|
Contents |
Graced, gifted and gay:
Refelctions on sexuality and spiritualities
by Pr. Ruth Frost
When I was born, there was no wise midwife present who could turn to my parents and say, "Congratulations! You have a lovely lesbian!" So my parents did what their parents did: took their baby home and never once questioned that one of them could be different.
There were clues to my difference, of course, but no one understood them or had a language for them, so we all just muddled through. By age three, I announced to my parents that I would accept only one doll into my young life and that it must be a boy doll. This was 1950 when boy dolls were scarce. My parents looked high and low for a boy doll and could not find one. They finally resorted to deception and bought a female baby-doll. They had a family friend sew boys' clothes for it and attach a male-styled fur piece to its head. So I got my first doll -- in drag. How prophetic!
By age four I was wearing my father's cast-off neckties every chance I could get, and had learned to tie a half-Windsor before I learned to tie my shoes. In fourth grade, my best friend was a boy, and together we made a pact to tell people we were cousins so people wouldn't tease us about the friendship. One day on the playground, I saw a group of little boys sniggering secretively over a deck of playing cards. Curious, I drew closer and discovered that one little boy had ransacked his father's personal effects for this deck and was making a killing selling it off card by card to the other boys.
I soon saw why. On the back of each card was a picture of Marilyn Monroe posed provocatively in the nude. As I caught a glimpse of her, I knew instantly that I wanted one, but I also knew I had to get it surreptitiously. Being a true friend, the little boy I called my "cousin" got one for me. That day in school I propped my desk top open a crack so I could look at that card all day. It was my most exciting day in school.
After school, I walked home carrying my card with feelings I did not understand and with no one to talk to about them. I threw away the card before I reached home.
That day was my first experience of sexual feelings. It was also the first time I was truly conscious of my difference. Most significantly, it was the first time I experienced shame because of it. Instinctively, I realized that this difference was not sanctioned in society. I had no language to talk about my awareness of difference but the few derogatory words I had heard used ("sissy," "fag," "homo," etc.) in school, words I did not yet fully understand but knew were not used positively.
By age thirteen, I was reading romance novels in which helpless "girls" got rescued by strong men who were rewarded for their bravery by a kiss from the grateful girls. Always, when I read these, I imagined myself in the body of the male hero rescuing and romancing the heroine. Giving myself a male body was the only way I knew how to be strong and how to enjoy the allure of a female body. While I delighted in these imaginary experiences of my sexuality, I told no one of them, because I had gradually learned I was not "normal."
After all, the world around me was heterosexual. All television I saw, all books I read, and all advertising I saw and heard bombarded me with heterosexual models for identity and for sexual expression in relationship. I was growing up in the midst of the most massive behavior modification and control plan any mad psychiatrist could ever have dreamed up for an emerging homosexual. My entire culture -- family, church and society -- were conspiring against my identity and my self-expression.
So I did what most of the rest of us who are in this ten percent of the population do: I assumed a false identity and tried to act my way into heterosexuality. Though I fell in love with women, I did everything in my power to deny my feelings and keep them at bay. When I was twenty-seven, I fell deeply in love with a twenty-three year old woman whom I became sexually involved with. In a panic, I broke off the relationship with her and married the first sensitive man whom I thought I could love. Ironically, he turned out to be gay.
After our divorce three years later, I swore off sexual expression altogether and decided that the only way to not be sexual was to be very spiritual. So I went to seminary. This proved to be no solution. In the seminary dorm, I was surrounded by healthy heterosexuals who were delightedly acting out their sexual desires in a variety of ways. There were, or course, homosexual students on campus as well as homosexual faculty, but I was too frightened to make friends with any of them. We all knew who we were, but we were so closeted in seminary that we were terrified of relating to one another. The power of fear and shame is the power to isolate people from support, thereby insuring conformity to heterosexist norms, or, failing that, at least insuring secrecy.
However, the seminary was giving me excellent tools for Biblical study and analysis. We were learning interesting things -- such as the status of women in ancient times. We learned that, in ancient Israel, Jewish religious law codes were written by men for men, that it was normative for men to legally own women and to have more than one wife; that women could not be responsible for any oaths they made but were always responsible for any sexual actions they took; and that men could divorce their wives simply by verbal decree, though women could not divorce their husbands. We also learned that anal rape of male strangers and prisoners was a popular method of subjugation and humiliation which Biblical writers roundly condemned, but that vaginal rape of women was overlooked by the Biblical writers unless it resulted in damage to a man's "property" through the death of "his" woman.
In short, we seminarians learned that scripture, like so much other history, is largely stories told by men about men and for men. We noticed that with few exceptions, women's voices, women's lives and women's loves were strangely absent except in affiliation with men's. Through this experience, many of us came to understand the powerful influences of racism, sexism and heterosexism that have permeated so many cultures and so many times, Biblical cultures and Biblical times not excepted.
But we seminarians also learned about the love of God and the ministry of Christ, calling us to be witnesses to the law of God in the love of neighbor as the self. Slowly, in the midst of this homophobic seminary community, I began to really believe the Gospel and to love my neighbor as myself -- all of myself. I began to imagine Christian community as dreamt of by the apostle Paul: a community without the usual divisions between male and female, Jew and Gentile, gay and straight, but rather a community which understands itself as beautiful in its diversity and as the healing presence of Christ in the world. I began to appropriate (prefer appropriate) my baptism as that ritual which signifies not only the reception of the Holy Spirit but the overcoming of all human divisions.
I realized that the church can be a powerful instrument either of abuse or healing. Finally, I became convinced that the grace of God for homosexual people is our release from the tyranny of heterosexist shame, release from doctrines and policies that teach us to hate our own bodies and to deny ourselves the blessing of love in mutually trusting, empowering, full-bodied relationship.
So, grace for homosexual persons, and indeed all persons, is to be affirmed by God in our giftedness as sexual and spiritual persons, and to be challenged to become all we were created to be.
I invite you to imagine a different world than the one you inherited. Imagine a world in which there is no sexual shame and no sexual threat of any kind.
Young women, imagine never having to think about or guard against sexual assault, never having to guard against someone's penis being used as a weapon against you. Imagine being able to love your bodies freely, to see them as magnificently beautiful and as belonging solely to you, to give to another only as you please. Imagine yourself free of the responsibility to be the sexual watchguard for men. Imagine yourself free to take loving sexual initiatives with a man or free to accept the loving sexual initiatives of a woman. Imagine a world where there is no inequality in relationship, no power imbalance, no economic disparity, and no gender or sex role prescriptions for you. Imagine the possibility of relationship free from fear. Now, having imagined living with this freedom, what is it that you need and want for yourself as a sexual and spiritual person who loves herself as much as her neighbor?
