From Impassioned Plea to Pastoral Care:

by

Special to United Methodist Insight

Like many young adult delegates who were elected in what seems like a lifetime ago — before the pandemic — my status has now changed from lay to clergy, and I will no longer be a voting delegate to General Conference. While this change is a great joy — I was commissioned as a Provisional Member on the Elder track in the New England Conference last June — it has also been something to grieve. For years, I prepared with my fellow delegates for this postponed General Conference, read over legislation, and looked forward to be, as the Hamilton musical says, “in the room where it happens.” Ever since General Conference 2019 and my impromptu speech, which placed me alongside a community of Spirit-filled advocates working tirelessly to midwife new life for our denomination, I’ve had the deep joy of visiting churches around the UM Connection. What began as an impassioned plea for LGBTQIA+ inclusion from my own experience as a gay candidate for ministry on a secular undergraduate campus, has unfolded into a ministry of care for the very people our denomination has excluded.

This year, while I won’t be at General Conference or voting delegate, I believe that all United Methodists around the Connection still have a role to play. Each of us can offer support and community during this charged and isolating time. In the aftermath of GC2019, I began gathering a group of young LGBTQIA+ United Methodists to say, “Even though our denomination officially voted — by a very slim margin — to exclude us, we’re already here. How can we support and empower one another now to live into the Church we know God is calling forth in the near future?” This group eventually became Young Prophets Collective (YPC), a 501(c)3 nonprofit in May, 2021, with the mission of “Equipping and empowering a global community of young LGBTQIA+ religious leaders and allies for liberation.” Through leadership development cohorts with young adults from across the U.S., Kenya, Uganda, and Australia, and now through a virtual new faith community, we’re creating space for LGBTQIA+ United Methodists and non-UMs — many of whom are in the candidacy process — to reconnect with their faith, find affirming community, and reclaim what it means to be church in such a time as this. Thanks to the abundant grace of God and prophetic conference leadership, YPC is now supported by the United Methodist Foundation of New England with a three-year grant to help us continue to tend to those the church has harmed by developing our online faith community, “Church of the Young Prophets.” This new faith community meets for worship in a virtual campus we designed on a platform called Gather, shares life with one another through a Discord server, and engages a broad community of folks through a growing Instagram account.

Virtual Community & Care During General Conference

While many of us UMs won’t be physically in Charlotte, I believe deeply that we still have a role to play in this historic moment. YPC has partnered with Reconciling Ministries Network, Resist Harm, and the Love Your Neighbor Coalition to open our virtual church campus on Gather during General Conference for LGBTQIA+ persons and allies around the world. Church of the Young Prophets will be open on Tuesday, April 23 from 12 - 3pm and 7 - 10pm ET, and then from Friday, April 26 to Friday, May 3 from 9am - 10pm ET (with a sabbath on Sunday). We will have volunteers ready and available simply to be present with one another as we process, lament, and celebrate the events of this GC, and also for dedicated one-on-one pastoral care and counseling from a team of chaplains. More information is available on YPC’s website, and a step-by-step tutorial for navigating our virtual church campus is available here.

Gratitude to My Elders: An Intergenerational Journey

As I walked along the balcony of GC2019 (more like "as I paced with frustration"), I bumped into an older woman with a rainbow stole that peaked through her long grey hair. She looked at me and said, “You know, I’ve been coming to these things since I was your age — and I’ll continue to come to them and advocate for as long as it takes.” In that moment I saw a version of what my life could be — would I be standing here at the railing of a General Conference grey-haired convicted, yearning for a Church that no longer excluded persons based simply on sexual orientation? Would I have to look into the face of a young queer person and say, "I know it’s difficult, but we’re working on it”? Would I have the endurance to run a race that long? Even the memory exhausts me. We stand at the precipice of new day in United Methodism because we’re also standing on the shoulders of giants — of our queer and trans elders and allies who showed up and put their bodies and credentials on the line so that one day anyone who feels a call to ministry or desires for their relationship to be blessed by the church that raised them wouldn’t even have to ask the question, “Is this for me too?” “Am I allowed here?” “Will this community support me?” I give thanks for the grey-haired prophets of past and present who not only got us to where we are today, but continue to advocate alongside a new generation of leaders as together we call the Church back into our Wesleyan heritage where grace ruled over rules, where solidarity took the Methodists to places and people the church deemed unworthy, and into a faith that is nourished equally through deep spiritual practices and intersectional acts of mercy. This is what it means to Be UMC, and I am so grateful, as we approach this postponed General Conference, that I have learned what it means to be UMC from the folks among us who, like Wesley, placed themselves in solidarity with the oppressed of our time. 

With deep gratitude on this journey,

Rev. J.J. Warren (he/him)

The Rev. J.J. Warren is a provisional member in the New England Conference and the author of Where Two or Three are Connected and Reclaiming Church.