First Sunday Worship December 2

The topic this month is "Hope" and will be brought to us by Rev. Larry Wik, pastor of Lake Orion UMC. Worship is Sunday, December 2 at 6:30 in the chapel at Nardin Park, but come at 6:00 for a time of conversation and refreshment. We hope to see you there!

First Sunday Service, November 4

The First Sunday Service for November will be a celebration of All Saints Day. Rev. Bob Schoenhals will lead the service. Instead of a sermon, we will each have a opportunity to tell about the saints who have influenced our lives. We will also sing songs of the saints, light candles of remembrance, and share communion. Please join us. Gathering time and fellowship begins at 6:00 with the service at 6:30.

We lost another one

In an article on the Reconciling Ministries Network blog, Michael Overman, a gay man, tells about finding acceptance at Holy Covenant, a welcoming United Methodist Church. He fell in love and was married. He and the church realized he would make a great minister. He began seminary and started the process of being a pastor in the UMC. Though the local round of screenings went well, he was told that at the district level he would have to appear single.

In the weeks since, I’ve prayed and fought and yelled and screamed and cried and talked and sat in silence. I’ve wrestled with what to do. Slowly, the recognition of what was being asked of me came, and I could not foresee myself complying. My family at Holy Covenant taught me how to be a whole person and gave me the strength to start loving myself, truly for the first time. It would be a grievous sin for me to undo all their hard work, and all of my own. My identity and relationship are something God loves and finds joy in and takes pleasure in. I am God’s beloved in the entirety of who I am, and God has not asked or called me to change. I am worthy because my Creator has called me worthy, and to lie or be inauthentic would be to make unclean what God has called clean, to make bad what God has called good. I cannot do that… I will not.

Overman will complete seminary. And join the United Church of Christ.

Walking in another's shoes

I have a post in my brother blog about a young conservative Christian man who pretended to be gay for a year to understand the discrimination we face.

October Events

First Sunday Worship on October 7. The speaker will be Rev. Larry Wik. There will be refreshments and social time at 6:00 pm. and service at 6:30. This will be held at Nardin Park UMC, 29887 W. 11 Mile in Farmington Hills.

The Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA) National Board Meeting will be in the Detroit area Thursday through Saturday, October 18-20. Volunteers are needed from Wednesday evening through Sunday morning to take board members to and from the airport and between host churches Waterford Central and Detroit Central. Hosts are needed to house board members and provide breakfast. Volunteers are needed to prepare and serve lunch on Friday and Saturday. If you are able to volunteer for any time that weekend please contact Rich Peacock at rjpeacock@wowway.com.

DRUM Fall Potluck and Program will be on Sunday, October 21 and Nardin Park UMC. The potluck will begin at 5:00 pm. Please bring a dish to pass and your own table service. At 6:00 there will be a worship service and program. Rev. Louise Ott will tell her coming out story and how it affected her ministry. The evening will conclude with fellowship time at 7:00. The program is jointly hosted by Dedicated Reconciling United Methodists and The Church and Society Committee of Nardin Park UMC.

There is no incompatibility

I have an entry in my brother blog that includes a note about a wonderful song of inclusion and also a note about the Western Jurisdiction instructing its local churches to ignore the "incompatibility" clause.

A Taizé Service

Rev. Bob Schoenhals sent me this guide about the First Sunday service this weekend.

The Music of Taizé
Services at Taizé and those in the pattern of Taizé, now held all over the world, are characterized by simple melodic chants, sung repeatedly as a form of meditation. The act of singing the words over and over serves to clear and relax the mind and spirit and to focus one’s attention on the presence of God. These are interspersed with scripture reading(s), silence and prayer.

About the Taizé Community
Today, the Taizé Community, centered in Taizé, France, is made up of over a hundred brothers, Catholics and from various Protestant backgrounds, coming from around thirty nations. By its very existence, the community is a “parable of community” that wants its life to be a sign of reconciliation between divided Christians and between separated peoples.

The brothers of the community live solely by their work. They do not accept donations. In the same way, they do not accept personal inheritances for themselves; the community gives them to the very poor.

Certain brothers live in some of the disadvantaged places in the world, to be witnesses of peace there, alongside people who are suffering. These small groups of brothers, in Asia, Africa and South America, share the living conditions of the people around them. They strive to be a presence of love among the very poor, street children, prisoners, the dying, and those who are wounded by broken relationships, or who have been abandoned.

Over the years, young adults, both men and women, have been coming to Taizé in ever greater numbers; they come from every continent to take part in weekly meetings and the simple services, drawn by their hunger for deeper experiences of the spirit.
Church leaders also come to Taizé. The community has thus welcomed Pope John Paul II, four Archbishops of Canterbury, Orthodox metropolitans, the fourteen Lutheran bishops of Sweden, and countless pastors and pilgrims from all over the world.

