Category: Uncategorized

Defiant Call

By: Vica Etta Steel

Let me tell you a story of Call and Coming Out. Let me tell you a story of Love through pain.

I came out three years ago: Woman. Queer. Transgender.

I began my journey into faith leadership just over one year ago.

Until four  months ago, I couldn’t pray.

Until four  months ago, I couldn’t say the name Jesus. Or God. Not easily.

And yet I heard the call to faith leadership. I’d heard the call my entire life.

And  just as I knew my Call young, I also always knew I was a girl. But I learned, by kindergarten, that I needed to hide my truth. 

One moment in time: 

Laughing with friends, playing dress up. 

A mom’s heels too big on our small feet. 

Blouses became dresses. 

So much laughter.

Then. 

Laughter. 

An older brother, laughing, cutting at the heart of me.

Only one moment in time. 

One, of too many.

God did not err with me. Humans erred again and again. 

But this story, this story is a story of love.

Love overwhelming. Love, defiant. 

I have met hate. And fear. I hear prayer used as a weapon, beseeching God that I cease to exist, in my fullness. They say I am a sin. 

My Call story was not permitted by churches – so God gave me a different path. My faith formation came at the hands of atheists, agnostics and spiritual people. I learned of their deep belief in love, in community, in radical welcome of the outcast – values that should have been Christian values, but too often weren’t.  

Too often aren’t. 

And now I find a home also in faith. I have a path renewed, opened for me by the so many Queer faith leaders who fought, extraordinarily, for places in faith. I know so much of love overwhelming. 

I can never thank my elders (even those younger than me) enough.

And I know love, unexpected.

I am welcomed in my local church. Truly.

I am embraced in my seminary. The president, faculty, and the so many colleague students listen, hear, and uplift my Truth and our Queer stories.

In my synod, leadership works with me to begin creating a syond-wide Queer and ally youth led worship/gathering space.

Is that all? Not even my Loves. I feel every bit of hope toward futures that know 

only Love.

And so I can begin. 

My call story, coming out. 

But a beginning is far from an end.  

I begin to speak toward truth. 

I am not a sin, 

but I am a sinner. 

I have sinned the sin of silence in the face of oppression. I have sinned the sin of accepting the world as it is. I have sinned the sin of ignoring my broader family of those marginalized. For too long I turned my head from what my Black friends and family told me, that racism still rages. 

And I say, no longer. Not for me.

But I know I will fail too. How long, Oh Lord?

Grace lifts me up. 

And I learn to pray. 

Again. 

I pray for guidance to work the joyous work of facing sin directly.

And I learn to speak the divine names of Jesus: 

Love. Welcome. Uplift. Radical resistance to the world as it is. 

But I also learn to speak the name of Jesus, 

fully human. 

And I am called, defiantly.

Vica Etta Steel (she/her) is a woman, queer, transgender, and unexpectedly a faith leader! She attends Wartburg Theological Seminary. She preaches and does outreach at St. John’s Lutheran in Madison, WI. She keeps a ministry on TikTok (@vicasteel) where she speaks of the voice of God, never silent and always present in the world around us. 

Vica is married to her powerful wife, Stella (36 years come March!). They live with their little dog, Arabella Longbody, their leopard gecko, Snowflake, and many other creatures and plants!

More Than Enough

by Margarette Ouji

None of us are “one thing”. At any given moment we can embody so many different identities, and oftentimes, those identities will bump up against one another. If we find ourselves with our family of origin, we are one person. When we are with our chosen family, we are another. In ministry, we can often be a reflection of all of those identities, and still, feel like we cannot be all that we are. This reality of identity hopscotch can be tiresome and unforgiving. 

God calls us to be our whole selves and calls us into a loving relationship with those we serve. Sometimes that can be scary and unsettling – especially when so many of us have been told that who we are is not enough or is wrong. 

Pause. 

Who you are is more than enough. 

You are beloved. 

Yet, it can still be scary when we have been told we have to “come out” in order to have this one fabulous aspect of our identity be validated. Have we not spent so much energy hoping and praying and looking for that validation?

In seminary, I took a course on Queer Liberation Theology, and in that course, I learned about the antithesis of “coming out” and it’s called “inviting in”. It’s this idea that instead of sharing your identity with the world, you invite people in to know and love you. I invite you into my home, to share in each other’s lives, to laugh, to eat, etc. (as long as you leave before 8 pm so I can go to bed on time). 

