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John Wilkinson oral history, 2019.
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- speakerAll right. This is Elizabeth Wittrig interviewing John Wilkinson on
- speakerJune 2nd 2019.
- speakerSo John if you just to start by talking about how you became involved in the movement for
- speakerLGBTQ inclusion?
- speakerSure. Well it's a great question I've been thinking about it a little bit.
- speakerI think my first experience to a person
- speakerwas in college. A friend of mine a close college friend came out
- speakerand that was my first experience. That would have been in 1985 or
- speakerso and then I went to McCormick Seminary where there was
- speakeran active gay and lesbian support group and I got to know those
- speakerclassmates and friends pretty well and then worked
- speakerin a church in Chicago as a seminary student where the minister actually came out to me
- speakerand that was a new experience for me.
- speakerAnd then the first church I served in Chicago
- speakerone of our musicians also came out to me.
- speakerAnd I think that's all public so it's ok that I can say that.
- speakerBut those were you know having no real experiential basis for that.
- speakerIt didn't really cause me any
- speakerkind of great consternation. But it was kind of an OK.
- speakerHere's here's a step along the way and kind of both in my head and my heart that didn't
- speakerfeel like a big deal to me. And then when I went to Fourth Church in Chicago where I
- speakerserved for seven years we had an
- speakeractive study group and gay and lesbian support group.
- speakerWe did not declare ourselves to be a More Light congregation
- speakerbut my argument always was you know we were a 5,000 member church in
- speakerChicago we probably had as many gay or lesbian members as any congregation in the
- speakerdenomination. We just didn't know it and there many people working in law
- speakerfirms or banking situations in the loop and had to remain closeted.
- speakerBut in the church at least they could be out and I happened to be the one that worked
- speakerwith that support group and we had a kind of weekly prayer gathering so it just my
- speakerexperience and my thinking about that just kept evolving and evolving and it
- speakernever really hit a bump that I said well what does this mean or what you know what I
- speakerthink about this it just felt kind of pretty much a natural trajectory.
- speakerAnd then you know
- speakerbecause Fourth Church was active denominationally I
- speakerbecame kind of involved in the ordination debates within the denomination kind of at
- speakera certain level. And then when my colleague John Buchanan ran for moderator I
- speakerwas very active in helping to organize that campaign and then
- speakerJohn won. And then when G-6.0106b passed suddenly
- speakereverything got amped up a lot. And we had this policy
- speakerin the denomination. And I'm sure others have gone through the whole self affirmed,
- speakerpracticing and all those things up leading up to that authoritative interpretation but
- speakersuddenly we had something in the Book of Order that we didn't like and
- speakerthat John as a former moderator and Bob Bohl as a former moderator
- speakersaid you know we're going to do something about this. The whole Covenant Network story
- speakerhappened and because
- speakerI had a leadership role at Fourth Church and a leadership role with the General Assembly
- speakerstuff I became kind of almost suddenly into
- speakerthat. Into the midst of the debate about legislation and
- speakerchange. So again it didn't take much for me to know what
- speakerI thought or believed about that. I've thought about this a lot.
- speakerI kind of enter the debate through the polity avenue.
- speakerI mean from my point of view G-6.0106b was just dreadful Book of
- speakerOrder legislation because it didn't make sense.
- speakerIt was inconsistent. It didn't have a way to apply it.
- speakerAnd then over time my
- speakerunderstanding about why it was bad for all these other reasons in terms of justice and
- speakerinclusively and hospitality and theology and
- speakerbiblical interpretation really took root. So it was that combination.
- speakerAnd so it was that Fourth Church experience where I
- speakerkind of got involved and then I came here Third Church in Rochester seven
- speakeryears later and Third Church was declared itself to be a More Light
- speakercongregation in 1987 and still remains I think the largest More Light
- speakercongregation for whatever that's worth.
- speakerBut but they had already been through that conversation about what it means.
