Embodying Hospitality in Public Witness, Allendale UMC Seeks to Build a New Kind of Faith Community

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ST. PETERSBURG, Florida – If only two words were allowed to describe Allendale United Methodist Church, those words would have to be "extravagant welcome."

From a parking lot sign bearing its welcome statement through the sanctuary walkway festooned with flags of alliance with multiple groups, Allendale exudes hospitality. According to its members, that's the congregation's primary purpose: to extend to everyone the love that Jesus taught – especially to people that The United Methodist Church and its predecessors have harmed.

Allendale UMC had become known for its public witness to inclusion even before the Rev. Andy Oliver, a noted activist pastor, was appointed in 2016. The church has engaged both church and society through acts of "table turning" reminiscent of Jesus clearing moneychangers from the temple. And like Jesus, Allendale has taken plenty of heat for its stances, from church complaints against its pastor for performing same-sex weddings to a citizen's request for the Internal Revenue Service to audit the church's tax-exempt status.

Allendale's members assert that a single motivation spurs its witness: its deep-seated spiritual conviction that Allendale's radical hospitality follows Jesus' teachings to love God and neighbors unconditionally. Its website tagline describes the church as "a community of seekers, followers, and doubters."

Some United Methodists could see Allendale as an example of what they fear the UMC is becoming as disaffiliation tears apart the U.S. church. Cameron Helwege, the church's creative director, confirmed at that least one church in South Georgia has used video clips from Allendale in disaffiliation efforts.

"While many churches are bogged down with disaffiliation turmoil going on, Allendale is just going to continue doing ministry," Helwege said in a follow-up email. "That's one of my favorite things about working here. We're just 'go, go, go!'"

A riot of color and noise

Allendale's Sunday worship pulses with a riot of color and noise.

Tattoo-bedecked people with multiple piercings and brightly dyed haircuts assemble for worship wearing "Florida-formal" attire of walking shorts and T-shirts emblazoned with political slogans that would outrage some churchgoers. Many in the congregation bear silver-gray hair and walking canes while half a dozen children play with "toys that don't make noise," explained Theresa Frost, director of student ministries.

Like most United Methodist congregations, Allendale suffered significant disruption from the coronavirus pandemic; the church's communal activities are only now recovering. Nonetheless, Allendale measures well by the traditional church metric of worship attendance. A recent Sunday showed 74 people present in person, with 183 worshipers participating online. Not much by megachurch standards, but a healthy post-COVID showing for a lot of United Methodist congregations.

Also like most United Methodist congregations, Allendale offers familiar opportunities for study and socializing. A usual Wednesday night dinner was cancelled April 26 so members could participate in a fund-raising trivia night, "Brews and Brains," to benefit one of its ministries. Five small groups ranging from scripture study to political organizing were offered during the end-of-service announcement time. A certificate posted on a hallway bulletin board attests that Allendale's unit of United Methodist Women (now known as United Women in Faith) logged 100 percent giving to all five streams of UMW's missions.

Still, it's Allendale's hospitality and social witness that attract and keep people joining its community, said members and staff. Frost illustrated Allendale's complex personality and the paradoxes of faith and life in her April 23 sermon on Psalm 116.

"Hope and sorrow are two sides of the same coin," Frost preached.

"There's no way to ignore the pain the psalmist wrote, nor the pain we see in our world today. God can still be good, and you feel bad. God can hear your cries, and you (still) can feel alone in your tears.

"You can believe in the Resurrection and still feel grief on Good Friday," she continued. "You can believe in a God of liberation and live in a state like Florida under a governor who chooses to do harm, who chooses to silence those who oppose him, a governor that targets our trans siblings, takes away the rights of our own bodies, censors librarians and teachers ... further marginalizing our Black and Brown siblings by holding up white supremacy for his own well-being ... we live under a governor who has created a state of sorrow."

Stranded, then hired

Allendale members confirmed the lively, challenging community.

Two years later, Dames calls himself Allendale's "organizing musician" because the church has reawakened his passion for community organizing. He's now pursuing a degree in the speciality at the University of South Florida.

"A lot of people come to Allendale because it seems like a very political church," Dames said during an interview in the church office. "Yes, Allendale engages with issues, like local and federal elections, and the state of our two-party system right now. But Allendale also is a church that organizes and cares for social justice from the perspective of meeting people's actual material needs.

