Author: Sharei Green

The following is the press release issued in joyful anticipation of the ordination of Proclaim member and ELM board member, Asher O’Callaghan.

Asher O’Callaghan will be ordained Thursday, July 2, 2015 in Denver, Colorado to serve the Rocky Mountain Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA).

O’Callaghan is the first openly transgender person to be ordained through the regular process of the ELCA. Other openly transgender pastors were ordained prior to 2009 and outside the regular process of the ELCA. The ELCA voted in 2009 to ordain partnered gay and lesbian persons opening the door to widen the acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) people in ministry (see http://www.cbsnews.com/news/lutherans-to-allow-gays-in-clergy/). O’Callaghan has been called by Zion Lutheran Church in Idaho Springs, Colorado to serve as their pastor.

O’Callaghan is a member of Proclaim, an active community of nearly 200 Lutheran pastors, rostered lay leaders and seminarians who publicly identify as LGBTQ. Proclaim is a program of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, a social ministry organization that supports publicly-identified LGBTQ pastors, seminarians, and their ministries.  O’Callaghan currently serves on the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries Board of Directors.

From Amalia Vagts, executive director of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries: “What a joyful day for Zion Lutheran, for the Rocky Mountain Synod, and for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America! Asher is exactly the kind of person that our church needs. His gifts for ministry and his witness as a transgender person continue to proclaim a message that God welcomes, loves, and calls all people.” Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries is a social ministry advocating for LGBTQ pastors and their congregations.

From Reverend Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastor of House for All Sinners & Saints: “Asher O’Callaghan has a fierce and practiced belief in grace.  He is an amazing theologian, an empathic caregiver and a true believer in the Gospel.  For these reasons and many others, I celebrate his ordination with great joy.  The Lutheran Church is about to receive a gifted, passionate pastor.”

From Asher O’Callaghan: “I’m thrilled to be getting ordained to be a pastor and leader within the church I love. The ELCA, Zion Lutheran, and House For All Sinners and Saints have helped to show me that we truly are living in a new day. The Church is changing: There’s no need to choose between living life as your fullest self and belonging to a community of faith. For transgender people, this means that there are congregations who will affirm, respect, and celebrate our faith and our gender identities.”

Zion Lutheran Church in Idaho Springs, Colorado is a small but mighty congregation with a strong sense of community. They’re going through a period of revitalization and have a good mix of ages, single people, and families. Zion Lutheran has been a Reconciling in Christ congregation for several years, which means they intentionally welcome LGBTQ people. Idaho Springs is a small, mountain town located about one hour from Denver.

The ordination service is scheduled for 7pm on Thursday July 2nd at House For All Sinners and Saints (which worships at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, located at 2201 Dexter Street, Denver, CO, 80207). Bishop Jim Gonia of the Rocky Mountain Synod of the ELCA will preside and Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber will preach.

Asher uses the pronouns him/he/his.

 

Guest blog by Malina Keaton, member of ELM’s Ministry Engagement Team

ELM’s Ministry Engagement program connects congregations allied with ELM’s mission. Team member Malina Keaton has recently been interviewing some of these congregations to find out what makes them so, well, extraordinary! We begin, of course, with St. Francis Lutheran.

Nestled in the Castro District of San Francisco California, St. Francis Lutheran Church has long been involved in the gay rights movement with early ministry of the church centering around outreach to congregants and their families during the height of the AIDS crisis. As a significant portion of the community was impacted, the church served as a bridge for Lutheran families grappling with deaths of their brothers, cousins, or friends and looked to St. Francis for support.

At around the same time, the church decided that it was important to have LGBTQ pastors and hired a lesbian couple to minster to the congregation (Revs. Ruth Frost and Phyllis Zillhart). Due to the ELCA’s previous policy of mandated celibacy for openly gay pastors the church was removed from the roster of congregations for twenty years, but St. Francis was determined to stay active as an independent Lutheran church- a successful ministry that can be contributed to strong lay leadership throughout its tenure. After this period, the church was invited back to the ELCA, and its outreach has continued to grow and evolve partially due to the fact that St. Francis has continued to support LGBTQ leadership.