It reminded me of how in many Iranian families when you bring someone to your family’s home, you’re welcomed in. I walk into my ameh’s (the word for aunt in Farsi) home, take off my shoes, I’m offered food, I’m guaranteed laughter, tears, and love.

Many of us cannot “come out” for reasons that do not need justification. By inviting people in, by inviting our congregations in, we are acting from a place of love. We are sharing our worlds and all of the identities that we embody. 

Recently, I was reflecting on Isaiah 43: 18-19:

“Forget the events of the past, ignore the things of long ago! Look, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth—can’t you see it? I’m making a road in the desert and setting rivers to flow in the wasteland.” 

God is doing something new in the ways that we are inviting one another into our lives, our hearts, our congregations. Newness can be scary. It is also so very queer and so very sacred. 

Image Description: Photo of field of flowers with the words: Pause. Who you are is more than enough. You are beloved. – Margarette Ouji

Margarette (she/her/hers) is the pastor at First Lutheran Church of Montclair, NJ. She enjoys powerlifting, crocheting, and spending time with family. Margarette currently serves as co-chairperson of the Board of ELM and is passionate about the difficult, necessary, and holy work ELM is doing.

Thank you for being a public witness to God’s extraordinary love for our world!

We invite you to apply for a scholarship for publicly-identified lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer+ Lutheran candidates for rostered ministry. The eligible applicant must be an LGBTQIA candidate for rostered ministry who is a member of Proclaim, the professional community of publicly-identified LGBTQIA Lutheran rostered ministers and candidates. Proclaim is a program of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries. All application materials are due no later than February 3, 2022.

This honor is given in the name of Joel Raydon Workin, one of our movement’s saints. Joel was one of the three seminarians who came out about their sexual orientation to their Lutheran candidacy committees in 1989 (and were subsequently refused ordination). This act of faithfulness was the spark that ignited our movement of resistance and affirmation of LGBTQIA people called to rostered ministry in the Lutheran church. Joel passed away from AIDS on November 29, 1995. Upon Joel’s death, friends and family established a fund to honor his memory. Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries is the custodian of the fund and scholarship. Each year, Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries names a Joel R. Workin Memorial Scholar.

Due to events related to the pandemic of 2021, no scholarship was awarded. In 2022, however, The Workin Committee will award two scholarships in the amount of $7,400 for qualified educational or candidacy expenses to two LGBTQIA candidate for rostered ministry. In addition, the 2022 Scholars will be invited throughout the year to be involved with various ELM activities. We request that all funds be used prior to December 1, 2022 and if possible, that all funds be used for a single event or activity.

Previous Workin Scholars include:

The Joel R. Workin Memorial Scholar is someone whose character and abilities are consistent with Joel’s legacy. Among these are: academic excellence, personal and professional integrity, courage in response to the church’s discriminatory policies, a passion for social justice, faithfulness to Jesus Christ and potential to become an effective leader in church and society.

Application Materials

The scholarship application includes the following components:

• Essay

• •  Attached is a PDF of Joel’s essay, “Overflowing.” Joel’s writing is a gift and we hope you find his essays useful throughout your ministry. Joel was a brilliant writer and your essay is one of the most important parts of your application. This year’s writing includes a brief paragraph response and a 1,000 – 1,500 word essay on the attached Workin essay.
• A copy of your current resume.
  • Please note any Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries/Proclaim activities.
• A professional recommendation from someone (professor, pastor or other rostered professional) who can testify to your qualifications specific to this honor and award.
  • The recommendation letter should be on official letterhead.
• Copy of your transcript from seminary or divinity school (unofficial is fine).

All materials are due no later than Thursday, February 3, 2022.

All application materials must be submitted electronically in PDF to workinscholarship@elm.org. Please put “Joel R. Workin Scholarship Application” in the subject line. You may submit your letter of reference with other materials, or your reference letter writer may email it directly.

The scholarship committee will notify applicants of its decision on or before Feb 7, 2022.

On behalf of the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, Joel’s family and friends, and the members of Proclaim, we commend this opportunity to you and invite your application. We hope that you will consider honoring Joel’s memory in this way.

If you have any questions, please email operations@elm.org.

The Joel R. Workin Memorial Scholarship Committee:

2022 Joel R. Workin Essay

Joel Workin was known for his prophetic and expansive voice. His friends refer to his “humor, incisive mind, and deep, caring spirit.” Even now, decades after these essays were written, Joel’s words are fresh and relevant. We bring Joel’s voice to life each year as we invite Workin Scholar applicants to read and respond to Joel’s writing in new ways. Each year, we seek to find Joel’s voice in new ways through new voices.