Young men, imagine a world where your manhood is not measured by the size or activity of your penis. Imagine loving your body freely, imagine a world where erotic desire is not seen as dirty or pornographic but as a natural expression of created goodness. Imagine a relationship in which you do not carry the major responsibility for providing economic security or sexual initiative. Imagine a world where your best performance is that of love rather than sexual prowess. Imagine sexual expression as the source of intimacy and play, imagine that your genitals and those of your partner are nothing more and nothing less than an extension of your arms and mouth and eyes made for loving embrace. Imagine erotic expression as the power of connection. Imagine the wonderful journeys you can embark on with a partner you love and trust and who delights in his or her body as much as you do. Finally, imagine that as you express yourself, physically, sexually and emotionally, as you "make love" in all the ways love can be expressed and created, God looks upon you and smiles delightedly, pleased with your erotic beauty and imagination.
Is this a pipe dream in the age of AIDS and with the fear of unwanted pregnancies? I don't think so. If we offer people sex education to help them prevent STDS and unwanted pregnancies, we give them the tools with which to make wise choices that can lead to life-affirming relationships. In this way, we would help people claim their spiritual and sexual wholeness and use the gift of their sexuality wisely and joyfully. If we affirm sexuality in its richness and diversity -- heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality (in short, every responsible manifestation of sexuality) -- we will help people to look at what they want in relationships and trust them to tell us what they need. If we stop modeling sexual power as power and control over another and start modeling sexual power as the power of connection which is of both the spirit and the flesh, we will teach people life-affirming behavior and help them to resist what is life-denying. In this way, we can eradicate shame from sexuality.
If we see sexuality as shameful or the privilege only of those in heterosexual marriage, we deny the rights and needs of young adults not yet ready for marriage, of older adults who have become single again through death or divorce, of women who outnumber the male population in this country by 15 million, and of lesbian and gay relationships seeking support and guidance from family, church and society. If we teach people that there is clean sex and dirty sex and the difference is defined only by heterosexual marital privilege, we are failing them and creating a situation in which the church presides over who gets a license for sexual expression and when. This is as demeaning to the church as it is to the faithful.
Make no mistake: lesbian and gay people do not want immunity from sexual responsibility. We do not want to cast aside sexual ethics any more than heterosexual people do. But in being told that our sexuality is so unspeakably sinful that under no circumstances must we express it, we are being denied sexual responsibility and ethical guidance. This is a travesty. Sadly, we are not alone in this ethical void. The ELCA's position is like a "just say no" campaign against loving sexual expression outside of marriage, no matter what the circumstances or ages of the partners. It asks the faithful to turn over responsibility of their bodies and their desire for intimacy to an institution with its official head in the sand. Thus the church fails all people whose relationships lie outside the sanction of heterosexual marriage.
We are creating a church whose policies ask people of every age, orientation and gender identity to lie about who they are and what they do. Through the ELCA's document Visions and Expectations (for seminarians and clergy) the church has codified a double standard of relational intimacy and sexual expression for those outside mainstream heterosexuality and those inside it. To deny the benefits of marriage to homosexual persons and to require sexual celibacy of gay and lesbian persons (and bisexual persons by implication if they happen to be partnered to someone of the same gender) is both an unfair and ludicrous position for Lutherans to take, given Martin Luther's stance against celibacy and his own happiness in marriage.
The church's discriminatory policies have created a religious atmosphere of lies, secrets and silence for all of us. In their attempts to maintain unity at the expense of honesty, our religious leaders have sold out. For those of us who are lesbian, gay bisexual and transgendered, the church has sent a clear message that we are the expendable populations.
I am frightened for this church which I love. We have entered an era in the ELCA where power and control are becoming increasingly centralized and mature dissent stifled and responded to punitively. Those of us not represented in the institution's model of heterosexual marriage are allowing religious leaders who neither understand our reality nor respect it to define our lives for us. In sexual relations we would call this abusive. In family systems we would call this dysfunctional. Who will save this church, if not the people of God who dare to risk rejection and exclusion by their honesty?
Pr. Ruth Frost is Associate Pastor for Outreach and Evangelism at St. Francis. This article is adapted from a talk she gave in 1992 to a meeting of the Lutheran Student Movement. An interview with Pr. Frost begins on page 7.
Whatever you do, don't make a fuss
The ELCA was primarily concerned
with avoiding conflict at all costs, says
the Rev. James DeLange
|
It is hard to improve on Garrison Keillor's characterization of the ELCA Studies on Sexuality report as a "Don't ask, Don't tell, Never mind" position. Keillor went on to say in his weekly report from Lake Wobegon on National Public Radio's "Prairie Home Companion":
While I never had much hope that anything would change as a result of yet another study*, St. Francis members Mari Irvin and Greg Egertson made it their business (at their own expense) to attend every meeting of the Task Force because they wanted them to see flesh and blood homosexuals while they talked about people as "issues." |
 Garrison Keillor |
But now the study is out and what I and others had predicted at the outset has come true. The Task Force Recommendations reveal the sad state of the Lutheran movement in our country whenever Lutherans try to take a stand for justice on a controversial issue. In order to hold together the institutional structures of the national church and its synods, Lutheran denominations form a task force who will state the controversy's realities, but recommend we do nothing about it for fear of making all sides angry. Such a response expresses nothing of the theology or call to action in Christ's Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20; Luke 6) or in the Lutheran Confessions (Apology, Article XIV.)
We quote from the Task Force Report:
Rather than attempting to resolve our differences through legislative action we have sought to place matters in the realm of pastoral care and to encourage continued engagement as we minister to one another.
In other words: Don't vote on this thing. There will just be a terrible fight and we want peace, even if it is peace at a price to be paid (again!) by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
The Task Force for ELCA Studies on Sexuality recommends that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America continue under the standards regarding sexual conduct for rostered leaders as set forth in Vision and Expectations and Definitions and Guidelines for Discipline, but that, as a pastoral response to the deep divisions among us, this church may choose to refrain from disciplining those who in good conscience, and for the sake of outreach, ministry, and the commitment to continuing dialogue, call or approve partnered gay or lesbian candidates whom they believe to be otherwise in compliance with Vision and Expectations and to refrain from disciplining those rostered people so approved and called.
At first glance this seems to throw LGBT folks a bone. However, it puts LGBT pastors at the mercy of the whim not only of their current bishop, but also future bishops who could have a different whim. It does not recognize the moral bankruptcy of the ELCA's current policy. Further, it calls upon the ELCA to refrain only from disciplining "rostered" leaders. It says nothing about the many LGBT pastors the ELCA has already removed from its roster or those who have chosen the roster of The Extraordinary Candidacy Project.
Such calling of a person should be done with respect for those whose consciences are bound to an interpretation of Scripture that accords with the present policy of this church. For example, those who feel conscience bound to call people in committed same-sex unions should refrain from making the call a media event either as an act of defiance or with the presumption of being prophetic.
In other words, "Homosexuals and advocates, you be nice to those who hate you, and whatever you do, don't make a fuss."