Elaine Whitney, a longtime member of the church, considers having an LGBTQ minister important because of the different perspective they can bring, “I’m African-American, and so I have experiences in the world that give me a different perspective just because the way people treat me gives me a different side. It’s a similar kind of thing with rostered LGBTQ pastors, that you know they’re going to have different issues because life has given them, in our society at least, a different set of experiences.” It is this intentional uplifting of diversity in the body that has allowed the ministry of St. Francis to grow into various forms of outreach to the LGBTQ community.

Many of the pastors that have served the church have been on the front lines advocating for marriage equality. The church has a homeless/ marginally housed ministry, due to the fact that San Francisco has a large amount of young people who have been rejected from their homes due to their sexuality. Many partnered seniors have found that entering assisted living means they must essentially go back in the closet, and the church has become a place for individuals to be welcomed and come as they are. It has inspired a reexamination of liturgy and intentional conversation about whether God needs to always be referred to as male, or if the institution of marriage is only for straight couples.

But mainly Elaine sees the benefits of an LGBTQ pastor in the message the church can send to its congregants, “Bringing in an LGBTQ leader does a few things. One, it says visibly that a congregation is casting a wider net. That you don’t have to be a straight couple, don’t have to be a certain age, but you can be different and be Lutheran… I think it gives an opportunity to people maybe questioning or wondering- now that I know who I am, now what? It gives them someone who’s a role model of what it means to be Christ-centered in a way that makes it less frightening for those people coming out to their families. You don’t have to be afraid that you’re going to get rejected, or talk to someone who just doesn’t have a clue.”

 

To find out more about how your congregation can be more extraordinary(!), see our resource for congregations and call committees – Enrich & Transform: Welcoming LGBTQ Candidates into the Call Process.

 

 

Guest blog by Proclaim member Rev. Nate Gruel

I am comfortable assuming that I am in tune with many other people when it comes to waiting. I hate waiting. I hate waiting rooms. They are places of frustration and aggravation.

I relate well to the pessimism of Samuel Beckett. In his tragicomedy Waiting for Godot, the characters Vladimir and Estragon are a couple of fellas I would be comfortable spending time with.

Some offer different perspectives. William Faulkner once wrote, “And sure enough even waiting will end…if you can just wait long enough.” On a less speculative note, someone once said, “The worst part of life is waiting. The best part of life is having something worth waiting for.”

On a decidedly positive note, someone has added, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain!”

Many in the former Extraordinary Candidacy Project (ECP, a predecessor of ELM) community and in the current Proclaim community have learned and/or are still learning to dance in the rain.

I was ordained on June 18, 1972, and I left (read “was removed from”) the public ministry when I exited from my private closet in 1979. That was 36 years ago, and since then I never stopped believing that God had called me into the public ministry of Word and Sacrament. For much of that time, life did seem to be all about learning to dance in the rain. That’s a lot of water – not the good, life-giving, life-affirming kind, but the overwhelming, drowning kind.

In the midst of the deluge, however, there have been times for coming up for breath, times for real, joyful, fun-filled rain dancing. In the mid-1980’s there was a period of a year, give or take, when a small community of God’s people in Muncie, Indiana, invited me to pastor them during a vacancy.

The end of that time was stormy, forcing me into some deep, deep waters, but the preceding time of rain dancing had been worth every soggy moment of what followed.

Some years later someone told me about a community of other “rain dancers” called the Extraordinary Candidacy Project. I became a legitimate part of that community in November, 2002, via acceptance to the ECP roster. That community taught me that GOD ALSO WAITS! It became obvious I wasn’t waiting alone, and as many of us waited through stormy times when our ministries were rejected, God was waiting with us; waiting for the storms to pass, waiting for the flood gates of renewal and newness to be flung wide open, waiting for something new.