Please submit the following two pieces of writing.

1. Please write a paragraph or two in response to the following question: What is the prophetic word that LGBTQIA people can bring to the church today?
2. Please read Joel’s essay entitled “Overflowing” (linked here) and write a 1,000 – 1,500 word reflection on the passage below:

• • As an LGBTQIA person, where have you heard and spoken “Yes, period” and “No, period” on your journey of call thus far? In this challenging and uncertain time of pandemic and polarization, do you see the church being called to move more fully into God’s “Yes, period” and what particular gifts do you think LGBTQIA people bring to God’s people?

Image Description: Photo of a sparks & ambers from a fire with the words: salt and light converge, the Spark beckons from afar, Come! See! A New Thing… Noah Oliver Herren

Rev. Noah Oliver Herren (he/him/his) is the Pastor of St. Luke Lutheran Church in Atlanta, GA. Noah attributes his passion for ministry and spirituality to a journey of reconciling multiple theologies and his experience as a transgender man raised in the deep South. In his downtime you will find him amassing books he may read one day, forest bathing, binging Netflix, falling down virtual rabbit holes, creating things, and spending time with friends and family. 

The Rev. Carla Christopher Wilson (she/her/hers) is Assistant to the Bishop in Charge of Justice Ministries for Lower Susquehanna Synod and Associate Pastor of Faith Formation and Outreach for Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  CarlaChristopher.Com and @RevCarlaChristopher on Facebook or @Rev.CarlaChristopher on Instagram.

The year 1990 brought us the creation of the World Wide Web, the launch of the Hubble telescope, the release of Nelson Mandela after 27 years in prison, and it was also the year of the reunification of Germany when the Berlin Wall came down. 1990 was also the year when the wall known as “Vision & Expectations” was built into the newly created Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s candidacy process barring publicly-out LGBTQIA+ individuals from serving the church. Over 31 years later, we celebrate, this wall, too, has finally come down. 

Earlier this month, the ELCA Church Council “suspended consideration of an aspirational document to replace ‘Vision and Expectations’ until the need arises to develop such a document” ending an almost three-year review process.

“I thank God that V&E is gone!” Pastor Christina Montgomery (she/her) proclaimed when she heard the news. “That singular document forced so many brilliant LGBTQIA+ people to choose between answering God’s call to ministry and living their authentic embodied truth as God created them. It is my prayer that the ELCA continues to leap forward in its understanding of the gospel and reflect the radically inclusive love of Christ in all of its governing documents.”

ELM celebrates that, after living without “Vision & Expectations” for just over a year, the ELCA Church Council has made the decision to suspend “Vision & Expectations” and will not create a replacement (see background section below). 

“We are ever closer to a time when queer leaders can enter into candidacy as the called and faithful servants that God created them to be without having to justify — to themselves or candidacy committees — that their sexual and gender identities are holy and are gifts for ministry in this Church,” commented ELM Executive Director, the Rev. Amanda Gerken-Nelson (she/her). “Removing ‘Vision & Expectations’ is a monumental moment for our community.”

It is important to acknowledge that there continue to be pillars of discrimination and barriers to full-participation that permeate our Church — for example, “Bound Conscience” in the 2009 human sexuality statement “Gift & Trust.” White supremacy, trans- and queer-phobia, and ableism continue to plague our communities and congregations. While ELM believes progress has been made, we also fear that the church could slide backward on the arc of justice if the “need…to develop such a (new) document” is determined solely by those who have historically held positions of power and privilege in the Church.

ELM will continue to advocate in ELCA rooms of power for the most marginalized in our midst — just as it did for the abolishment of “Vision & Expectations.” There is still a great amount of ministry yet to do! 

For thousands of years, the church has obsessively created rules regarding human sexuality and leaders have argued against them. Martin Luther, himself, called clerical celibacy “devilish tyranny” and broke with the Roman Catholic church’s own vision & expectations when he married a woman. Our bodies and the way we express sexual intimacy with loving partners are areas the big Church does not model well, nor has it ever. However, ELM is committed to advocating for all sexual expressions & identities in our church while breaking down walls of injustice, flipping the tables of racial inequality & oppression, while continuing to serve as a resource for all its queer ministry leaders. 

Background: 

Vision & Expectations was created in response to four seminarians (the Berkeley Four) who came out publicly as gay to their candidacy committees in 1987. The newly formed ELCA Church Council approved a document in 1990 that declared that ministers who were “homosexual in their self-understanding” were expected to “abstain from homosexual sexual relationships” (see former ELM Executive Director, Amalia Vagts, article “A Short History of Vision & Expectations”). Though V&E was amended in 2009, following the adoption of the ELCA social statement “Sexuality: Gift & Trust,” to allow persons in same-gender “publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous” relationships to serve in leadership roles of the church, its role in the candidacy process ultimately continued to discriminate against queer ministry leaders. 