We must ask: Was not the Sermon on The Mount a media event? Was it not prophetic? Weren't Jesus' "Woes" to the scribes and Pharisees confrontational -- even judgmental and condemning? What about turning over the tables of the money changers? Wasn't that being "presumptuously prophetic?" when we know that upsetting the money changers threatened the unity of Judaism and the temple's cash flow. Not to mention calling the attention of the Romans who responded to conflict like the 21st century media.
On page 12 of the Report, marriage and genital sex are intertwined and defended on the basis of the Bible. Even a child can read the Bible about marriage and understand it had little to do with sex and everything to do with male status (marry as many women as you can) and that polygamy was not only sanctioned, it was encouraged. Most often, marriage in the Bible had to do with property rights, women being the property. It is silly to try to impose Bronze Age tribal marriage laws and customs on a modern society. Were we to do that, we would still have slavery, and women could not own property, let alone vote or serve as pastors. (Some of us remember that battle with those who used Biblical ammunition, telling us we were violating Scripture by ordaining women).
History and experience with the communion of saints in our midst is what we should rely on because reason can deceive us. Especially when we use reason to try to apply everything written in the Bible to contemporary life. But, by all means, let's look at the Bible. Check out the struggles of our Christian forebears in Acts 10 and 15 and how they resolved their cultural differences.
Finally, the indifference of the rank and file of the ELCA to this study is indicated by the statistics in the Task Force Report. Nonetheless, the Task Force seeks to convince us that the response they received is reason for celebration.
Dr. Mari Irvin, a retired professor of Educational and Counseling Psychology, who is most familiar with statistical studies in her profession, did the following analysis:
Baptized members of the ELCA: 5,038,006
Communing and contributing members: 2,394,585
Number of responses (paper and web) to the ELCA sexuality study: 28,161
Number of responses "statistically analyzed": 3,956
Age 24 and younger: 103
Age 25-44: 586
Age 45-64: 1,673
Age 65 and older: 1,594
Percentage of total responses from ELCA total membership: 0.56%
Percentage of analyzed responses from ELCA total membership: 0.0785
Translation: Even from this self-selected pool of respondents (which cannot be legitimately called a "survey," a fact that flaws this "study" beyond redemption for any analysis of data):
- Slightly over one-half of 1% of the total ELCA weighed in on this study.
- Of the analyzed responses, less than one-tenth of 1% of the total ELCA membership and less than one fifth of 1% of the active membership of the ELCA weighed in on this study.
- Only 14 of the 65 synods devoted any time to the study at their synod assemblies.
- From this data, the task force concludes there should be no change in policy because to quote, "the biblical/theological case for wholesale change in this church's current standards has not been made to the satisfaction of the majority of participants in the study."
Clearly, it is the task force's collective belief that "the majority of participants in the study" represent the constituency of the ELCA. Logic and numbers defy such a conclusion.
A lot of good and faithful people put their heart and soul into this study, especially the members of the Task Force and the staff at ELCA headquarters. It is too bad they couldn't come up with something better. Perhaps they are indeed reflecting the attitude of the vast majority of the members of the ELCA: "Don't ask; Don't tell; Never Mind." But somebody ought to remind them that in every Lutheran church -- even in quaint Lake Wobegon -- there are kids growing up some of whom will turn out to be gay. They'll probably leave the church. But they will suffer, sometimes deeply, until they do.
The Rev. James DeLange was Senior Pastor of St. Francis from 1982-1999.
For further reading
Pr. DeLange's earlier piece about the ELCA's sexuality statement was in the Lent 2004 Instrument.
The ELCA's website for the sexuality study
'Wherever you are, you will be doing ministry,
because ministry is who you are.'
Mark Pritchard speaks with Pr. Ruth Frost
First, I want to ask you to try to remember all the different hats you've worn here.
The first stage of my relationship to St. Francis was through my call to LLGM. We were assigned by the parish to do the work of LLGM and also to participate in the life and ministry of the parish as well. So I started in a role that was more advocacy on behalf of LGBT people locally and churchwide. An awful lot of my ministry was spent responding to publicity and to do forums, workshops, conferences, plenaries, and panel discussions. So for the first five years of life here at St. Francis, a lot of it was directed outward in a ministry of advocacy affirmation and spiritual care of LGBT people.
Part of that work took me into schools, speaking and working with youth and support groups. Responding to letters that came from all over the US, from parents, young people, and seminarians and clergy, and lifting up that whole population of what we call "the disappeared" -- those who have just quietly left the church, or been asked to leave, and have disappeared. Lifting up their legacy and saying, "You know, they're present among us still." Or "they're present among us in society, even if they have left the church -- and what a loss it's been." So kind of bringing back their contribution, making it visible.
At St. Francis specifically, I think that my interest in expanding metaphors for the sacred and opening wider the door to women led the parish to work into my initial call opportunities to nurture and reach out to women, and specifically lesbian women. When Phyllis and I first came to St. Francis (in 1990), you could count the lesbians on one hand -- I believe there were three. Clearly we didn't have critical mass. So it was important to grow that population as much as possible. But to do that meant the congregation had to look at its language in worship, really had to look at its metaphors for the sacred, for the divine. Really had to look at how we spoke about what we name of God. And to look at the ways the patriarchal system had robbed women over the centuries of their gifts and their spiritual life and their spiritual contributions.
One of the things I love about St. Francis is that it's easy for lesbians and gay men to have friendships here, whereas out in society it's not that easy. It's wonderful to see the relationships established between younger people and the very aged members of our community. It's been wonderful to see families of choice develop here. I think part of my ministry has been about that.
|
In terms of other areas of my responsibility -- we've all been involved, at times, in Christian formation and classes and adult education. Several times we've had conversations about Christian formation at St. Francis, and invariably Pastor DeLange would ask, "What is it that we want people to know?" and I would ask, "What is it that we want people to experience?" (laughs) We tried to balance those and involve people in their own spiritual growth, instead of simply dumping creeds and dogma into them. So being involved in the prospective members classes has been a vital way of engaging with people who are seeking spiritual growth. Some of them are just transferring membership, but more of them are engaged in seeking a deeper life of faith. I've really enjoyed preaching, and I've enjoyed having more opportunities to preach in the last several years. That's been a great blessing. I've enjoyed the opportunity to hear excellent preaching, and to know that I'm making my own contribution to what I think has been many years of very good preaching at St. Francis. Community Night has been a wonderful area of ministry to be involved in. The catalyst of Community Night was the birth of Noelle. For a while, she was the only little one. I think Phyllis's pregnancy even raised the issue of "Do we have change tables in the bathrooms?" -- something as basic as that. We began to look at what does it mean to support families with children, and particularly with what our understanding of what family is -- that it's really the bonds of love that creates a family. |
 Pastors Phyllis Zillhart and Ruth Frost, with their daughter, Joy Noelle Hart |
We realized that our more formal, traditional way of worship on Sunday morning wasn't very conducive to small children, that it would just put parents in a bind of having to police their children and keep them quiet instead of embracing the life of kids in the parish. We thought it would be wiser to have a program meeting in the evening that involved dinner, children's activity, and our own form of child-friendly Eucharist. We knew we were apt to reach families that weren't already churched. The vast majority of the Community Night families that have come to us over the last 10 years have been unchurched, what I would call seekers.