And wonder of wonders, Faulkner was right. Waiting does come to an end. God must have been tired of waiting, and God knows, so was I. On April 30th of this year I attended a church council meeting of folks at Our Saviour Lutheran Church in Ocala, Florida, who were told that the Florida-Bahamas Synod Bishop wanted to appoint me as their interim pastor.

I boldly announced to them the reality of my same-sex relationship, fully expecting that news would bring a swift and negative end to our conversation. (Lots of waiting often results in pessimism.) But they voted unanimously to approve the bishop’s recommendation, and as I write this blog, I am sitting in the office of the pastor of Our Saviour Lutheran Church, Ocala, having just written the first sermon I will deliver to this people of God.

I look back now with enormous amounts of gratitude for the many people, known and unknown, who provided varieties of support during my waiting, especially those who participated in and supported the ECP community. It is now so much more than just a cliché to affirm that “good things come to those who wait.” That is my hope-filled message to my brothers and sisters in Proclaim whose wait continues, along with a reminder that God really does wait with you.

 

by Rev. Nate Gruel.  Trained at Concordia Theological Seminary (Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod), Nate was ordained to ministry of Word and Sacrament in June 1972. He served two parishes in Indiana until 1979 and was subsequently removed from the LC-MS clergy roster.  For the next 32 years he worked in the newspaper industry as a graphic artist and editor. He was approved to the ECP roster in November 2002. He moved from Muncie, Indiana, to Florida in 2003. He served without a call as Assistant to the Pastor at University Lutheran Church and Campus Ministry in Gainesville, Fla., from 2010 to 2015. In March 2011 he was approved as a candidate for the ELCA roster in the Florida-Bahamas Synod. He was called to be the interim pastor of Our Savior Lutheran Church, Ocala, Fla., on June 1, 2015.  Nate and his life partner, Paul Monaghan, will celebrate the 25th anniversary of their committed relationship in February, 2016.

…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. – Galatians 5:22-23a

By ELM Program Director, Rev. Jen Rude

ELM is Fruitful and Multiplying (read ELM’s executive director Amalia Vagts’ blog about it HERE). It is true that we are seeing lots of fruitfulness and multiplying of LGBTQ rostered leaders and seminarians.  Proclaim (the community for LGBTQ Lutheran rostered leaders and those pursing rostered ministry) has quadrupled since 2009, actually moving from 193 to 194 members while I was writing this first paragraph – welcoming newest Proclaim member Rev. Jennifer Marlor from North Vancouver, British Columbia!

While we praise God for this thriving community, we continue to watch too many of these gifted leaders wait for a congregation to call them. Too many congregations have not had an intentional conversation within their community about being open to the diverse leaders that God has called to serve our church, including LGBTQ leaders.

We need to multiply congregations and ministries that are excited about partnering with an LGBTQ rostered leader.  We don’t want the church to miss out on these fruitful gifts!

This is why ELM’s Ministry Engagement Program hosted display tables at 4 Synod Assemblies this spring.  We’ve been present in Rocky Mountain Synod, Sierra Pacific Synod, Minneapolis Area Synod, and Metro Chicago Synod.  We’ve been working to connect with lay people in congregations, sharing our resources (including Enrich & Transform for Call Committees and Treasure in Clay Jars – stories of LGBTQ leaders in the Lutheran Church), hearing about their ministries, and multiplying connections.

It was wonderful to connect with so many people, to share the stories of ELM, and to plant seeds that are beginning to bear fruit. The work we are doing is not just for those currently ready to serve or already connected with ELM. It’s also for those like the young person who came to our table and whispered, “I’m bisexual.”  When I asked, “Are you thinking about pursuing ministry?” their eyes lit up and they said “Yes!” and signed up for our mailing list.  I told them a little bit about ELM and Proclaim.  And I love knowing that as they and others continue discerning, they already know about a group of LGBTQ leaders, a community of faithful congregations and ministries, and a network of people like you.

Help us nurture these wonderful leaders and multiply congregations and ministries that are ready to partner with LGBTQ leaders  – share one of our resources with someone today!