- speakerRochester and Genesee Valley Presbytery was a different water
- speakerto be swimming in. But I'd already kind of known where I was and they were pleased to
- speakercall me here because of my Covenant Network background and then we kind of kept working
- speakeraway at things.
- speakerSo that's how I got involved.
- speakerI think when I came here because there were
- speakerso many more people out in our membership and in the presbytery it just
- speakerreally confirmed what I believed in my head about the legislation.
- speakerBut it put many more human faces and journeys and call
- speakerstories into the into the context of this.
- speakerAnd it was then that I really kind of was
- speakerable to pull together. You know I'm a polity guy.
- speakerMy PhD dissertation is on the Book of Confessions.
- speakerI teach polity a lot so I could make the case from that point of view why this
- speakerwas not a good thing. But then I could make the other case in terms of real life human
- speakerpeople why they were being prohibited from serving fully
- speakerin the biblical and theological discussions.
- speakerSo there you go.
- speakerAnd what was your role in the Covenant Network?
- speakerSo the Covenant Network was
- speakerfounded out of the 1997 General Assembly in Syracuse
- speakerand a legislative strategy
- speakerto replace the words fidelity and chastity with fidelity and
- speakerintegrity passed in the General Assembly.
- speakerMy friend Tim Hart Andersen led that kind of legislative
- speakereffort. And then at the end of that assembly a group of people got together.
- speakerI had been at the assembly but I went back to Chicago to kind of tend to Fourth Church.
- speakerBut at the end of that assembly a small group got together and said we want to now
- speakerorganize something to to try to pass
- speakerthis piece of legislation to get fidelity and integrity
- speakerinto the Book of Order. So John Buchanan came back to Chicago
- speakerand said I've got a project for you.
- speakerTim Hart Andersen and I began almost daily
- speakercommunications at that point.
- speakerWe didn't really have a kind of organizational theory about what we were going to do.
- speakerWe thought we could do this in a year.
- speakerThis was back when General Assemblies met every year, not every other year.
- speakerWe would win this legislative battle, get the Book of Order back on track and then move
- speakeron to our thing. So Tim and I were kind of a team.
- speakerI always like to think of him more strategically, legislatively.
- speakerI was kind of more organizational, relational and we worked together on that.
- speakerAnd in August we brought a group together in Chicago
- speakerand then in September we did the same thing. We met in Chicago mostly at Fourth Church
- speakerfor that first few years.
- speakerAnd I was in fact kind of moderated
- speakerat the first meeting because there wasn't any kind of identified established leadership
- speakerstructure or people were just kind of came together.
- speakerPeople who we knew who we thought would could make a difference.
- speakerAnd then after a bit and I'm sure others have spoken about this a lot more we identified
- speakerPam Byers as our first executive director and so Pam and Tim and I
- speakerbegan if not daily very regular calls several times
- speakera week in those first few years to kind of get the process going.
- speakerAnd as we know it took a while and all those other meandering.
- speakerSo after a while I was then we kind of
- speakeradopted a more kind of structure leadership model with co moderators and boards and terms
- speakerand things like that.
- speakerSo I still had a Tim and I and Pam were still pretty much
- speakerregularly in contact.
- speakerWe had added a few more people to that in terms of kind of a strategy committee within
- speakerthe leadership team. And then I just began a long term of
- speakerboard service.
- speakerI think I think when certain I was on writing teams
- speakerlike when we did Call for Covenant Community I was on that writing team.
- speakerI think that was one of our really good pieces of work.
- speakerThe nice thing about the early Covenant Network years is we had really good theologians.
- speakerWe had seminary leaders.
- speakerWe had really good preachers so our writing
- speakerwas good. Our communications was good.
- speakerWe we spent a lot of time wordsmithing maybe probably too much time but I spent a lot
- speakerof time wordsmithing kind of every word and every sentence in every paragraph because
- speakerwe wanted to be clear and thoughtful about what we were saying.