In many ways, the congregation that comes on Wednesday is separate from the regular St. Francis worshipping congregation.
Yes, they are separate. They are their own community. And they talk about St. Francis as their church, and refer to us as their pastors. Several times, in the lives of these families, there have been crises that occurred. One father had a long illness that ended in death; another family has gone through the difficulties of child custody issues. Some families have gone through various transitions. And they have, from time to time, called on both Phyllis and me, and we've provided pastoral care to some of these families. One of the things that I'd hoped would happen was that we could create a bridge between the congregation and Community Night, where there would be some traveling back and forth. But to a large extent, that has not happened. And I think it would be difficult to do, in terms of integrating Community Night into Sunday morning worship, just because of the vastly different styles.
Might it be that they're sort of self-selected for when and how they come? There would have to be a lot of change for them to become Sunday morning people.
Yes. And one of the things that it's hard for people without children to realize is that there is so much that pulls on family time these days. Children no longer have neighborhoods where they can play outside with their neighbors. Everything is scheduled. You have organized athletics, you no longer just kick a ball in your backyard with somebody. You have all kinds of after-school activities. You have parents working longer hours in their jobs, picking up their kids later. You have children who are engaged in every conceivable after-school activity. And the amount of homework that kids have today, in comparison to our generation, is an incredible increase in time. I see children living adult lives. And it worries me.
So to be able to come here after work with their children to a candlelight dinner that's already been prepared for them, to know that there are people who have planned a way for them to be together as a family without them having to make that effort, and then for it to end with a very simple Eucharist, a 15-minute Eucharist that brings everybody together -- has worked very well.
But you have to understand that that whole thing -- dinner, activity, Eucharist -- lasts an hour and a half. And kids can come in their jammies. It's still difficult for parents to find the time, but they love it. The other night, last Community Night, a mother said to me, "Ruth, forgive me, but we're going home before the Eucharist. We're just really tired out, and the kids need to get to bed." Well, her kids heard her say that to me, and they said, "No, no, Mom, we want to stay. It's not over yet!"
I would say that worship has been, this last year, a wonderful opportunity to be engaged in the whole enterprise of working on developing worship at St. Francis. I'm indebted to Michael Hiller for setting such a high bar for worship, and for bringing so much thoughtful process to making liturgy vital to people. Some of the areas we've been working on this past year have been to make our worship more visitor-friendly, more easily accessible to people who don't necessarily have a liturgical background; to widen our resources for hymnody and to utilize the many resources that are available now for contemporary worship and for multi-cultural musical expression. And to make it easier for both visitor and member to participate together, so there isn't as much of a divide between visitors and members. That's been a lot of fun, and being involved in worship is vital. Anyone who goes into ministry wants to be involved in worship, so it's been fun to have, to be able to assume leadership in this area.
Talk about how you decided to leave St. Francis.
I certainly knew that, with the adoption of the Visioning Team's recommendations for our future, that staff would be reconfigured. That was a given. And it made sense that the two part-time positions would go away, and that we would focus on the lead pastor position and on the three-year term call position. So it became very readily apparent that I needed to resign, so it was really only a question of the timing of it.
I wanted, at the time that I made the decision, I wanted to spare the congregation having to have so many losses simultaneously, so I felt it was best to stage the losses a bit and allow for some breathing space in between them. I firmly believe that the parish is entering a new chapter, a new era, of its history, that will no longer be linked to the personalities and notoriety of the 1995 expulsion. And that's exciting to me. Because St. Francis should never be a church associated only with specific individuals. It's so much more than that.
Was there a definite moment when you made your decision?
I was contacted by the Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer in Sacramento -- by the pastor of the church, Robyn Hartwig -- inquiring as to whether I'd be interested in undertaking a commission to design six stained-glass windows for the congregation's sanctuary. I was invited to submit some drawings. I proposed that I meet with the congregation's representatives and have a conversation about the congregation's mission and ministry and take a thorough look at its programs and the communities it serves, and the people that come through its doors. And because I'm a pastor, that process was natural for me to lead. They were surprised and pleased that the stained glass would be an integrated part of their vision for ministry and their identity.
You almost led them through a visioning process, it sounds like.
In a way, yes. We had several conversations, and then I responded with drawings. They have a ministry with the deaf and they participate in feeding programs with homeless people, and they partner with a Navajo tribe with some work on a reservation in Arizona, and they have a diverse population and feel very strongly that any visitor to the congregation should feel the welcoming embrace of God's unconditional love. They have some gay and lesbian population; their pastor is, herself, an openly identified lesbian, and this year they became a field site for a transgendered intern. So they're a small congregation that is, like St. Francis, living God's yes joyfully and anticipating the future now. So I was delighted to be able to work with them.
I did a design for two walls where there already are clear glass windows. As you enter the building, you will see what I'm calling a baptismal wall. It is a scene of a community gathered around the baptismal font. The pastor is holding and baptizing a baby. The scene shows an Asian family, an intergenerational family, a gay male couple, a woman in a wheelchair, a child signing. It shows family in its diverse constellations. And you don't know immediately whose baby it is that's being baptized, and that's deliberate, because I want the viewer to realize that it does take a village to raise a child, and that Christian community at its best is spiritual family to one another.
When you leave the sanctuary and face the opposite wall, the plan is to depict that same constellation of people gathered around Christ's table, with the pastor in this scene elevating the chalice. The woman in the wheelchair is holding a big basket of bread, and the basket is of Navajo design. The bread is being blessed to be taken out to the world. The gay male couple is holding the baby, and you realize it's their child. The intergenerational family is gathered around; the child (who is) signing in the first window is signing again in the second window. In the baptismal window you see the hands of God reaching down, hands of blessing over the baptismal tableau. In the second window, you see the hands of God through the world, coming up from the bottom of the frame, in supplication, showing the need of the world.
That's the commission I'm working on; I'm working on the baptismal wall at this time. And I really do see the opportunity to do ecclesiastical art as an extension of word and sacrament ministry.
Lay people imagine that it must feel different somehow to be a pastor. Do you think you'll feel different once you leave your post at St. Francis?
I remember my father blessing Phyllis and me the week before he died. He died of cancer, and he knew he was dying. And one of the things that he said to both of us -- at that time we had not yet received the call to St. Francis -- and he said that he was sorry that the world could be so cruel in its ignorance in always trying to limit opportunities -- and that the church was participating in that limitation of opportunities -- for LGBT people -- and that it was the church's loss. He said, "But I have not worries for the two of you, because I know that wherever you are, you will be doing ministry, because ministry is who you are."
So I do fundamentally believe, as did Martin Luther, that all of us are engaged in the business of word and sacrament ministry together, that we are the priesthood of believers. At St. Francis, we talk a lot about the community as a means of spiritual care. We don't talk solely in terms of pastoral care; we talk in terms of spiritual care. The pastor leads that process but is not doing it solely by his- or herself.