First Sunday in September

The First Sunday Service will be on September 2. It will be a Taize Service led by Rev. Bob Schoenhals and George Jonte. Fellowship time with refreshments will begin at 6:00 with the service at 6:30.

First Sunday for July 1

First Sunday @ Nardin Park UMC, 29887 W 11 Mile Rd, Farmington, MI: July 1, 2012 @ 6:30 p.m. will wlecome George Jonte to the pulpit as he brings the message, "The Myth of Holy Conferencing". Using passages from the book of Ezekiel and Second Corinthians, he will weave a message of how the term holy conferencing has evolved and moved away from the original concept of John Wesley.

Eric and Karen Roth will provide music and Doris Hildebrand and members of the Nardin Park Church & Society committee will provide hospitality. Communion will be observed during the service. Join us at 6:00 for fellowship and then the service at 6:30 p.m.

George Jonte is a certified lay speaker in the Detroit Annual Conference and serves two churches in our conference: Minister of Music @ Berkley First UMC and Coordinator of LGBT Advocacy and Ministry at Detroit Central UMC.

Reconciling Ministries Network Convo

The date and location of the 2013 has been announced. It will be over Labor Day weekend, August 30 to September 2, 2013 at the 4-H Youth Conference Center in Chevy Chase, Maryland. That's outside Washington DC.

My General Conference Report

I gave my General Conference report at my church yesterday. I talked about my work in the Common Witness Coalition and the failure of the attempt to remove the incompatibility clause. Instead of posting it to either of my blogs I put it on my personal website as one of my Stewardship Moments. You can find my GC report here and from there you can explore my other Stewardship messages and even my music.

First Sunday Worship on June 3

Rev. Bob Roth of First UMC Ann Arbor will be the speaker. His church has already become a Reconciling Congregation so his message is one to eagerly anticipate. As always, Refreshments at 6:00 and service at 6:30.

The trials of Jimmy Creech

I just finished reading the book Adam's Gift by Jimmy Creech. I started reading it as I went off to General Conference almost three weeks ago, but another book took over while I was there.

Creech is famous in United Methodist circles for being the first pastor to be convicted and defrocked for performing same-sex commitment ceremonies. This book tells the whole story about what led up to that conviction and a bit of what happened since. The story opens in 1984 when "Adam" walked into Creech's office. He announced he was gay and that the actions of that year's General Conference had spiritually wounded him. Adam wanted to make sure Creech knew why he was leaving the church. Creech was astonished by the revelation and felt moved to do something.

The first thing he did was to educate himself about what the Bible says about homosexuality. That alone makes the book worthwhile. While that changed his mind and convinced him God doesn't condemn gay people it took working with gay people to change his heart.

In 1987 he became pastor of Fairmont UMC in Raleigh, NC. While there he became active in LGBT advocacy and assistance programs (this was the peak of the AIDS crisis). It was through those programs he met his second wife Chris. Part of this advocacy included performing same-sex commitment ceremonies. His work outside the church was not appreciated by those in it. In 1991 Fairmont wanted him gone. Another church welcomed him, but on finding about his advocacy work, rejected his appointment. That left him without a church.

He spent a few years advocating for progressive causes before the North Carolina legislature. Then in 1996 the District Superintendent of Omaha, Nebraska called, offering him a job at First UMC of Omaha. He made sure the DS knew about his LGBT advocacy and she assured him that she wanted him because of it. He later found out the DS had come up with that on her own and had not shared his advocacy work with the congregation.

In Creech's first year in Omaha the church developed an inclusive vision statement. He felt that gave him cover to preach about inclusiveness for gays and to perform a same-sex commitment ceremony. The General Conference in 1996 banned pastors from performing commitment ceremonies, but put that ban in the Social Principles.

This ceremony upset a large number of church members. They stopped attending, though when the fall Charge Conference came around they tried to get themselves elected into church leadership roles.

The ceremony also got a strong reaction from other pastors in Nebraska. Bishop Joel Martinez had plenty of complaints to choose from when he put Creech on trial.

The Social Principles are not considered law -- a pastor may disagree with them. So a good deal of the trial was about whether a pastor could be put on trial for something in the Social Principles. That was enough for Creech to be acquitted -- by one vote. The book contains a big chunk of the trial's testimony and Creech's commentary on it.

Those in the church leadership and those who were in favor of the vision statement rallied around Creech before, during, and after the trial. They strongly urged Martinez to reappoint Creech. The bishop's actions leading up to the trial and especially afterward made me think of him as quite the snake. He didn't want to deal with Creech, so didn't appoint him to any church in Nebraska (much less First UMC Omaha) -- but told him so late in the annual appointment process that Creech couldn't seek a job in another Annual Conference.