- speakerSo I felt really privileged to be a part of those teams.
- speakerI think at some point when there were
- speakerI was able to contribute certain things in certain ways.
- speakerI felt grateful for that.
- speakerCould you talk a little bit about what it was like to work with Pam?
- speakerYes. So I didn't know Pam.
- speakerWe had the early
- speakeranother affinity group in the denomination
- speakerhad a model where an associate pastor of a large church
- speakerserved in that role but also served as the executive director of this
- speakeraffinity group. So maybe for three minutes or so we kicked around that idea
- speakerand that would have been me. So I would have kind of a stayed at Fourth Church as
- speakerassociate pastor but my portfolio would have been organizing Covenant
- speakerNetwork stuff and I had a strong call to do that work but not a strong call
- speakerto serve in that role.
- speakerAnd so then Tim and I.
- speakerTim having ideas from San Francisco leadership had
- speakerknown Pam obviously as a member of the congregation and he kind of recruited
- speakerher and then we kind of quickly brought her on board.
- speakerI think Pam I think a lot of things about Pam.
- speakerI was trying to find I did a little speech at her retirement that
- speakerwe had in San Francisco and I don't I can't find that speech but what I remember
- speakeris her spirit of some kind of absolute
- speakergraciousness but graciousness that was had a theological
- speakerunderpinning to it.
- speakerAnd whether you agreed with her or not whether
- speakeryou were have important role or not she treated
- speakeryou very graciously and as a kind of the beloved
- speakerchild of God you were and was our face in a lot of ways
- speakerto the church when we in the leadership team weren't able to be or couldn't
- speakerbe. And she knew people
- speakerup and down and all around.
- speakerShe went to places and had a very gracious presence.
- speakerShe was kind of a very creative dervish
- speakerisn't the right word but a lot lot of energy around her.
- speakerAnd you know sometimes you had to redirect that energy
- speakerin the right ways to get things done.
- speakerI mean again we were you know this would be
- speakerinteresting for somebody in either an MBA program or an organizational
- speakertheory program to look at our leadership model.
- speakerCause we didn't have a theory going in, how we're going to organize this.
- speakerWhat was our board going to be like. What staffing needs do we have.
- speakerWe said we thought we'd be in this in and out of this in a year.
- speakerAnd when we weren't then we knew we weren't able to just as volunteers to manage
- speakerthings. So that's when we identified Pam and she was the perfect complement I think to
- speakerTim and me and the perfect complement then to all the co-moderators that followed
- speakerher. She was very articulate, very
- speakercompassionate, very passionate.
- speakerAnd again I think because she was you know had this literature-editing
- speakerbackground really fit well with our hopes for good communications and
- speakerthings like that. So I found her very delightful to work with.
- speakerShe was just a pleasant person.
- speakerAnd you know I had to because I didn't
- speakerknow her in San Francisco and only saw her from time to time to time others got to know
- speakerher a lot more staff people and people in San Francisco.
- speakerBut I just always had very positive interactions with Pam and enjoyed enjoy being with
- speakerher and just her deep commitment to this cause and
- speakerto the work and her kind of indefatigable spirit
- speakereven as we lost you know vote after vote and when we would
- speakerwin we would win General Assembly votes and then lose Presbytery votes.
- speakerThat happened a bunch of times. That can be discouraging.
- speakerShe didn't project discouragement very much at all.
- speakerI was always grateful for that.
- speakerAnd then you also served on the Peace, Unity, and Purity task force?
- speakerI did. Yes. So
- speakercoming out of the 2001 General Assembly it
- speakerwas a moment where the word schism was being used not lightly.
- speakerAnd of course we had been fussing for all those years about ordination and
- speakerhomosexuality. But this moment was actually about Christology.
- speakerAnd there had been a kind of a controversy coming
- speakerout of an ecumenical interfaith event and someone
- speakerelse can I don't know all the details but those are other details.