Certainly I'll go through an adjustment process if I don't have an opportunity to serve, as an ordained person, in word and sacrament ministry. I will certainly go through an adjustment, and I will certainly miss it. And yet, I have always wondered what it would be like to be involved in a spiritual community, with the gifts that I have as a pastor, simply as a person of faith and as a volunteer. Because even though pastors very often go the extra mile in their profession, and are called to do that as part of what it means to be a pastor, you never really have the opportunity to say "This is what I'd do if I were volunteering." I'm kind of looking forward to simply being free to make a contribution in the areas that I can make it, freely, when and where and how I choose to do that.
Will you be worshipping at First United sometimes?
Some of the time, yes, because our daughter has dual households and her fathers are very active at First United, it makes sense to me to foster that connection and to join her in her experience there. She has two family homes and she has two church homes, and both of them are important to her. I also will take advantage of the opportunity to worship in other congregations. Pastors get way too tied down, and should have opportunities to do that, particularly ecumenically.
I won't disappear from St. Francis altogether, but I will be stepping back, to help make it clear that I am no longer directly involved in word and sacrament ministry at St. Francis. Though I will be involved in word and sacrament through my call as a chaplain to the ECP roster.
What does that involve?
It's kind of a virtual ministry. The roster is 37 people all around the US and more people are coming in all the time, and it became apparent that the seminarians and clergy on the roster need avenues for support and spiritual care. There's a male chaplain and a female chaplain (though right now I'm the only chaplain). My work with the roster happens through email and telephone conversations, and in face-to-face encounters where that's geographically possible. It also means I represent the roster when there are extraordinary ordinations or other significant events.
I wanted to invite you to address the issue of your eyesight and how that's affected where you are spiritually. It's certainly affected your ability to do the stained-glass work.
Well, I'll back up for a minute and say that the congregation knows, if they've been around a while, they eventually find out that part of my personal history is that I had polio as a kid. I walk with a limp, and that's an outward manifestation of that experience. I have not thought of myself as someone with a disability, especially living in Minnesota, which is largely flat. But after moving to San Francisco, the issue of being a polio survivor was more evident to me. It was more difficult to get around, and I can't do many of the hills. It's not pedestrian-friendly for me.
That was hard for me to come to terms with, because I did not want to see myself as someone with a disability. And that's a shame, because it indicates we haven't done a very good job as a society in dealing with people of differing abilities, and dealing with the shame that gets attached to differing abilities. So it isn't something I've wanted to talk about very much, but over time I've realized I should use it as a resource for ministry, more explicitly. So I have included it in sermons every now and then, deliberately -- partly so I can hear myself included, and partly to let others know that it's part of my experience.
As I started to experience my eyesight deteriorating -- it really started to deteriorate in 1999. It deteriorated with ever-increasing speed over the last five or six years, so that the last three years or so were years in which I began to be not only very alarmed, but to feel like I might in fact be going blind. And that was very difficult. One of the things that was very difficult about it was that I could no longer recognize people across the street, walking in the neighborhood, or even across the parish hall, downstairs, over coffee. If I walked in the Parish Hall, I'd have to ask Phyllis, "Where is so-and-so? Can you point him or her out to me?" That was an awful feeling because it began to have a relational impact. And just as I had been reluctant to talk about polio, I hid, as best I could, the increasing difficulty of seeing, and just kept trying to do a good job.
It also resulted in funny things like, I had a constantly furrowed brow, which led people sometimes to believe I was in a bad mood, or it made me less approachable. Whereas it was just my effort to see. And it also affected my hearing somewhat not to be able to see. So I found myself straining harder to hear in meetings of people around a large table as well.
It finally reached a point where I felt like I had to deal with it, and the congregation needed to know I had to deal with it. And I wasn't sure what the outcome would be. But I'm very blessed that I've benefited from cutting-edge technology and am now in the process of getting vision back.
But again, I began to realize that not to resource that for ministry is a mistake. We need to resource all of our experience. It isn't in how perfect we can be that we do good ministry, but in fully using our life experience.
So I think the negative aspect of losing vision was how it compromised my sense of relational connection. The positive aspect of it is that I think it's always an opportunity to talk about how we're all human beings who struggle with inward or outward manifestations of our lack of wholeness. Some of them are visible, and some are invisible, but we need to be more visible to one another. I think that's how, when people have an illness (like) AIDS or cancer, they're very vulnerable to the world, and yet, in some ways, they're more trustworthy because they can't hide what their challenge is. I don't think it's ever very good to hide what our challenges are. But it's also not good to get preoccupied by them to the extent that we lose our capacity for gratitude or lose our ability to see the challenges that everybody has.
The Prayers of the People is a time when people bring all those things forward.
Yes, they're wonderful. It really is the whole community, collectively, holding individual cares in a communal embrace. We hold the space for one another. We hold sacred time and sacred space. I think we bring a level of attention to one another. We attend to one another in community prayer in a way that is qualitatively different from simply listening to one another over coffee. We see one another through Christ's eyes. And we learn more about one another's burdens as well as one another's blessings.
In leaving St. Francis, one can only leave with deep gratitude. If I never have another opportunity to serve in parish ministry again, I will always know that I've had one of the richest experiences in word and sacrament ministry that anyone could possibly have. I leave with a sense of great gratitude and contentment in that knowledge.
Pastor Frost's last Sunday at St. Francis is April 17.
Everything changes
by Mark Pritchard
One only need think about it for five seconds to realize that life constantly keeps us off balance. When you're five years old, you feel like you're finally getting the hang of this walking and talking thing -- then, bam! You're off to school, where you have to learn a whole new way of being. After several years you feel like you've got being a child down pat -- then comes puberty, and you have to become yet another new person. These changes keep happening to us, and "Pretty soon, you'll drag your feet just to slow the circles down," as Joni Mitchell wrote.
I was only about 15 when "The Circle Game" was a hit song. I don't know how many times I sang it naively, never thinking that I would ever get to the foot-dragging point of life. As far as I was concerned, life had only two speeds: fast enough, and boring.
But lately, I've been trying to get my mind around the increasingly undeniable fact that I'm now middle-aged. For the last 25 years my self-image has been that of a young, iconoclastic troublemaker who dyed his hair blue, published a sex zine, and did performance art. Now I can no longer pretend that's still me. I'm 48 and fat, and once again, I have to learn a different way of being.
I know there's nothing special about this experience. Everyone goes through it sooner or later -- if they are fortunate enough to make it to middle age, as so many young men in the 20th century did not. It helps to try to stress the growth aspects of this experience, and not think of it merely as loss. I also know that eventually I'll look back on this time in my life and wish I could be as young as 48 again. So I'm trying not to get too excited about it.