By Jen Rude, ELM Program Director.  Jen gives a big shout out to Margaret Moreland (ELM board member and Ministry Engagement Convener), Jerry Vagts, and Kyle Severson, all of whom spent time with ELM display tables at synod assemblies.  Your work and witness is a gift that bears much fruit! 

“This is the first time since discerning my call that I have felt 100% at home. For the first time since seminary I am not having to teach anyone about who I am, and I am finally not alone and it is an extraordinary feeling.”        – Mack Patrick, Seminarian

In pictures and a few words, here are some of the highlights of this year’s Proclaim Retreat for LGBTQ Lutheran rostered leaders, candidates, and seminarians, held April 17-20, 2015:

 

Media Training with Macky Alston from Auburn Seminary.  A powerful training equipping us as progressive people of faith to more effectively proclaim our messages. And seeing each other on camera was pretty fun, too!

 

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A variety of workshops including: Prayer Practices, Greening Your Church, Redeveloping Congregations, Living Well, and more.

“I’m grateful for a community that can help me process the unique joys and challenges I face as an LGBTQ-identified pastor.” – Rev. Javen Swanson

 

 

Worshiping together, prophetic preaching, sharing communion, praying in multiple languages, praying through drawing, clay, music, and silence.

“You are beloved. These are words that, historically, those who identify as LGBTQ have not heard often, or even at all. However, as a member of Proclaim, I am reminded that I am extraordinary and beloved without qualification.” – Rev. Jill Rode

 

Walks around the labyrinth, conversations over meals, campfire singing, late night card games and theological discussions.

 “It means so much to me to be part of a community not only where I am accepted for who I am, but that is so dedicated to serving God in spite of all the difficulties and obstacles we have faced to do so.” – Brian Hornbecker, Seminarian

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Thank you to all of our ELM supporters for making this gathering possible. And an extra special thank you to our retreat sponsors:

E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation and Portico.

Guest blog by Proclaim member Robin Fero

“I picked this wedding card out for you and Jeff some time ago. It fit you just perfectly. I knew one day I would be able to give it to you”.

Those were the words our dear friend Sandy spoke to us at the coffee shop one Monday morning after our civil wedding, as she watched my husband Jeff and I open the rainbow themed wedding card.

Sandy has been a dear friend of mine for over 10 years. She has been a supporter and a die-hard advocate for LGBTQ rights. We’ve sat together in PFLAG meetings and fundraising campaigns for Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries. She updates me on congregations within the synod that are in the Reconciling In Christ process.

Every time we are in contact, Sandy is eager to get an update of how the candidacy process and the seminary year are going.

Sandy, like many friends and loved ones along the journey, caught a vision of the future many years ago. It was a vision that, quite frankly, often gets blurred in my own set of eyes. Sandy dreamed of a day that this gay child of God could get married and also answer a lifetime calling from God to become an ordained minister.

It struck me that morning in the coffee shop how faithful Sandy was to that dream.

“You picked the card out before we were married?”

“Yes, it was just perfect for you two.”

I wish I could tell you how many times along the way I wondered how in the world I would ever get to even stand in a pulpit one day or stand in front of a judge and exchange precious vows with the one I love.

And I wish I could tell you how many times the Sandys in my life that God has blessed me with in the journey have said “I can see you up there!”

I thank God for my husband Jeff who witnesses my patterns of “how am I going to get all these school projects done before the end of the semester?”, and encourages me to see it through.

I am encouraged by all the visionaries in life!

I am so encouraged, I believe I will go buy that ordination stole today, because as Sandy so eloquently has said, “it fits you perfectly.”

Robin Fero is a 3^rd year student at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. He is finishing up his last academic semester and will be doing his internship starting in July. Robin and his husband Jeff were married in October. They reside in Harrisburg, PA.

by Jen Rude, ELM program director

This past month I visited two of our ELCA seminaries – Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, IA and Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, SC.  And while it was -11 degrees in Iowa and 84 degrees in South Carolina, I received a warm welcome in both places.