Back in Raleigh Creech began a speaking career, urging acceptance of LGBT people in the United Methodist Church. And when asked to officiate at another gay wedding, this time at a UCC church, he eagerly accepted. In the meantime the UMC Judicial Council ruled that even though the ban on officiating at a same-sex covenant service is in the Social Principles it has the force of church law. Martinez put Creech on trial again -- not for participating in the service, but because Martinez told Creech not to take part and Creech disobeyed. This time Creech was defrocked.

The Reconciling United Methodist group in the Durham, NC area met once a month and rotated through several churches. They did so without any problems. When Calvary UMC hosted the gathering the pastor invited Creech to speak. The sanctuary was packed with LGBT people who were hungry for the acceptance Creech offered. But because Creech had spoken from the pulpit -- at their pastor's invitation, no less -- regular church members began pulling their membership, perhaps a handful every week. Within six months the church had dropped so much in attendance and income the remaining congregation began to think of closing. When the LGBT community heard about it they flocked to the church that had welcomed them, checkbooks in hand. Calvary was the first church in North Carolina to become a Reconciling Congregation. Quite the resurrection.

Throughout Creech praises the United Methodist Church for its core beliefs and mission, and is quite harsh on the denomination's violence against LGBT people. He is especially harsh on the Council of Bishops They are either actively participating in that spiritual violence or are wimpy in trying to do anything about it.

There were times the book was difficult to read. Creech discusses the anti-gay policies put in place by the 1996 General Conference, the 1998 Judicial Council ruling, and the additional anti-gay policies enacted at the General Conference in 2000. Each time he declares the spiritual violence that is done to LGBT people. I just attended General Conference here in 2012 -- fourteen years after Creech's first trial -- and all we managed to do was not make that spiritual violence worse.

That other book I mentioned at the top of the post was, A Political Reading of the Life of Jesus by George W. Baldwin. I found it at the MFSA table in the Coalition Tabernacle at General Conference. I stuck it in my backpack, then my water bottle leaked on it, so I decided I had better read it. Baldwin shows there are oppressors and oppressed. There is no in-between -- if you aren't oppressed you have a stake in the oppressors maintaining their oppression (is that ever hard to hear!). The way the oppressors stay in power is to spread the idea that their power is the way things are supposed to be (and perhaps ordained by God), then declare rules (laws) that must be followed (and keep them in power), and cause violence (physical, mental, spiritual, economic) to anyone who breaks the rules. Jesus came, then, to teach us how to defy the oppressors through freeing our minds from their right to power, offering grace, and taking up non-violent resistance.

All through Creech's trial, he described the anti-gay position as one of following rules. The result of those rules is ongoing spiritual violence against LGBT people. I kept thinking, yup, this is the talk of an oppressor, someone who gains by enforcing the way things are done now, no matter who gets hurt.

I highly recommend both books.

You can read about my experiences at General Conference starting here. Then in the blog archives on the left side, look for these posts:
Arriving at General Conference (under April)
An agenda of hospitality (under May)
Pain
Waiting
Why it happened

Political victory v. losing a generation

I wrote a posting about how the youth think of the church. The sources I used were about the religious push behind Amendment One which put a gay-marriage ban in the North Carolina constitution. But many of the points are appropriate for the United Methodist Church because of General Conference's recent refusal to remove the incompatibility clause.

Reports from General Conference

I've started posting about my experiences at General Conference at my brother blog.

Upcoming First Sunday services

Alas, it has been a long time since I've updated this blog. And, alas, a couple events zipped by without proper attention. A busy life slowed a couple updates and then the effort to get caught up seemed too much.

We offer many thanks to Karen Poole who has worked behind the scenes preparing for each First Sunday worship over the past few years and who reluctantly must set those duties aside.

Bob Schoenhals announces the speakers at the next couple First Sunday services.

On May 6 Rev. Jeff Nelson will speak. I heard him at a recent Amy DeLong event where he recited some of the poetry he has written. It is both thought provoking and funny. Also that evening there will either be a celebration that General Conference removed the barriers that prevent LGBT folk from full service in the church or a mourning that the barriers remain. Fellowship at 6:00 and service at 6:30.

Also on May 6 there will be a DRUM leadership meeting to discuss who will take over the tasks that Karen Poole used to do. This meeting will be at 5:00 pm., prior to the fellowship time before the service.

On June 3 the speaker will be Rev. Bob Roth.

I will be heading to Tampa on April 30 to take part in the Common Witness Coalition during the second week of General Conference. I'll be working on the blog team. I think my postings will appear here where you can find Coalition news. I'll try to post to this DRUM blog once I know for sure.

A report on Randy Roberts Potts in Ann Arbor

I tell about Randy's visit in my brother blog.

