Blogs
General/Jurisdictional Conference
Greater NW Pride: Who's Going to Get It Right?
2/18/2019
Who’s Going to Get This Right? Something amazing is going on concurrently involving the LGBTQ community and the Church. More specifically, something is going on this week in both the Roman Catholic Church and the United Methodist Church and their respective relationship with LGBTQ people, having to do with the matter of including and integrating us into their largely cisgender and straight faith communities. In the Roman Catholic Church, columnist Frank Bruni of the New York Times focused on...
Greater NW Pride: Valentine’s Day in the LGBTQ+ Community
2/14/2019
Valentine’s Day in the LGBTQ Community My partner Christian and I celebrated Valentine’s Day early this year because he was going to be in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Valentine’s Day, and I was going to be in Portland. It was also our first Valentine’s Day as a couple! I surprised him with chocolate, red wine, a card, and an orchid, and he gave me a card last week, along with numerous gifts of shirts, meals out, and love! The card was huge, as he said to me after I opened his card to me, “I usually ...
Greater NW Pride: Inclusion, or Who is Including Whom into Which Community?
2/6/2019
Inclusion, or Who is Including Whom into Which Community? “Inclusion.” Noun. Mirriam-Webster on-line dictionary defines inclusion as the act or state of being included. “Include” is a transitive verb. It means to enclose; to shut up; to take in or comprise as a part of a whole or group; to contain between or within. In the previous blog, I focused on the act and art of hospitality, of welcome. To act hospitable, or to welcome is the first move towards inclusion and, finally, integration. ...
Greater NW Pride: Hospitality: Welcoming People with Disabilities and LGBTQ+ People in the Church
1/31/2019
Hospitality: Welcoming People with Disabilities and LGBTQ+ People in the Church In the Rule of St. Benedict, we read that “all guests who arrive (are to) be received like Christ, for he is going to say: I was a stranger and you welcomed me (Matt. 25:35), and to all let due honor be shown, especially to those who share our faith (Gal. 6:10) and to pilgrims…In the reception of the poor and pilgrims, the greatest care and solicitude should be shown, because it is especially in them that Christ is...
Greater NW Pride: Separate and Not Equal
1/24/2019
Separate and Not Equal: People with Disabilities and the LGBTQ+ Community There is no secret in the community of people with disabilities that, up to and through 1990 with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, life in modern American society has been “complicated,” to say the least. Through the 1950s and 1960s, people with disabilities—which then included the deaf community; people who were visually impaired or blind; people with physical disabilities of various kinds; people ...
Greater NW Pride: From Separate to Welcoming, Inclusion, and Integration: Parallels Between the Community of People with Disabilities and the LGBTQ Community in the Church
1/18/2019
Since assuming the role as the LGBTQ+ Advocacy Coordinator, and attending local churches and Reconciling meetings, regional Annual Conference of the OR-ID UMC Conference, and attending the national Reconciling Convention, I’ve been inundated by the use of words like “separate,” “welcoming,” “inclusion,” and “integration,” wondering if everyone was on the same page about using those terms, and where the movement towards full integration of LGBTQ+ people was headed in a largely oppressive ...
Greater NW Pride: A Kiss
1/8/2019
A Kiss A few weeks ago, sailor Bryan Woodington came home to Jacksonville, Florida, after seven months at sea on the USS Sullivan, and kissed his husband Kenneth, dipping him, like the iconic V-J Day kiss in New York City’s Times Square in 1945. The photograph, which showed both on Facebook and a local television network news feed, while garnering much praise, also drew critics and negative responses by those who were offended by two gay men kissing. All this, because two men kissed, and the...
Greater NW Pride: New Year’s Resolutions in 2019
1/3/2019
New Year’s Resolutions in 2019 In an article from Psychology Today, “Why We Really Celebrate New Year’s Day,” writer David Ropeik writes that New Year’s Day is, logically, simply the movement of the clock, from Monday to Tuesday. However, we put special, symbolic, and emotional charge to it, making one day “2018” and the next day, “2019.” The reason we celebrate New Year’s Day is something that is ubiquitous, tied to something intrinsic to or in our DNA as human beings, in which we give all...