At Wartburg Seminary, Proclaim students hosted a campus-wide Convocation on How and Why to be an LGBTQ Ally.  Some people were already committed allies seeking to find additional ways to be supportive. Others initially wondered why we even need to have this conversation anymore.  Proclaim members Becky Goche, Paul Andrew Johnson, and I spoke to students, faculty, and staff about being an LGBTQ ally in their ministries. We shared our own experiences of coming out – both about our sexual orientation and about our calls to ministry. Conversation continued in small groups and over lunch.   I think hearing LGBTQ classmates talk about their experiences opened some hearts in a new way.  I might even say some new allies were made that day.

At Southern Seminary I was blessed to be able to hear Proclaim member Chelsea Marsh preach in chapel, bringing a word of gospel and challenge, and ultimately of God’s faithfulness. Chelsea is one of the leaders of Walking Together, the Gay-Straight alliance on campus, and she organized a lunch with this group while I was there.  Especially because there has been only 1 (and now 2!) openly LGBTQ student on campus, these allies are even more important.  We had a lively and generative discussion about being a rockstar ally.  I felt so grateful that future LGBTQ pastors will have these pastors as allies.

While ELM is becoming more widely known and seen as a resource and a partner, there are still folks who don’t know about us.  We need to keep spreading the word.  It is a really beautiful moment when someone encounters ELM for the first time and resonates with our mission and says, “oh, yes, YOU are my people” or “now I’m not alone.”  Have you told someone about ELM this week?

Getting to know seminarians across the church I witness a rich diversity of gifts and experiences. And I am particularly inspired by seminarians, staff, and faculty who are not LGBTQ, but who feel passionate about justice, about celebrating diversity, and who put themselves out there in support of their LGBTQ friends and colleagues.  God’s church is in good hands with these leaders.

Although the focus of ELM’s work is with LGBTQ rostered leaders, candidates, and seminarians, we also rely on relationships with current and future leaders in our church who are not LGBTQ. Because these allies are our people.  Today I offer a special prayer of gratitude that we are walking together.

 

By Rev. Jen Rude.  Jen is grateful for many allies in her life.  In sharing her coming out story and call story with the Gay-Straight Alliance at Southern, she gave particular thanks for her campus pastor, Rev. Maribeth McGoven, who was one of the first people she came out to as an 18 year old college student. Pastor Maribeth was kind, loving, and a fierce advocate and ally.  She is one of the reasons Jen continued on the path to ministry.

 

A huge thank you to the Revs. Timothy Weisman, Brenda Bos, and Emily Ewing for their work in visioning, compiling, and editing this resource.

Guest blog by Rev. Timothy Weisman.

Nearly four years ago, I began a call process with a congregation who needed a pastor. I had just received my assignment, and I couldn’t have been more excited. I spent hours (days!) poring over the congregation’s Ministry Site Profile, Annual Report, website, and Facebook page… while, of course, compulsively checking my email for another email from the synod office or call committee chair.

“So, how are you going to come out to them?” asked an Assistant to the Bishop shortly before my first interview. “Will you come out right away?” “Or at the end?”

“When will you come out to the rest of the congregation? During a sermon? Which sermon? Will you use the lectionary text? Or another? Or what if you did it during announcements time?”

“What will you say?” “Will you tell a story?” “What story?” “Will you talk about God?” “How?”

“Since your process will inevitably take longer than most, what will you do in the meantime?” “If you don’t complete this process, then what?” “Are you prepared to wait?” “How long?”

Yikes. It’s not like I hadn’t thought of these questions, but the reality was that I didn’t have solid answers—or, really, any answers. I was nervous enough as a young seminary graduate—and now I have to figure out when and how to come out to who and where. To be sure, I worked with an Assistant to the Bishop who is a veritable rock star, but I still felt very alone.

Fast forward one year. A friend introduced me to a 1998 resource from the United Church of Christ Coalition for LGBT Concerns called “And So We Speak.” Throughout that book, seminarians and clergy told stories—stories of their candidacy and call processes, stories of serving congregations as an LGBTQ leader, and more.