In the fall of 2018, members of the Conference of Bishops along with ELCA staff began the process of revising V&E to reflect the then nation-wide right for same-gender couples to be legally married and the unification of the Word & Service roster resulting in a revision that included a name change to “Trustworthy Servants of the People of God” (see ELM’s public response).  ELM organized Proclaim members and partnered with ministries partners, like ReconcilingWorks and the Ethnic-Specific Ministries of the ELCA, to rebuke this revision and in March 2019, the ELCA Church Council declined to consider “Trustworthy Servants” and referred the document to the ELCA Domestic Mission unit for further review and redrafting. 

ELM’s Executive Director, the Rev. Amanda Gerken-Nelson (she/her), served on a listening group along with the President of the African Descent Lutheran Association, the Rev. Lamont Wells (he/him), and other committee members representing concerned constituencies: deacons, seminaries, Bishops, a safe church specialist, ELCA candidacy staff and Church Council members. With the guidance of this group, the Domestic Mission Executive, the Rev. Phil Hirsch (he/him), investigated the purpose and need for a document like “Vision & Expectations” including a nation-wide survey on “What does the Church need?” and listening sessions at the Proclaim 2019 Gathering and Churchwide Assembly. This work produced the recommendation in March 2020 to suspend “Vision & Expectations” entirely until a new document could be drafted. This recommendation was approved by both the Conference of Bishops and the Church Council.  

In November 2021, after living and welcoming individuals to the candidacy process without V&E as a gatekeeper for just over a year, Rev. Hirsch recommended to the Conference of Bishops and the ELCA Church Council to “[suspend] consideration of an aspirational document to replace ‘Vision and Expectations’ until the need arises to develop such a document.” This was approved at the Church Council’s November 2021 meeting.

 But [King Rehoboam] disregarded the advice that the older men gave him, and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and now attended him. He said to them, “What do you advise that we answer this people who have said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke that your father put on us’?” The young men who had grown up with him said to him, “Thus you should say to this people who spoke to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you must lighten it for us’; thus you should say to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins. Now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.’”

– 1 Kings 12:8-11

This past June, I celebrated 10 years of ordination, and I must say, I know less now than I did when I first started in this ministry.  After taking seminary classes where I heard that people are rational and that slow, deliberate changes can align a church within a few years (or at least, that’s what I think I heard), I have learned that on this side of the pandemic and political aftershocks, rationality is not always a gift people possess (even at times in my own life, if I am to confess truthfully).

King Rehoboam was around 40 years of age when he started to reign and his tenure lasted almost 20 years.  If his leadership is credited with one thing, it’s that the dis-united kingdom of Israel fractured even more during his time.  No politician wants to be remembered for the fragmentation of society or the great civil war that could cause great risk economically and, familiarly, defensively.

So, I’m always surprised by Rehoboam, especially given his age, that as people cried out against the burden of inequality and inequity, he acquired separate advice from the elder leadership and from his friends.  The elder leadership cautioned slow but assured measures towards the labor union’s concerns; his friends sided with a dictatorial relationship: ramp up the oppression.  In fact, the friends were so flippant that they were willing to be debase themselves with a derogatory comment; “tell them,” they coaxed Rehoboam, “that your pinky finger is thicker than my father’s… [insert colorful description here].”  This argument borders a Levitical law about not uncovering your father’s nakedness [see Levicitus 18:6-7 and Genesis 9:20-27].  This vulgarity is just an example of how rash our world is today to dismiss voices we don’t want to hear.

Which brings me to my point: I know less now than what I did, and I’m afraid that I’ll know even less as the years go on.  Dear fearless(?) leader, remember King Rehoboam.  Challenge the voices that exclude or want to make lives harder out there for those who are already working more than their fair share and not getting farther in their equality and equity.  Don’t forget that progress means we’re always fluctuating between conversations and holding the tensions of many voices.  And when you want to go harder (as will happen), remember that the severance of God’s word and world are at stake.

Rev. Kevin O’Hara (he/him) is the pastor of Emanuel Lutheran Church in Pleasantville, New York.  He has served as conference dean, chair of a local campus ministry, and on various synod committees.  He enjoys reading, gardening, and playing with his cats and turtles (yes, turtles play!).