- speakerBut but the notion was what what does one need
- speakerto believe about Jesus in order to be Presbyterian within the Christian faith.
- speakerAnd so that combination of human sexuality and biblical authority interpretation and
- speakerChristology meant that there was kind of this perfect storm of controversy coming out.
- speakerSo the General Assembly in 2001 created something called the Theological Task
- speakerForce on the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the church.
- speakerAnd I was named to that.
- speakerThree, the current and then two previous moderators, appointed that.
- speakerAnd I think why I was appointed was several reasons.
- speakerOne is at that point I was under 40 and there were only two of us under
- speaker40.
- speakerOne was in their 20s I was in my I was 38 when I was appointed.
- speakerI'm not that anymore.
- speakerBut so that youth piece of it or younger adult piece of it.
- speakerI had been I had just come to
- speakerRochester from Chicago. So of the however many of us there
- speakerwere 20 or so of us there weren't many people who were pastors of kind of churches our
- speakersize and I had a counterpart of a more conservative bent.
- speakerMichael Algman and he and I were kind of this kind of church pastors
- speakerin this group.
- speakerI'd been active in Covenant Network and the Covenant Network.
- speakerThere were people from More Light on the task force but the Covenant Network did
- speakerhave this reputation I think an important one that not only did we want change in
- speakerordination standards but we really did care about the unity of the church and
- speakerrelationship building was a part of our was a part of our deal so
- speakerthey knew that about me. And the other thing is I'd written a dissertation on the
- speakerConfession 1967. I knew our polity, I knew our confessional history, and our
- speakerdenominational history.
- speakerI wasn't a seminary professor but I was kind of this quasi church historian
- speakerthat could tell the story and I think from my own personal temperament I worked well in
- speakerthose kind of groups and was a decent strategic thinker.
- speakerSo we came together with this four part mandate.
- speakerHuman sexuality, biblical authority, Christology and then
- speakerthey threw a fourth one in the mix power and how power is used in the church which
- speakeractually we didn't understand at first but now I think at the end of the day that
- speakerwas very wise thing to do and yes we met for five years.
- speakerI served in kind of sub teams around some of the history
- speakerstuff and some of the writing teams and did a lot with when in Presbyterian
- speakerhistory had we come to a point of perhaps schism and what had we done to
- speakeravoid it. So what can we learn from our history for this moment.
- speakerAnd the fact the matter is there are points in the 1700s and the
- speaker1800s and in the 1900s when we were about to divide and we didn't.
- speakerAnd so we tried to appropriate those lessons for this work and
- speakerthen we also tried to come up with a proposal that
- speakerthe vast majority of the church could live with and it was
- speakercalled recommendation 5.
- speakerWe liked it a lot. It was passed unanimously by our task force so people who were pro
- speakerordination and not pro ordination voted for it because they thought it
- speakergave us a way out of the of the moment we were in.
- speakerIts local option is a shorthand.
- speakerIt's not a totally fair shorthand that kind of allows
- speakeryou to get what it meant.
- speakerI used the phrase local application. That we had a standard that each Presbytery or
- speakereach congregation was was able to apply in its local setting which has
- speakerkind of been our tradition in our practice. We worked really hard on
- speakerthe language of it. I think what was disappointing to us is that the assembly
- speakerpassed it but not by by a 58 to 42 margin
- speakerwhich in many other cases would have been a really big margin but for us we wanted a
- speakerlarger embrace of the notion of allowing local
- speakerordaining bodies to apply a sense of call
- speakerto their work. But it's in some ways where we ended up anyway denominational.
- speakerSo the other thing.
- speakerI saw people talk to me about the Theological Task Force.
- speakerWe had a model for our work that
- speakerpeople embraced. So we did Bible study
- speakerand discernment.
- speakerWe took very few votes. We tried to vote only when we had to vote.