Prejudice can't lie in a courtroom

The Prop 8 trial to overturn the Calif. gay marriage ban was two years ago. Though the trial was recorded on video those tapes cannot be released to the public. A primary aspect of the trial was that prejudice can lie in a political campaign, but cannot lie in the courtroom. So it is important to get the details of the case out in public. Not many people are going to wade through the court transcripts. Thankfully, Dustin Lance Black, who won an Oscar for Milk, did that for us. He created a stage play titled 8. There was a staged reading in New York and last Saturday there was one in Los Angeles. A video of this one is now on YouTube. As in New York, the cast is made up of some high-powered stars, in this case Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Martin Sheen, Kevin Bacon, Jamie Lee Curtis, John C. Reilly, Jane Lynch, Chris Colfer, and George Takei (plus many more names I don't know well).

YouTube says the video is 2 hours, but there is a "skip ahead to start" button that cuts 30 minutes. However, you'll miss news clips of the history of the case that start at about minute 17.

First Sunday Worship, March 4

Bill Wylie-Kellermann will be our speaker. He should have some good thoughts to share from his recent experience of officiating at his daughter's wedding and the ensuing results. Gathering time at 6:00. Worship at 6:30.

Randy Roberts Potts will visit FUMC of Ann Arbor

Linda Haywood of First United Methodist Church of Ann Arbor shares with us:

A rainbow mosaic has been permanently installed at the west entrance to FUMC. It serves as an outward and visible sign in our church that ALL are welcome. We celebrate its presence! Photos of it are here, along with a story of how the church became more welcoming. That page also has a link to the church's Facebook page.



In January, FUMC's Rainbow Crossing, Church & Society and Wesley Foundation co-sponsored a movie night with a showing of For The Bible Tells Me So. Rev. Bob Roth led a meaningful discussion at the end of the movie. We are looking forward to showing other movies in the future that address LGBTQ issues.



Rainbow Crossing and the Music & Liturgical Arts Ministries at FUMC are co-sponsoring an Extravagant Welcome week-end.

On March 10, Randy Roberts Potts will speak at 5 PM about his coming out experience as the grandson of televangelist Oral Roberts. His speech is titled "Miracles and Mendacity". This will be followed by a dinner at 6:15 PM. Reservations for the dinner catered by Sidetrack must be made in advance by calling 734 662-4536. MUSE Cincinnati's Women's Choir will begin performing at 7:30 PM. MUSE is both a supporter and a change agent, offering inspiration and support for women's groups, human rights concerns, peace and justice movements, lesbian and gay issues and multicultural, community building alliances. There is a cost associated with the dinner. There will be a free will offering collected after Mr. Potts speaks and after MUSE sings.

On Sunday morning, Randy Roberts Potts will speak at both the 9:30 AM and 11:45 AM services. His talk is titled "A Place at the Table". MUSE will also sing at both services.

We welcome one and all to join us for this wonderful week-end!

Details of Amy DeLong's visit

Rich Peacock sends the following information about Amy DeLong's visit to the Detroit area. She will take part in four programs. All will be worth your time.

The weekend is titled Journeys toward Inclusion: walking with Jesus and our LGBT sisters and brothers, March 16-18.

Presenter: Rev. Amy DeLong is an ordained Elder in the UMC in Extension Ministry in WI. Amy is the Executive Director of Kairos CoMotion, a non-profit organization she co-founded in 2000, dedicated to progressive theological education and advocacy. She is an eloquent speaker and writer who witnesses with passion and humor for the full inclusion for gay lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgender persons in the Church. The Christian Century printed an interview of her in a recent issue.

Rev. DeLong was also recently put on trial for being a lesbian in relationship and for conducting a same-sex union ceremony.

a - Friday, March 16 - Sharing Our Journeys - a casual evening listening to Amy tell her story and music by Katie Geddes of Ann Arbor Ark fame. Newburgh UMC, 36500 Ann Arbor Trail, Livonia - 7:00 pm -no reservations needed

b - Saturday, March 17 - Mapping Our Journeys - a time to hear Amy's organizing experience and stories from congregations who are revising their stories towards inclusion. You will leave with resources and a strategy to move into a new chapter of inclusion. Teams of 3 or 4 are encouraged.

Nardin Park UMC, 29887 West Eleven Mile, Farmington Hills, 9 am to 2 pm, $10 per person at the door, which includes lunch.

- Email your registration by March 10 to Wes Brun: bwbrun@yahoo.com

c - Rev. DeLong preaching at Ann Arbor Green Wood on Green Road - Saturday night - 5:00 pm - casual dress

d - Celebrating the Journey towards Inclusion in Worship - Rev. DeLong preaching and Choirs. Sunday, March 18, 5:00 pm to 6:30 pm @ Detroit Central UMC, 23 East Adams -no reservations needed

In Honor of Martin Luther King

I have another post on my brother blog I would like to share.

Christianity and taxes

I wrote an entry for my brother blog I hope you find of interest.