hurt us… so that we might give them over to God.
our conference artist’s work… and the poetic description of what God is sharing with us through it. The idea of being baptised into the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ being symbolized by a font filled with shards of glass… of chairs of hospitality inviting us to take our seat… the challenge that being radically hospitible brings… of the chair on the cross being an invocation – asking for God to enter our lives.

I’m being ordained!!!

Posted on May 4, 20103 Comments

For two and a half years, I have been serving a congregation faithfully as a provisional elder in the United Methodist Church. And on June 6, I will be ordained at our Iowa Annual Conference and I will become an elder in full connection.

This whole process started back in 2002, when I was a junior in college. The process is fairly long, with a lot of hoops to jump through, but each one of them are designed to help provide me and other candidates with encouragement and to help us to clarify our calling.

When I began the process, for example, I felt I was being called to ministry as an ordained deacon. Deacons are focused more on servant ministry and while sometimes they are found in churches (as Christian Educators or Music Ministers), they are often found in places other than the church. They can be teachers or doctors or nurses or lawyers or therapists – their calling is to connect the church with the world.

So I went through the “red book” and was assigned a mentor. And together we sorted our way through the “blue book” – a spiral bound monster of a book that talks about biblical history, asks you to examine your family and your culture.. When I completed that study I became an inquiring candidate for ministry.

Then came the “purple book.” My mentor and I continued to discern and refine my calling and I knew that seminary was in my future. So I became a certified candidate for ministry, approved by the Pastor-Parish Relations committee of my home church, and headed off to Nashville in 2004.

For those who want to be ordained, a masters degree in divinity (or theological studies for deacons) is a requirement. At Vanderbilt Divinity School, I still planned on becoming a deacon and was trying to figure out what that might look like. But my experiences serving a church and especially participating in the sacraments led me to realize that my true calling was to be ordained as an elder.

The next step in the process was to be commissioned. I submitted a written exam, a bible study that I had prepared and video taped sermons that I had presented in Nashville. And then I had an interview with a team from the Board of Ordained Ministry here in Iowa. In 2007, I was commissioned as a provisional elder in the United Methodist Church and when I graduated that December from seminary, I came here to Marengo!

According to our Discipline, I must be in residency for at least two years before I can be fully ordained as an elder. So that is what these past two and a half years have been for me. I have learned so much from you and I couldn’t have asked for a better placement. This past December I submitted again a written exam and examples of my preaching and teaching (which totaled 40 pages!) and on April 8th I was approved for ordination.

So what comes next? What changes now that I am being ordained?

Nothing! Absolutely nothing. God willing, I will remain serving my church in the same capacity that I have been. There are a few things that I will get to do, like serving the sacraments outside of my congregational context, but for the most part, I will continue doing what I have been all along.

And I am so excited to jump through that last hoop =)

the Christian journey

Posted on January 17, 2010Leave a comment

How do you understand the following traditional evangelical doctrines: a) repentance; b) justification; c) regeneration; d) sanctification? What are the marks of the Christian life?

Whenever I think of the Christian life, a quote I heard Anne Lamott give (whether or not it actually originated with her) comes to mind: God loves you just the way you are… and loves you too much to let you stay there. The Christian faith journey is just that – a journey, a process of discovering our true selves as created by God. In many ways, these four doctrines are lacking because they don’t acknowledge one that must precede them – God’s prevenient grace that allows us to see our need for repentance. The wonder of God is that the instant we recognize our sinful state is the same moment justifying grace is extended to us; in acknowledging our sin we are given grace by which we can be transformed. This begins a lifelong process of growth and transformation and practice and mistakes and setbacks and return to God for forgiveness and renewal and going on to perfection that makes the Christian life.

We can see evidence of that growth through the three very basic and simple virtues – faith, hope, and love. Working on these papers, a quote was shared with me from Teresa Fry Brown that claims, “Hope hearing the song of the future. Faith is the courage to dance to it.” I would add that love is inviting others to take your hand and join in. We were created for relationship with God and with the rest of creation. Unless we are willing to take a leap of faith and actively participate in the transformative love of God, unless we are willing to have hope in the promise that all of creation will be renewed, we are denying the precious gift we have been given and continue to be in need of God’s grace.

Photo by: Stephen Eastop