- speakerSo lots of consensus building and
- speakerpeople all across the denominations said we really like the way you
- speakermodeled how to build community how to
- speakerdiscern in the face of kind of disagreement in a way that doesn't
- speakerfeel binary and doesn't feel like win or lose.
- speakerSo I count the Theological Task Force as kind of one of the highlights of my ministry.
- speakerAnd I'm always grateful that people still kind of remember it even
- speakerthough you know we did our final report in 2006 which is hard to believe.
- speakerYou know it's a great experience for me and made lifelong friends and colleagues
- speakerin that experience as I did with the Covenant Network.
- speakerSo yeah.
- speakerWell I guess looking back on moving back to the Covenant Network, what was it like
- speakerwhen Amendment 10-A finally did pass?
- speakerWell it was it was great for us.
- speakerI mean I think I think by the time it passed we kind of knew
- speakerwhere the church was heading and the culture was heading.
- speakerYou
- speakerknow it was very gratifying. It was gratifying.
- speakerAnd it was gratifying in a sense that we had done a lot of relational
- speakerwork. One of the things about the Covenant Network was I
- speakerthink the Presbyterian Outlook, I found that article and I read it recently you
- speakerknow there was a poll in the Presbyterian Outlook at some point along the way.
- speakerAnd Covenant Network scored really high in terms of credibility.
- speakerSo even if you disagreed with our stances on things you
- speakerbelieved us to be credible and had integrity in terms of how much we cared
- speakerfor the church and how much relationship building mattered.
- speakerSo we spent a lot of time building relationships to the right of us and
- speakerto the left of us. We did that I think because it was good politics but more so we
- speakerreally believed in that vision of peace, unity, and purity only happens through
- speakerrelationship building and and some of us had been trained at McCormick
- speakerSeminary which was a seminary that did a lot with community organizing training.
- speakerCommunity organizing is at heart about relationship building and then figuring
- speakerout where power is and how you how you exercise power in the context of relationship
- speakerbuilding.
- speakerSo that was the work we did. So we were glad when it
- speakerpassed. We I think tried to kind of be a low key about it.
- speakerWhat we realized all along is that you know Covenant
- speakerNetwork at the start in any way was primarily straight, primarily white,
- speakerprimarily large church and my ordination
- speakerand my colleagues mostly weren't up for debate in all this.
- speakerSo and if you were part of you know first PLGC or the
- speakerMore Light Presbyterians or That All May Freely Serve yours was.
- speakerAnd so we tried to be mindful that.
- speakerI think mostly we did OK with that not always I'm sure in
- speakerterms of being sensitive to how we you know the language about privilege wasn't prevalent
- speakerthen but certainly we had it in in large measure on several fronts.
- speakerAnd so I think when 10-A passed we were we were grateful
- speakernot jubilant but kind of grateful and said OK this is where we think the
- speakerchurch needs to be and then we're ready to move to that next thing.
- speakerAnd then marriage happened much
- speakermore quickly than that. I mean as culture accelerated this conversation so did the
- speakerchurch. So you know rather than almost 20 years of debate about ordination
- speakerit was just a handful of years of debate about marriage.
- speakerAnd that happened so quickly as to almost to leave our
- speakerbreath away. One of the great moments of my ministry was when
- speakerthe ordination overture came to the General Assembly in
- speaker2014 I had been a candidate for moderator or that General Assembly moderator and did not
- speakerprevail and that was too bad.
- speakerBut I was able then to be a commissioner and I was able to make a
- speakermotion on the floor that broadened
- speakerthe language a little bit and allowed some more people I think to
- speakervote for that overture.
- speakerThat language eventually ended up in the Book of Order.
- speakerSo it's always a little footnote that I said that.
- speakerThat was reported on and that was a cool thing.
- speakerBut I think that was really in the spirit of Covenant Network where we were trying to
- speakerbuild broadly bridges in both directions so that we were able to advance the
- speakermarriage conversation but also with that language bring some of our more
- speakerconservative friends along by the language that is still in the Book of Order.
