Called, Part 2

Several years ago I was asked to mentor four young adults who had been approved as certified candidates for ministry by their local church. I had been invited to help them as they prepared to go before DCOM and continue their pursuit of ordained ministry within the United Methodist Church. It was truly a joy to work with these men and women who were answering God’s call on their lives.

I vividly remember one young man who had just started seminary. He was so full of the Spirit! He was a life-long Methodist who had actively served in his church all his life. His fruitfulness was already evident, his passion for Christ was clear, and his desire to serve God’s Church was sincere.

I am sure he would be ordained today if it were not for the fact that he is gay. His calling by God was so strong that he was willing to remain celibate so he could serve God in the United Methodist Church.[1] But the DCOM said no. The Church said no. The Church told him: No matter how clear God’s calling is in your life – no matter how fruitful your ministry has already been – you cannot be ordained. Sadly, he dropped out of the candidacy program and he dropped out of seminary.

This young man is so faithful to the United Methodist Church. Today he still serves in his local church as a lay person. He continues to do great work for God. But I wonder about all the other young people who feel called by God and say nothing to anyone because of their sexual orientation. I wonder about those who leave their home churches to pursue ordination in a different denomination, or who simply leave the church altogether.

I am thankful for my time with this young man because he forced me to recognize my personal fears and biases. I had to wrestle with my own understanding of Scripture and Tradition. My experience with him led me to spend much time in prayer. I wondered: When God’s calling is so evident, who am I to say no? Who are we to say no?

If God is calling a person to ordained ministry, it is good for the Church to verify that calling. If the Church sees a clear calling in someone’s life, the fruits of that calling are abundantly evident, and a person meets all of the other requirements for ordination, should gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, or any other distinguishing marker keep a person from answering God’s call?

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[1] Our Book of Discipline requires “celibacy in singleness and faithfulness in marriage” for all ordained clergy. As someone who could not be married, he chose to be celibate.

Called, Part 1

In the United Methodist Church, a calling to ministry starts in the local church. Once a congregation has affirmed a clear call to ministry in a person, he or she becomes a certified candidate and moves to the district level where the District Committee on Ordained Ministry (DCOM) asks probing questions and looks for fruitfulness in ministry. Candidates who are approved by DCOM move on to the conference level and the Board of Ordained Ministry (BOOM) where the questions are more challenging, the requirements more stringent, and fruitfulness must be clearly evident.

I had graduated from seminary and been approved by DCOM when I was appointed as the pastor at Saxapahaw United Methodist Church in 2010. I was ordained in 2014, following four years of theological reflection with colleagues, hours upon hours of reading and writing (and re-writing) papers, and the daily work of prayer, reflection, and spiritual growth.

The reason I share this background information is because one of the questions before us as we explore the future of the United Methodist Church has to do with ordination.  I’m ordained today, as a woman, because in 1956, after decades of disagreements, The Methodist Church granted full clergy rights to women. Sadly, even now, 63 years later, many local Methodist churches struggle to accept that God could call a woman to ordained ministry.

I’m thankful for the men, both clergy and lay, who looked past gender back in 1956 and affirmed a woman’s call to ordination. I also recognize that there are still many denominations – from the Roman Catholic Church to the Southern Baptist Convention – that still do not affirm the ordination of women. They turn to scriptures like 1 Corinthians 14:33 which says, “Women should be silent in the churches,” to support their position.

As Methodists, while we affirm the authority of Scripture, we also know that texts like this one were written in a particular time and place to address a particular situation. So we turn to the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, reading Scripture through a broad lens and balancing our understanding of Scripture with Tradition, Experience, and Reason.

This practice led to the ordination of women in 1956. Today I wonder if it isn’t time for us to use this same practice to look past sexual orientation and affirm that God calls people from all walks of life to ordination.

Humpty Dumpty

July 3, 2019

I feel like I’ve been dropped, like an egg. Cracked open. Messy. And it isn’t just me. It is the United Methodist Church that I love. Pieces everywhere. Like Humpty Dumpty, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men will not be able to put us back together again. And I wonder what is next.

On the one hand, I am delighted that Annual Conferences across the Southeast have spoken boldly against the Traditional Plan. Forty-one of forty-two delegates from the North Carolina Conference are progressives and centrists. We have clearly voted to affirm our belief that Christ’s Table is open to all. We have maintained our conviction that our diversity makes us stronger. We are unified in our belief that the hurtful language around homosexuality in the Book of Discipline needs to be removed. I praise God for this as we now wait and see what will happen at General Conference 2020.

On the other hand, I stepped out of a session of Annual Conference for just a few minutes and saw a colleague of mine talking with two other colleagues. This particular pastor played an important role in shaping my understanding of small group ministries. Years ago he led a workshop that prompted me to visit his church and see his small groups in action. We spoke on several occasions as he shared his knowledge and ideas. His passion for Jesus Christ was evident and I learned a great deal from him. But he didn’t acknowledge me at Annual Conference. I could see the pain on his face – the voting was not going the way he wanted it to. Seeing him made my heart ache. It reminded me of the pain I felt when General Conference 2019 embraced the Traditional Plan. Broken. Cracked open. In pieces on the floor.

John Wesley stated in his General Rules, “First, do no harm.” Well, harm has been done to all. We’ve created winners and losers instead of one body. We have taken steps that will divide us. As I continue to share stories and raise questions, I wonder: How is God inviting us to reach out to those who interpret scripture differently from us? How is God calling us to move forward faithfully, as individuals and as a congregation? How is God working in us to pick up the pieces and create something new?