Greater NW Pride: Forward Together, Not One Step Back in 2019
12/31/2018
Forward Together, Not One Step Back in 2019 In the Raleigh (NC) News and Observer newspaper, one of their traditions is to identify a citizen of NC who is “crowned” as the Tar Heel of the Year. This year, 2018, the Tar Heel of the Year is the Rev. William Barber of Goldsboro, NC. He is also well-known for his work with the Moral Monday movement, in which many of us—myself included—participated in ongoing rallies in Raleigh, the capitol of NC, protesting against the Tea Party Republican ...
Greater NW Pride: Re-Hearing the Magnificat as a Gay Pastor
12/20/2018
Re-Hearing the Magnificat as a Gay Pastor This coming Sunday, Dec. 23rd, is the fourth Sunday of Advent. The Gospel reading is Luke 1:39-55, in which the latter part of this reading (vs. 46-55) is the famous Magnificat. The passage opens up with Mary setting out and, “with haste” makes it out to a Judean town in the hill country, where she has fled to the house of her relative, Elizabeth. These two women—both outsiders to the dominant culture because of their gender—share joy in their ...
Greater NW Pride: Baptismal Affirmation and Transgender People
12/13/2018
Baptismal Affirmation and Transgender People The Church of England recently issued rules to their priests on ways of being “creative and sensitive” as they welcome transgender people into the Church. Benjamin Fearnow wrote that the Episcopal Church’s “House of Bishops approved the pastoral guidance document that advises Anglican clergy to address trans individuals by their chosen names, rather than their birth names. The move to welcome more transgender individuals into the church, the BBC ...
Greater NW Pride: LGBTQ+ People and the Caravan
11/21/2018
Being LGBTQ and the Caravan With Thanksgiving before us, focusing on the religious pilgrims who sought freedom to practice their religion, and their first harvest meal in October 1621, that we now honor as a nation with a federal holiday. 90 native people and 53 settlers attended the first harvest festival that became our Thanksgiving. In light of this holiday, as a nation we are also aware that more settlers are on the border of California and Mexico, as a caravan of thousands of people ...
Greater NW Pride: Being LGBTQ+ and new insights to Scripture
10/4/2018
Being LGBTQ+ and New Insights to Scripture
GNW Pride: A Presbyterian Version of the One Church Plan
8/9/2018
One Church Model, Presbyterian Style.
Women and Girls Can and Do Lead: A Response to the Failure of Amendment One
5/15/2018
Last week we became aware of the vote on the five amendments to the Constitution of the United Methodist Church proposed by the 2016 General Conference. Once an amendment is approved by the General Conference it goes to each Annual Conference throughout the world for ratification. The vote in each annual conference is tallied with all the other annual conference votes and the aggregate vote determines if an amendment is ratified. It is the total votes of the individual members of each annual ...
Never discuss politics or religion!
4/3/2018
Most of us long to have deep conversation with people who are important to us, but we are afraid.
Extravagant Hospitality!
5/12/2016
Donna Pritchard has experienced the power of extravagant hospitality as a delegate to General Conference.
A Faith Formed by the United Methodist Church: Loving as Christ Loved
5/4/2016
These three sermons and all the sermons and Sunday School lessons that I do not specifically remember, created the foundation for the formation of my faith as a United Methodist
The Worst Way to Run a Church?
4/20/2016
I think about governance as we move toward General Conference 2016 in Portland
200 years of the African Methodist Episcopal Church
4/15/2016
This year as we gather we will mark the 200th anniversary of the African Methodist Episcopal church. We celebrate our brothers and sister in Christ born out of our own racism.
So Many Words…
4/6/2016
I’ve been a church nerd my entire life, and a Methonerd* since 1991. Spending all those years in mainline denominations means I’ve been surrounded by words spoken in a religious context. On Sunday mornings we often get many of the same words: familiar liturgy, songs and hymns we’ve heard many times, scriptures that come up every three years if your pastor uses the lectionary. We also get some words that change but are not surprising: prayer requests, benedictions, and sermons, even if they’re ...
Focusing on the big stuff
3/23/2016
Will General Conference be able to see the need to focus on Christ's work?