- speakerSo that was fun.
- speakerCan you talk about some of those relationships that you built with people across the
- speakeraisle?
- speakerSure yeah yeah. Well they were they were important.
- speakerThey still are important. I'm still in touch with people.
- speakerI'm still in a group that meets annually
- speakerand some of the people with whom and we try to really avoid kind
- speakerof language about battle and opponent and things like that.
- speakerBut but in terms of legislation and Robert's Rules of Order they
- speakerwere pretty intense. We had most of the
- speakera lot of it happened behind the scenes.
- speakerSo regular conference calls with representatives of PFR Presbyterians for Renewal maybe
- speakeronce a quarter so just to say OK here's what we're
- speakerthinking what are you thinking, what's your take on the temperature of the church right
- speakernow.
- speakerWe really tried to say no surprises things like that.
- speakerWe had fewer of those conversations with people like More Light and That All
- speakerMay Freely Serve. We tried to coordinate our strategies
- speakerwith them. Obviously you know if we're trying to win votes at an assembly or
- speakerif we want to vote in assembly win votes in presbytery we did much better when we were
- speakercoordinating than not. We always had at every assembly and this was again mostly when
- speakerassemblies were meeting every year.
- speakerWe would get together informally to talk.
- speakerWe always tried. I always tried to be present you know
- speakerat the General Assembly there are you know these crazy breakfasts every morning.
- speakerYou know each group does it. I try to go to all the ones of groups with which we agreed
- speakerand disagreed because I think that you know whatever pursing
- speakerthe issue pursing the relationship felt really important and
- speakerI think I think what the people on the right knew was
- speakerthat we disagreed pretty fundamentally not just on
- speakerordination but I would say on the things that lead to ordination.
- speakerSo our Christology stuff certainly biblical authority and interpretation.
- speakerI think there was no doubt ever that we love God we love Jesus we love
- speakerthe church and we wanted it to do well and that our
- speakerefforts were in the context of that pretty
- speakerbedrock ecclesiology and I think that's where those colleagues appreciated
- speakerwhat we were doing and how we cared about the mission of the church.
- speakerI mean these were and we cared about the denomination.
- speakerSo but there were rigorous conference
- speakercalls, rigorous meetings.
- speakerThey weren't angry or contentious but they were rigorous.
- speakerAnd I think in the spirit of relationship building it really helped
- speakermove things along in a healthy way.
- speakerBut I do remember walking out some of those you know exhausted
- speakermentally and physically or mentally emotionally and spiritually
- speakerjust because the intensity of the conversation.
- speakerWas there any of that relationship building happening
- speakerhere at Third Church?
- speakerWell yes. So when I came here this this Presbytery, Genesee
- speakerValley Presbytery had and has a reputation as a pretty progressive
- speakerpresbytery. You know when I came here there were five or six More Light
- speakercongregations. That wasn't the case in Chicago Presbytery where there
- speakerwere two or three maybe.
- speakerAnd those congregations all got together from time to time and did
- speakerthings. I made it part of my task to begin
- speakerto build relationships almost immediately with people who I knew disagreed with me.
- speakerSo I spent a lot of time in the car driving to places having lunch with ministerial
- speakercolleagues saying listen we disagree on this.
- speakerMy hunch is we agree on a lot of things.
- speakerI hope we can be friends and colleagues in this presbytery and
- speakerI think that that came out of a history in this Presbytery
- speakerthat predates me of lawsuits being filed judicial
- speakerI mean ecclesial lawsuits being filed not
- speakerjust against Downtown Church with that happened when Janie Spahr was called, one
- speakerof our members Jim Moore was her lawyer, and that in
- speakerthat process James Moore really distinguished attorney in Rochester former
- speakerpresident of the New York State Bar.
- speakerHe represented her and it was a devastating loss for
- speakerthat. And still I don't understand how they how that decisions were made.