"(Pastor) Andy even stood in the gap and offered to teach AP African American studies and have classes here at the church," he continued. "So, it's not just protests and going to legislators and begging for change; it's actually taking care of the community right in front of us. You don't find that a lot in the non-profit world these days; you're either doing food pantries or working on the state level."

Allendale has managed to "meet in the middle," the church musician continued. "I never tire of it. I'm always motivated because we're working on the micro scale and the macro scale and there's freedom to move along that spectrum. I feel like there's something for everyone."

While many people might be overwhelmed by the political turmoil of extreme right-wing politics engulfing the Sunshine State right now, Dames said Allendale offers an antidote to despair.

"It's hard to be discouraged at Allendale," Dames told Insight.

Skeptical, then welcomed

Erica George knows what it's like to have her identity and rights questioned and rejected. Last fall, Pastor Oliver married Erica and her partner Michaela at Allendale. Subsequently, a complaint was lodged against Oliver for violating the UMC's ban on performing same-sex marriages; the complaint is being held in abeyance until after the 2024 General Conference.

George told Insight that the knowledge that someone complained about their wedding once would have made them angry, but now they feel sadness because Allendale offers "such an expression of love."

"I came to Allendale in August of 2018," said George. "I grew up in the church my whole life. I went to an Assemblies of God university, and I realized I was queer in my junior year. Not an easy realization about myself.

"I came out in 2016 and I lost a lot of the community that I had and really was not in church. Not because I didn't find a lot of value in Jesus or the Christian faith that I believed in but because I didn't have a spiritual community where I could be my authentic self and be affirmed," they said.

George said when they attended the 2018 Pride parade in St. Petersburg, they saw Allendale's worship leader at the time "in the back of her yellow convertible Mustang dressed as Jesus holding a sign that said, 'Jesus Is Cool.'

"I was so baffled by it – why would a church be at a Pride parade?" George said.

George joked that they "stalked" the church's website for two months before getting up the courage to visit. After observing as a "more of a 'back-row Baptist' than I'd ever been," they came back and "brought seven of my friends."

Now George chairs Allendale's staff-parish relations committee and happily announced April 23 that Oliver will be appointed there for another year.

Dismayed, then drawn in

Amy Bordeaux, whom George said was the "flower girl" at their wedding, said she and her husband were dismayed when the "little bit progressive" leadership at their Nazarene church was pushed out.

"We were really hurting," Bordeaux said. "We lost our entire social system."

While attending a non-denominational church first as "pew-sitters," Bordeaux and her husband Bruce began working with the church's young adults.

We were having great conversations, but we found we were having to monitor what we said," she explained. "People would take what we said and say, 'This isn't what your church believes,' and that was really hard for us."

The 2017 white supremacy demonstrations in Charlottesville, Va., that resulted in the death of a protester, frightened Bordeaux's husband, Bruce, who urged her to stop attending protests.

"Then he heard Andy speak and we couldn't figure out why this man hadn't been run out of town," Bordeaux said. "That was on a Saturday, and on Sunday morning we were on our way to our church and instead we turned off the interstate and came to Allendale. That was just over five years ago."

Bordeaux said her love of teen-agers and young adults keeps her engaged at Allendale.

"I can love absolutely everyone without having to have any sort of 'but...'" Bordeaux said. "I've always loved teen-agers. Coming here and meeting these kids who don't have a supportive family, who have either disowned them or 'I love you but ...' and I just love them all so much."

Bordeaux said that Allendale's reputation with some as "too political" fails to acknowledge the biblical reality that Jesus' ministry was political.

"I don't think people understand that what we're doing is what Jesus would have done," she said. "What we're doing all falls under the word 'love' and it doesn't matter who you are, at all."

Bordeaux and Allendale's creative director Cameron Helwege laughed at Bordeaux's assertion that the church's members "aren't crazy."

"Yes, we are," said Helwege. "We make people uncomfortable."

"Yes, that's it," agreed Bordeaux. "We make people uncomfortable, and that's a good thing."

Veteran religion journalist Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011 as a media channel for marginalized and under-served voices in The United Methodist Church. Insight Associate Editor John Astle contributed to this article.