St. Francis is also going through a period where we are constantly faced with transitions. Beginning with Pastor James DeLange's retirement in 1999, we've been in flux for five and a half years, and we're in for more. This spring brings the departures of Fr. George Belcher, Associate Pastor Ruth Frost, and Director of Music J. Wingate Greathouse. Sometime in the near future, Phyllis Zillhart, another longtime associate pastor, will leave.
Sometimes it seems like our congregation is between cycles of a transition of an interim of what used to be just an ordinary congregation. We look forward to the day when all the transitioning will stop and we will simply be what we are.
We may not get that wish.
Though the maxim that "Everything changes" is at least as old as Buddhism (which dates from the 6th Century B.C.E.), never has this seemed so true as in our own day. As the global economy changes, each of us individuals has to deal with a whole new set of assumptions. My father worked his whole life for a single company; I've worked for five different companies in the last eight years. I used to think my country would never invade another unless attacked first; now I've seen it happen. And things we assumed might last long past our lifetimes, such as the Soviet Union or the World Trade Center, are now nothing but bad memories.
Fear mongering
And some events I view as positive, such as the legalization of gay marriage, are highly threatening to some people. The image of two men kissing is constantly used to frighten social conservatives; early this year it was even used, through some twisted logic, to attack the AARP's opposition to Social Security restructuring. In February, PBS was so intimidated by possible charges of indecency that it bleeped the soundtrack of a "Frontline" documentary that showed American soldiers fighting in Iraq cursing in the heat of battle. In March came word that IMAX movie theaters were refraining from showing films on scientific topics like evolution and geology for fear of protests from fundamentalist Christians. Social conservatives have effectively intimidated the mass media to the point where almost anything possibly offensive is hidden or bleeped out.
Those who profess to be upset by such so-called indecencies are the same kind of conservatives who push anti-gay marriage initiatives, protest the teaching of evolution, and think feminism is satanic. Somehow they have convinced most of the country that this stance is Christian -- though the real reason they're so upset is not because they're more moral than everyone else, but because they're more afraid.
Though we all face the same societal changes, a vocal minority is threatened by them. While most of the country calmly accepts the presence of women and LGBT people in mainstream life, and grants adults the right to make decisions about their private lives behind closed doors, a minority is freaked out by the possibility that their child's teacher might be gay or that pornography might be available on the internet.
I think there are two ways this fear campaign works. First, there are still numerous Americans who are under the illusion that there are no gay people except in San Francisco and Hollywood, that American popular culture is still where it was in the days of "Ozzie and Harriet," that nothing but hard work and a good attitude lead to a middle-class lifestyle. They are like people who have lived in a comfortable house on a bluff for decades, and suddenly face losing the house in a mudslide. Suddenly envisioning their lives tumbling and crumbling into mud, instead of learning anything about geology or considering whether or not the house should have been built on the bluff in the first place, they blame the rain.
So they scapegoat gays, liberals, the entertainment industry, and more ephemeral groups like "Washington insiders" and "tree-huggers." And their fear is easily exploited by hypocritical politicians like Dick Cheney, Alan Keyes and Phyllis Schlafly, who have gay children of their own.
The other reason they have this fearful reaction is that they think something is being taken from them, something they own. This is also an illusion, though closer to the truth. In the mid-20th century, well-to-do white men pretty much did control this country. They owned and ran the lion's share of the businesses, they took up almost all the seats in Congress and on the bench, they used themselves as the rule by which "normal" was measured.
When women, people of color, LGBT people and immigrants began to enter the formerly all-white, all-male, all-heterosexual realms of power, those holding power were threatened. Their fear was understandable -- but it was not legitimate, because their exclusivity was not legitimate. They were under the illusion that they controlled things by some right that had been handed down to them. Then they found out what really mattered was the Constitutional guarantee of equality before the law, and they had to move aside and make room for others.
Others of us are not threatened by the things that drives conservatives nuts. In San Francisco, most people take pride in their tolerance and even embrace of diverse cultures and identities. Diversity is an official policy of governments, schools and corporations. At St. Francis, we explicitly welcome everyone to the Lord's table every Sunday.
Our parish reflects change
But as we continue to encounter change at St. Francis, I wonder if we can continue to show the tolerance and openness to change that distinguish us as San Franciscans. Reflecting (and trailing) changes in the neighborhood, our congregation changed radically between the time of its founding in 1964 and its ordination in 1990 of Ruth Frost and Phyllis Zillhart as lesbian pastors. That was a generational change: Today, only three or four members from the pre-DeLange days remain at St. Francis.
Today, while our neighborhood still has a large LBGT population, we know many other demographies live here. As I've written before, the number of people who enter our doors to go to 12-step groups outnumber those who worship here by about 7 or 8 to 1. That alone should give us pause about who we're serving. If our location is convenient enough for the hundreds of 12-steppers who meet here, it seems we could also be their church. And yet there is almost no overlap between those who meet downstairs during the week and those who worship upstairs on Sunday. Do we really know why?
Another group we should consider serving, as Fr. George Belcher pointed out in his annual report, is families with school-age children. This is not the first time we've heard this; our Community Night program has been serving this community for several years. But while this successful program has been running, it has not led to many people joining the congregation or worshipping with us on Sunday morning. One possible reason for this is that our worship's formal tone strikes some people as not "family friendly."
Now we're getting close to home. I happen to like our mode of worship a lot -- most of our members probably do, or they wouldn't be here. Changing the formal tone of our worship service in some way that makes it more "family friendly" -- and I confess I have no idea what that means -- is threatening to me and probably to a lot of people.
So here is where I have to face my own fear. Am I willing to give up some of what I love about our worship at St. Francis in order to make it more welcoming, more hospitable, to families with children? What if I had to give up all of what I love about the worship? Would I still be able to worship here?
I find I am prepared to be challenged. Even though I have cringed from time to time at some of the new things we've tried, I'd rather go to a church that tries new things and fails than one that never tries new things. Even though I personally don't like Marty Haugen's settings and think they sound like music for TV commercials, they don't keep me from worshipping. I would rather sing Haugen year-round and have ten families join me than sing Hogan and have no families at all.
Finally, as everybody knows, resources are more strained now than they were five years ago. We will probably never have a pastoral staff of five (!) as we did in the early 90s. We may not be able to afford paid singers as much as in the past. We may have to cut back in other ways. This also means change.
By Christmas, we will have a new lead pastor and a new music director. Change in our worship, and in our congregational life as a whole, is inevitable. And it will be difficult for us. There will be hurt feelings, and stress, and we will experience feelings of loss. Some of us may feel our congregation is changing beyond recognition; some may even leave.
We have a choice. Either we can react to these changes the way some American conservatives do, with fear and loathing, with an illusion of ownership and privilege -- or we can respond with open hearts and trust that God is leading us into the future. We can give up our attachments to the way things were, or the way things are now, and do with the whole of our congregation what we do with the Lord's table every Sunday: say "This doesn't belong to us; it belongs to all the people."