- speakerSo we had also had charges brought against us when we declared ourselves to be More Light
- speakerin the 1980s. So there
- speakerwere still vestiges of that dynamic when I came. Then almost 15 years later and I said
- speakerall right that's past I'm sorry that happened.
- speakerI support ordination equality.
- speakerI'm going to keep working for that. But I think we can be friends and colleagues so I
- speakerthink that was I don't say my predecessors didn't ever do that.
- speakerI don't know if they did or not but I made it a point to.
- speakerAnd then the work of Peace, Unity, and Purity helped underscore that work so
- speakerthat whenever there were votes taken in the presbytery which
- speakerwere generally 73 votes all the time maybe
- speakerand now it would be even more than that as we've lost some congregations.
- speakerPeople knew that. I remember I would go to some churches congregations
- speakerand talk about this. I would say you know here's what I believe.
- speakerBut here's what our Constitution says so you
- speakerknow using those teaching moments to build relations that
- speakerhere at least one person was representing a
- speakercongregation that took the unity piece of that seriously and wanted these
- speakercongregations to have a voice to be heard.
- speakerTo be a part of the Presbyterian Mission. And I think some of that's continued
- speakerto bear fruit. It's a different pressure here now because it's a different denomination
- speakernow. I spent a lot of time the first five or six years doing that a lot not
- speakerand not any burden to me.
- speakerThat's kind of what I felt called to do so.
- speakerAnd I think our members who were very committed to More Light.
- speakerI mean we're we're a strongly More Light congregation and
- speakerwe still have a strong More Light committee. We do.
- speakerYou know we've we sent overture advocates to
- speakerGeneral Assembly on a regular basis.
- speakerWe've also done a lot with civic legislation so sending people to Albany for
- speakeragenda and the Gender Non-Discrimination Act and the sexual orientation Nondiscrimination
- speakerAct and all those things. We also the pride parade happens right
- speakeraround this building so we're always kind of a hotbed.
- speakerIt's Pride Week and we always have events here and I always march in the parade and we
- speakeralways have a big group be part of the Pride parade.
- speakerSo we've been very public in our leadership in
- speakerRochester around issues of sexuality and inclusion.
- speakerA lot of that trajectory started long
- speakerbefore I got here. I've been really I think privileged to be able to kind of cultivate it
- speakerand be a part of that. And we didn't have to reinvent anything when I got here to say hey
- speakerwe're on the same page in this.
- speakerWe've also and we're active the
- speakerDivinity School has an active lecture series that we've been a
- speakerpart of bringing speakers from across the country.
- speakerAnd usually when they do that we have them preach here on that Sunday and then speak at
- speakerthe school on Monday and that's been fun.
- speakerI've mostly gotten people from the denomination who've been leaders to come and that's
- speakerbeen a good action to make.
- speakerSo I think our people
- speakeroften say for us well we've achieved ordination and now we've achieved
- speakermarriage. Do we still need to be a More Light congregation?
- speakerAnd I always answer yes I think the reasons for being More Light
- speakerhave evolved. You know now there is constitutional
- speakerlatitude for us to ordain who we think God has called.
- speakerAnd at the same time we still know there's prejudice culturally and in
- speakerthe church. We still know there are issues of equality to be advanced
- speakerand we still know that there is a lot of baggage.
- speakerAnd I even talked about it just this morning in my sermon.
- speakerThere is still baggage around perceptions of the
- speakerchurch's acceptance, mostly the big church out there, acceptance of LGBTQ
- speakerpersons. We have a growing trans population at Third Church
- speakerand so I think that's the more current conversation
- speakerabout how we can have the same kind of sense of equity and equality as
- speakerwe have earlier for gay and lesbian persons.
- speakerSo I think until I think we feel like we're firmly
- speakeron the other side of a lot of these conversations we still need to be
- speakera More Light congregation. In fact we're just ordering, we have a big tower and we
- speakerhang a 20 or 30 foot rainbow banner on it during Pride Week.
