My Church Finally Caught Up with Me: A Gay United Methodist Pastor Tells (Part Of) His Story
The soft humming of my laser jet printer silences after spitting out the four pages of the sermon I will preach this coming Sunday. It is a ritual I have observed nearly every week for nearly six years of my 32 years of life. As I retrieve the warm sheets of paper from the print deck, my mind is preoccupied with what has transpired over the past two weeks at the postponed 2020 General Conference of the United Methodist Church.
A flood of memories begins to swirl.
I will never forget the night of my birthday in July 2018. I am leading a night prayer service, and as I step to the pulpit to begin my homily, my District Superintendent interjects himself into the service to present me with my Local Pastor license.
After years of preparation, in a matter of a few seconds, I become a United Methodist clergy person.
I remember a year later. I am commissioned as a provisional elder. The next step toward ordination.
I remember three years after that. I am ordained an elder in full connection. The final step.
Smooth as silk, like clockwork, I go through the ordination process. To date, I have enjoyed six years of professional ministry. I have preached hundreds of sermons, baptized children, presided at the altar, married, buried, sat through hours of committee and board meetings, successfully led the merger of two churches, and consumed more lunches and cups of coffee with parishioners than I care to admit. I am regarded by my colleagues as a high-impact pastor. I am a published author among other accomplishments. But I will never forget where it all began that night in the Summer of 2018.
I will also never forget the onset of heart-palpitating fear that quickly followed.
According to the current edition of The Book of Discipline, the official law book of the United Methodist Church, I am a “self-avowed, practicing homosexual” and therefore incompatible with Christian teaching and ineligible to become clergy. Six years ago, when I became clergy, I was deep in the closet and dealing with nearly three decades’ worth of sexual repression. The thought of coming out as gay terrified me. Very few people officially knew anything about my sexuality. Most everyone else in my life just assumed I was gay but were too “polite” to ask. I never said a word publicly.
Once I hold that piece of card-stock in my hand containing my bishop’s seal and signature, still in its matting and frame today, I know that if I came out or, worse yet, was outed, then my future as a United Methodist pastor was over. All of the work would be for naught. So, I hid the best I could. In time, my sexuality would become an “open secret,” but still I refused to do or say anything so as not to jeopardize my clergy status or my process toward ordination.
My mind also drifts back to July 2021. I am sitting in my new office at my new pastoral appointment when the administrative assistant comes in and shuts the door behind her.
“You need to know something,” she says gravely, handing me a small piece of paper. On it is a list of a few parishioners’ names.
“If those people find out you are gay,” she continues, “They will do everything in their power to defrock you.”
I would pastor that toxic church for two horrible years. Every day, I would live in constant fear that one of those names would do their worst. I endured the stares, the gossip, the coldness, the covert, subversive attempts at getting me removed as pastor, while I knew what their real motives were.
Meanwhile, I am too busy staring at my cell phone, wondering if today is the day I would get a call from my District Superintendent telling me someone has filed a complaint or brought charges against me. For years, I cannot bring myself to throw out my moving boxes lest I need them at a moment’s notice. Knowing what I know now, these individuals did try to defrock me. They failed. But I wonder if defrocking me was their real goal anyway. I now believe their true goal was for me to live in fear of them. And for as long as I was there, they succeeded. That is, until I left of my own accord, unwilling to let them have that power over me any longer.
Many more memories flood my mind, all pointing to one common denominator: for five years of professional ministry, I lived in fear. I was a professional minister, yes, but I had no other choice but to be a professional hider also. The toll it took on my mental health was/is devastating. I know firsthand what living in fear can do to a person, and that knowledge has made me a better pastor and a more empathic human being. When I arrived at my new and current pastoral appointment last summer, I vowed I would never let fear dominate my narrative again. No more would I allow advocacy for change to be a means of placating fear. I am done with that. I am done with advocating for full inclusion and affirmation in the United Methodist Church. I am full inclusion and affirmation in the United Methodist Church! I am no longer waiting for my church to play catch up to me. I am embodying my truest, authentic self, refusing to hide from anyone. I am healthier and stronger now than I ever have been. And, as a result, I have never had a more blessed season of pastoral ministry.
This morning, at General Conference, my church did finally catch up to me. The harmful, restrictive, and exclusionary language that has plagued our church since 1972 will no longer have a home in The Book of Discipline. I rejoice at this new day. I believe it is the right way forward. I give thanks for the tireless work of the delegation who voted it into reality.
Voting on a piece of legislation might remove sentences from a book. But no vote and no legislation can remove fear from the human heart. For those reading my words today, living in fear, and hiding because you feel you have no other choice, I honor you. I honor the bravery you possess to live each day, doing what you have to do. I honor the battles you fight. I honor the burdens you carry. I honor the pathways you carve through the world, either trying to catch up or waiting for someone to catch up to you. In all the ways you must be silent, in all the ways you must hide, know you are loved and honored until your world changes for the better. I like to believe one day it will change for the better.
My church finally caught up to me. Next week, my printer will hum once again. It will spit out yet another sermon. All things in time. Because in the end, I’ve figured out it’s not a race. There are no winners. There are no losers. There’s no finish line we have to cross. It’s a journey with a destination we all must make and reach together.
I choose to make that journey by being my authentic self.
Thanks for joining the party, UMC. We’re going to have a fabulous time!