Queer as You Are
Why
I Am Not "Straight" or Your "Ally":
Being a Loving Diatribe Against the Use of These Appellations
by Robin Ressler
Several weeks ago, during an
informal coffee-hour conversation here at St. Francis, we got into an
impassioned conversation about a congregational profile that was posted on the
internet as part of our search for a new pastor. The profile included demographics
on the gender and sexual orientation of members: our congregation includes x%
lesbians, y% gay men, z% "straight", etc.
I was mortified,
first of all, that such information would be posted on the internet without the
consent of those concerned. Second, and much worse, I was distressed that these
categories and numbers had been determined without asking the individuals
involved how they identify themselves. The outcome of this conversation was
that a survey was sent to all the members of the congregation, giving us the
opportunity to confidentially identify ourselves in terms of our sexual
orientation. The choices were the usual GLBT or straight or other
(the categories of intersexual or, simply, queer
were absent).
Of course, my choice was "other."
A number of people here at St.
Francis have referred to me as straight. I guess they look at my life
and they make that judgment. I think it's nasty to be called straight,
and I don't like it one bit.
|
In the old movies -- gangster
flicks, film noir, etc. -- the word straight was used, as it was in the
contemporary vernacular, to mean "law abiding". In that vernacular we would
say, for example, that in the 1953 film Pickup on South Street, the
pickpocket and the "bad girl" decide to give up their lives of crime and "go
straight." In the 1960's and 1970's, the hippies
-- mostly young people who wore long hair; challenged the status quo; frequently
smoked pot or dropped acid; and explored new forms of art, music, and family
life (such as "living together" without "benefit of clergy" and various
communal living arrangements) -- were against the American War in Vietnam and
were sympathetic to the various liberation movements of the day. Hippies
were distinguished from the straights, who wore
short hair (if male); eschewed recreational drugs (excepting alcohol); were as
politically conservative as their parents; and were, in general, what we called
"establishment types." For most of this period, they included many pro-war
"hawks." |
 Jean Peters and Richard Widmark in Pickup on South Street (1953) |
In both cases, the word straight
had normative connotations. Criminals and hippies were deviants not only
from the majority and the traditional, but they were also deviants from
the way people are supposed to be.
Originally the term queer, when
applied to homosexuals, was pejorative. Queer denoted someone who was
not straight, that is, heterosexual: the way people are "supposed to
be." Straight was, once again, normative, and queer deviant.
Then something happened. The
sexual minority community embraced the word queer as part of the "gay
pride" movement, as it was first called. Now, to quote Jen Rude, an out lesbian
seminarian and student organizer around sexual minority issues at Pacific
Lutheran Theological Seminary, queer is "an increasingly preferred term
that includes gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersexed,
questioning people, and even straight allies, celibates, etc."
Now, it's good to
be queer.
Unfortunately for those who
like to call heterosexual people straight, there was no such redemption
for that word. Straight still speaks a word of judgment against queer
people. Therefore, for those of us who affirm all people in their God-given
sexuality, and especially for those of us who work and pray for justice for
sexual minority people in the church and in the world, straight is an ugly word with strong heterosexist and homophobic
connotations.
This is clear in the following
examples:
In the Winter 2005 issue of Advent,
a publication of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of Lutherans
Concerned, in an article entitled "It's Time to Close our Bibles for a Few
Months," David R. Weiss, Director of Resources and Education for Lutherans
Concerned/North America writes, "they've mired us in a quite different
question: whether homo-sexuality [sic], either in orientation or expression
(and it's just plain arrogant when straight people assume a distinction
between the two) is sinful."
In a press release from St.
Francis dated January 13, 2005 that
is posted on our website, entitled "St. Francis Lutheran Church Responds to
Church Report on Sexuality," our own Pastor Ruth Frost is quoted as saying,
"What straight folks need to realize is that as LGBT people speak out
and live their lives authentically, the safer everyone will be in church."
In a document entitled "A
Response to the ELCA's Sexuality Task Forces [sic] Recommendations," which was
distributed at the January 27, 2005 meeting of the San Francisco Conference of
Lutheran Churches, the Rev. Robert M. Goldstein of Immanuel Lutheran Church in
Chicago writes, "Why can't this church see that you who are straight go
to bed at night and have sexual relations with the blessing of Christ's church,
can get up the next morning so righteously denying the humanity of persons, in
all ways exactly like you…except they are irreversibly attracted to
persons of the same sex? You have the power, so you succumb to
oppress us. You are in denial, so you oppress us. You
prefer to interpret Scripture in ignorance, so you oppress us!"
(Emphases mine)
The reader concludes from these
examples that "straight" people are people who behave arrogantly; who are
ignorant about the benefits for the whole church of justice for LGBT people;
and who are powerful, self-righteous people who live in denial, interpret
Scripture in ignorance, and oppress (oppress, oppress!) homosexual people.
Please, dear sisters and brothers, don't call me that!
However, if you feel you must
call me something other than "Robin," consider the following. According to Jen Rude's gracious definition of "queer," and in philosophical
consonance with the academic field of queer studies -- which is adamantly
anti-patriarchal, that is, opposed to hard-and-fast-categorization, especially
of human beings -- I am as queer as you are!
Neither am
I your "ally," although I know you mean this as a good thing. You see,
according to my dictionary, to ally means to form a connection or a relation
between. In the world I live in, we already have a relationship as children of
God, and we are connected as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.
Those who insist upon a double
standard for out, non-celibate sexual minority people and everyone else in the
church are trying very hard to rupture the unity we share in Christ. And I, for
one, am not having any of it. Never did, never will.
Therefore, beloved, I invite
you to think before you call someone "straight." Do you think he or she views
his or her sexual behavior as normative for you? (I, for one,
shudder at the thought of the sexual behavior of anybody whom I know well being
normative for anybody else -- ewwwwww!!!! -- especially mine!!!!) When you have finished
thinking, if it is really appropriate to the conversation and it is anybody's
business, I invite you to go ahead and use the word heterosexual. Yes, it's
a long word. Yes, it sounds clinical. But it's morally neutral, in a way that
the word straight is not.
Better yet, call her your
sister in Christ. Call him your brother in Jesus.
Or keep it simple. Call those
who love you queer as you are!
For further reading
David R. Weiss's article "It's Time to Close our Bibles for a Few Months" in the Winter 2005 issue of Advent can be read at http://gayspirituality.typepad.com/blog/2005/01/its_time_to_clo.html.
The St. Francis press release Robin refers to is at http://www.st-francis-lutheran.org/sflc-20050113.html .
News and upcoming events
Capital campaign off to great start
by Jim Kowalski
On Sunday, March 6, 2005, St. Francis launched its four-year capital campaign, "Realize the Vision," to help continue implementing the vision for the future of the congregation's Mission & Ministry. This plan, adopted by the congregation last fall, resulted from an 18-month visioning process that included an intentional interim period led by Fr. George Belcher, former Interim Pastor.
