LGBTQ United Methodists Share Disappointment, Healing and Hope with Indiana Bishop

by

Special to United Methodist Insight

INDIANAPOLIS – A panel of eleven LGBTQ United Methodists from several area churches agreed that they were disappointed, heartbroken and some angry over the decisions of the 2019 General Conference of The United Methodist Church in St. Louis last month. Their negative feelings about what happened were sometimes raw as they talked about the church they love which, in their words, continues to discriminate against them.

These feeling came out during this first public conversation between Indiana Bishop Julius Trimble and eleven panel members in a 90-minute event billed as “Coming Out in Faith.” St. Luke’s United Methodist Church hosted the event here Wednesday, March 20. Seana Murphy, an Africa-American lesbian woman, moderated the discussion. More than 300 people attended the event and another 600 watched on livestreamed video from the church’s website.

Reformation or revolution

When asked if the church needed a reformation or a revolution, most panelists answered that the church needs a reformation. They said they believed in social justice for all persons and that we have to change. One expressed it as “living into something greater,” that is the full inclusion of LGBTQ United Methodists in the life of the church.

When asked if the church needed to split, most agreed that “when we are together, we are better than when we are apart.” They also agreed that we need to be building a spiritual community.

They all agreed that The United Methodist Church needs to change in the way it deals with LGBTQ people. Most said that many United Methodists have no contact with gays and lesbians and that LGBTQ members need to take the initiative to be more active in their contact with others than they have been in order to break down the barriers.

One said, “If we are the Body of Christ, we need to know each other and listen to each other.” Another said, “We need to love each other.”

One woman said she had been a ministerial student at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill. several years ago and was afraid she would be found out as a lesbian. She said, “I felt like a wreck.” She left seminary and ended up being a middle school teacher, but now feels God calling her again.

“I can’t have someone telling me that God isn’t calling me,” she concluded.

She later said that at four o’clock one morning, it all stopped. “And I actually read the words: ‘I am with you’.” Now she plans to take the next steps toward ordination. She said, “What that means is that God is responsible for healing me. Now it’s my responsibility to help God heal other people... If God is with me, then I need to be with you.”

Taking action

When it came to talking about responsibility of standing up for LGBTQ people and taking action, one man said, “having these conservations is never fun and never easy.” Referring to his pastor, he said, “If I died here today, (my pastor) would bury me out of that hall, but he will not marry me out of that hall. And if you’re going to bury me out of that hall, you can marry me out of that hall.” The audience gave an extensive applaud. (Pastors in The United Methodist Church are not permitted to officiate at a same-gender weddings. United Methodist churches cannot hold same-gender weddings.)

When asked about the actions of General Conference and a need for a different outcome, Bishop Trimble said he had hoped for a different outcome for the final vote. He counseled, “It’s been said that we should never waste a good crisis… Many people have said, I’m staying in the church. I’m not going to leave the church. I’ve stated that myself.

“It’s not a perfect church and it’s not a perfect country. I’m not going to leave it; and I’m not going to leave it alone. That’s the message I’ve heard consistently since General Conference. To those persons who may have felt they do need to leave, I believe we need to respect that as well… I would appeal for people to stay and help to be the church God wants it to be and you would want the church to be,” he said.

Path to healing

In a final question, Murphy asked, “What is the path to healing? What does it look like?”

One said he felt like the church was hijacked by a lot of people who are fearful and that we need to express ourselves as a community. “We need to be heard.” He then thanked the Bishop for being so courageous in Indiana, to which the audience applauded.

Another said, “It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to feel like giving up. It’s okay to feel reformation may not be the way and maybe revolution is the way we need to go… I feel like I’ve been marginalized too long. We need to be patient with each other and to love each other.”

One reminded the group that John Wesley said, “do all the good you can do, in all the places you can do… If we can do that together. That’s what we need in our lives. Because if that’s not in the conversation, you are stuck. As united people, we have to come together.”

Another stated that like Wesley, “we need to take our hearts and set them on fire… Building a community through love is how you start the (healing) process.”

“We need to make the church a place for all people. If not, then we’re not healed.” another commented.

A lesbian woman who described herself as a sixth generation Methodist who left ordained ministry said, “Healing has to come first with the confirmation of my call (to ministry).”

Another said, “I’m not ready to heal, I’m still ready to fight for my kids… They are so straight. But the energy I get from them is that they want to fight. And I want to fight with them.”

A final response: “If we can’t be in ministry to all, what are we doing? We have to organize and not be ashamed of who we are. We have to organize; we have to move forward. Healing isn’t going to happen until change happens, because there are too many open wounds. We need to organize and we need to organize quickly. Because 2020 is going to be here before we know it.”

When asked if he would bring a pastor to trial if the pastor performed a same-sex wedding, Bishop Trimble said that he still needs to uphold the Discipline of the church and that a pastor would still have to face the consequences for such action.

The evening concluded with all joining hands and singing “Draw the Circle Wide” by Mark Miller.

The idea for the public discussion came from Bishop Trimble less than two-weeks ago. He asked Jason Fishburn-Grooten, a choir director at Roberts Park United Methodist Church, an open-and-affirming congregation in downtown Indianapolis, to organize the event. Trimble said he felt like he was led to do this conversation by the Holy Spirit. Participants included: Avery Schoot-Ally, Ashton Henderson, Albert Hidalgo, Alisa Isaacs-Bailey, Meg Jones, Fran Leath, the Rev. Richard Moman (a retired gay pastor), Skyler Nimmons, Tim Rankin Barker and Rick Sutton.

Daniel R. Gangler is a retired United Methodist communicator who lives in Indianapolis. In February before the 2019 General Conference, he was inducted into the United Methodist Association of Communicators Hall of Fame.