- speakerWe just ordered a new one because a big building with
- speakerwind and stone the banner takes a beating so we're gonna keep
- speakerdoing that work I think for a while as long as we feel called to it.
- speakerWell I think we've gone through all of my questions but if there's anything else that
- speakeryou've had on your mind to talk about?
- speakerNo I think
- speakerI think what I think about a lot is you know
- speakerhaving served on the Peace Union Purity task force we had hoped
- speakerto craft a legislative response that
- speakerwould allow people of conscience to stay within the denominational family.
- speakerAnd I'm saddened that that hasn't always been the case.
- speakerSo the
- speakerevolution of ECO and
- speakerjust the leaving, the departing of churches to
- speakerwhether the EPC or OPC or the PCA here it's generally the EPC
- speakersaddens me because you know this morning's
- speakerGospel lesson was from John.
- speakerYou know Jesus's prayer that they all be one.
- speakerAnd that feels pretty compelling to me.
- speakerThat doesn't mean unity doesn't have
- speakerto be denominational unity. I get that.
- speakerI think it's at a deeper level around baptism and our identity as children
- speakerof God. And at the same time when there is denominational
- speakerdisunity even if it's this side of schism I still think that does damage
- speakerto the body of Christ.
- speakerAnd I miss colleagues
- speakerwho have gone to other denominations and I miss their presence in ours because
- speakerI think the more diverse theologically and experientially we can be
- speakerthe better. So I still hope somehow that
- speakerthat recommendation 5 could have had a different kind of traction.
- speakerThat people didn't feel they needed to leave.
- speakerNow that's not to say that them leaving wasn't the right decision for them.
- speakerI totally get that. I worked hard to keep some churches in and went
- speakerto visit them and some did and some didn't.
- speakerSo that's a piece of it.
- speakerI'm very grateful.
- speakerI was surprised you know we had this Covenant Network kind of reunion now a month
- speakerago.
- speakerI was surprised at the deep level of gratification in that gathering
- speakerbecause again my job wasn't up for grabs.
- speakerAnd at the same time we all made choices.
- speakerThis was how we're going to invest our time and energy and a big chunk
- speakerof time and energy. And it was the right thing to do.
- speakerMy my hunch is other colleagues in Covenant Network it was riskier
- speakerfor them to do it than it might have been for me.
- speakerBut I could have been doing other things with that time.
- speakerOther worthwhile things.
- speakerMission in Chicago or things like that.
- speakerBut not to overdramatize it you know with Queen Esther for such a time as this that
- speakerhappened to be the moment we were in and I think the combination
- speakerof leadership and timing and energy and wisdom.
- speakerI think what that weekend of reunion reminded us was
- speakerhow hard the work was.
- speakerHow unclear it was sometimes. How discouraging it could be
- speakerwhen you lose vote after vote after vote that can be discouraging.
- speakerAnd at the same time how deeply gratifying it was because I think we did
- speakersome really good work and we did it with integrity and we did it without kind of burning
- speakerthe house down. And that felt important to us.
- speakerAnd now on the other side of that you know the denominations an entirely different
- speakerenterprise now.
- speakerBut I think part of our legacy helped set it up for who it is now in terms
- speakerof the Next Church Movement or other things
- speakeraround inclusivity. Even a conversation about race and racism that we're in right now.
- speakerSo deep level of gratitude for that being able to be a part of that Covenant Network
- speakerhistory which I think you know in your head but until you get all these people in a
- speakerroom you don't know exactly what it means.
- speakerAnd I was still on I
- speakerwas in the young side of all those gatherings.
- speakerAnd to see some of my senior colleagues
- speakerfor the first time in a long time for some of it was just deeply touching as well.
- speakerAnd to remember those who have gone now.
- speakerPam Byers, Laird Stuart, Casey Tony.
- speakerSome others really the saints of this movement and to remember them
- speakerwas really wonderful.
- speakerThat's a good place to stop.