I immediately recognized this as the book I desperately needed back in 2011. I needed to hear how others journeyed through the call process. I needed to hear how others made sense of their fabulousness in the midst of their call. I didn’t need answers; I needed stories. I needed to know that I wasn’t alone.

I’m writing this blog to introduce a new ELM resource titled Treasure in Clay Jars – Stories of LGBTQ Leaders in the Lutheran Church. Modeled after “And So We Speak,” this book shares current stories and insights from LGBTQ leaders in the Lutheran church as they honor their identity while working their way through a long and lonely process.

“What do you think God thinks about you being LGBTQ?” “How did you come out to [fill in the blank]?” “What did you do ‘in the meantime’ or while waiting for a call?” Members of Proclaim responded to these prompts and several others as we assembled this resource. (Thanks to all the contributors!)

Whether you’re a member or prospective member of Proclaim, you’re on synodical or churchwide staff, or you’re an ally and supporter of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, I hope you’ll not only read these stories but also treasure them—there’s extraordinary power contained herein—as God, who is active in each narrative, tells the story of raising up a courageous people for ministry in Christ’s church.

The Rev. Timothy Weisman serves as pastor at Zion Lutheran Church in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Tim and his partner, Howie, are the proud parents of the most adorable puppy on the planet. (No, really.)

This post was updated on 3/23/15 to correct an error in the name of the group that produced And So We Speak. The correct name is the United Church of Christ Coalition for LGBT Concerns.

by Rev. Jen Rude, ELM program director

Last week the Proclaim Seminarian Team hosted a Proclaim Seminarian Meet Up – a chance to get to know each other a bit and share some experiences.  Some have been members of Proclaim throughout seminary and are graduating in a few months. Others joined Proclaim a week ago and start seminary in the fall. We gathered via computers and phones from the west coast, east coast, midwest, and southeast.

I wish you could have been on that call.

After praying together and offering brief introductions, including sharing about a unique talent or skill (it is a pretty talented bunch!), we spent the majority of our time together storytelling. People were involved in cool things like starting a Gay-Straight Alliance and booking theologians and speakers on campus. There were also difficult things they faced like not always being able to be fully themselves and being “the only one.”  People shared stories about candidacy – the hard moments, the surprising moments, and the awkward or hilarious moments. We finished the conversation by sharing how our ministry calls and LGBTQ identities have influenced and shaped each other.

I left our conversation thinking to myself: I can’t wait for one of these people to be my pastor.  It is good news for our whole church that these faithful and fabulous people have followed God’s call to ministry and that ELM is here to support them.

I realized again what impact supporters to ELM have on these future leaders of our church. You are helping ELM create resources for these seminarians and candidates. You are creating better pastors. Your support also helps congregations so that more are ready to say: I can’t wait for YOU to be my pastor!

by Jen Rude.  One of Jen’s unique skills is doing handstands and cartwheels. She was a gymnast as a kid and these two skills are the remnants of that life. And they make great party tricks.

Now those who were scattered went from place to place, proclaiming the word…So there was great joy in that city. Acts 8:4, 8

There is great joy in the cities of Green Bay, St Paul, Inver Grove Heights and in places around the country as we celebrate the first calls of three Proclaim members.  

 

Rachel Knoke has been called to serve as Pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Green Bay, WI.

Jill Rode has been called to serve as Associate Pastor of St. Anthony Park Lutheran Church in St. Paul, MN.

 

Julie Wright has been called to serve as Associate Pastor at Amazing Grace Lutheran Church in Inver Grove Heights, MN.

Is your congregation ready to welcome the gifts of an LGBTQ pastor?  More faithful and fabulous LGBTQ candidates are ready to serve.  Begin the conversation in your congregation now using ELM’s resource Enrich & Transform: Welcoming LGBTQ Candidates into the Call Process.

ELM also knows that many LGBTQ candidates continue to wait for first call. We created a resource specifically for LGBTQ first call candidates, The Mysteries of the Ages.

Together let’s create great joy in more cities!