The focus of the campaign is to reduce the congregation's debt, free up funds paid annually for interest on this debt and use these funds to increase the annual funding for Mission & Ministry. Currently, when we make payments toward our $574,000 in debt, we pay $2 in interest for every $1 paid against the principal. The goal of the campaign is to raise $250,000 by 2008 that will allow for: saving nearly $300,000 in interest that will never have to be paid over the next 20 years and eliminating the line of credit with the congregation holds with a commercial bank and restructuring the remaining debt through the St. Francis Foundation.
To date, we have 31 pledges from 36 individuals totaling $211,560. This will increase our funding for Mission & Ministry by $12,694 every year going forward from 2008. Thank you to everyone who has made these generous pledges and gifts!
We hope to reach or exceed our $250,000 goal by April 10, 2005, and will only be able to get there with the participation of as many members and friends as possible either by making four-year pledges, over and above their annual mission & ministry pledges, or by making one-time gifts to the campaign. Commitments ranging from $500 to $15,000 will all add up together to reach the goal.
Conducting this capital campaign while the congregation is in a call process demonstrates sound financial management and good stewardship to potential candidates to be our next lead pastor. Clergy will see this tangible and strong belief among members and friends in the future of St. Francis as a sign of a vibrant community that uses its resources wisely to maximize its ability to conduct ministry.
For additional information about the "Realize the Vision" campaign or to make a pledge or donation to the campaign please visit www.st-francis-lutheran.org or contact committee co-chair Jim Kowalski.
Staff changes afoot:
Two clergy depart, and an interim music director arrives
Spring brings several changes to St. Francis's staff.
On March 13, Interim Pastor Fr. George Belcher celebrated his last Sunday at St. Francis. With his wife Helen in attendance, along with an unusually full church augmented by over a dozen attendees from the St. Francis Senior Center, Fr. George brought his two years of interim ministry at St. Francis to a close.
Palm Sunday, March 20, was our first Sunday with Dr. David Schofield as Interim Music Director. Dr. Schofield, who brings an extensive background in church music, is expected to be with us for several months.
On April 17, Associate Pastor Ruth Frost ends more than 15 years of ministry at St. Francis. Pastor Frost is resigning to devote more time to her work as a stained glass artist. An extensive interview with Pr. Frost about her ministry at St. Francis begins on page 7.
Fr. George's legacy
Fr. George's primary legacy is the successful completion of the congregation's visioning process, which ended in September with the approval of the Visioning Team's report. His expertise in interim ministry and the visioning process was reflected in his patient, confident leadership. The insight he helped us achieve and which is documented in the Visioning Team's report will help us steer our ministry for several years into the future.
But just as important, Fr. George will be remembered for his warmth and cheerful demeanor, his unflappability, and his visitor's appreciation for St. Francis and our city.
Fr. George began his ministry with us in late January, 2003 for an expected term of up to 18 months. This term was extended in October, 2004 and Fr. George arranged to stay for several more months to provide a smooth transition to a new lead pastor.
But soon after his extension was finalized, Fr. George suffered health problems that prevented him from staying until a new pastor could be called and installed.
After Pr. Frost departs in April, Pr. Phyllis Zillhart will be the parish's sole pastor on staff until a new lead pastor is installed. We are fortunate to have the occasional assistance of retired clergy in the congregation who ably assist when necessary.
See below for an update on the Call Committee's progress on finding a new lead pastor.
New interim music director
Dr. David Schofield (pronounced SKO - field) began his tenure as Interim Music Director on Palm Sunday, March 20.
Dr. Schofield has a wide-ranging background in church music. He was the organist and choir director for the Roman Catholic congregation at Columbia University in New York for 11 years. While in New York, he also led choral groups at schools and was music director at the Church of Notre Dame.
Moving to San Francisco in 1999, he was music director at St. Dominic's Church (Roman Catholic) and, most recently, at the Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist. At least twice during the tenure of J. Wingate Greathouse he served as a substitute organist here at St. Francis.
For his first Sunday, Dr. Schofield had the usual full day, convening a choir rehearsal before church, then leading the choir and the congregation in worship for mass. Afterward, a choir member praised Dr. Schofield's direction and said he has a "light touch."
Dr. Schofield will be with us for at least several months as the congregation undertakes a visioning process for a music program.
Call Committee update
The Call Committee is progressing with reviewing incoming applications from a variety of sources. Since the initial announcement, we have advertised in The Christian Century and The Lutheran.
At this point, we have ten "official" inquiries/designated applicants and three additional informal inquiries which we expect to become official soon.
The call committee's current plan is to stop advertising at the end of March, and we expect that we will have received inquiries of initial interest from all potential candidates by April 15.
We have been impressed by the quality of applicants thus far and feel that the process is going well. To date, we have ELCA, ECP, Episcopal, Presbyterian and UCC candidates. As the majority of the application process is being done via the Internet, we are able to direct the applicants to our website to learn more about who St. Francis Lutheran Church is and what we are looking for in a Lead Pastor. The result is applications that are germane to our search and promising.
Hold the Committee in your thoughts and prayers as we begin reviewing the mobility documents from the candidates who exhibit a closer fit to the experience and qualities we identified in our Visioning Document as needed at St. Francis Lutheran Church.
Music visioning group gets down to work
The resignation of Music Director J. Wingate Greathouse and a lively discussion during the annual Congregational Meeting led to the formation of a Music Visioning Group for the congregation.
As the members considered the 2005 budget, some asked about how our ministry priorities were reflected in such items as benevolence -- the funds we give to outside organizations, traditionally pegged at 10% of our budget -- and paid singers for the choir.
The passions voiced during the discussion proved the impetus for the congregation council to form a group that would conduct a visioning process around the role of music in worship, congregational life and outreach. Lynn Oleson, Sylvia Braselmann, Paul Brenner, Michael Mallory, Mark Pritchard and Pr. Phyllis Zillhart began meeting in February. Their work will result in a vision for music at St. Francis and a job description for the next Music Director.
The Music Visioning Group will hold open forums for the congregation at coffee hour on April 3 and May 8.
Upcoming dates
Sunday, April 3
Music Visioning Group hosts coffee hour and a congregational forum on music at St. Francis.
Sunday, April 3
Richard Copperud's Eightieth Birthday Bash at 70 Anderson, 2 pm Everyone is invited.
Sunday, April 17
Pr. Ruth Frost's parting Sunday. Special Coffee Hour with catered lunch.
Sunday, May 15
Feast of Pentecost
Sunday, May 22
After coffee hour, Women of St. Francis meeting. See Barbara Kling or Faye Robinson for details.
Saturday Evening, June 11
Spring Fling and Silent Auction fundraising event, benefiting the Friends of St. Francis Childcare Center. Mark your calendars now and join us for an evening of great food, drinks, entertainment, a silent auction and raffle event will be held at the San Francisco County Fair Building, also known as the Hall of Flowers, at Lincoln Way and 9th Avenue.
instrument
a newsletter of St. Francis Lutheran Church
Editor:
Mark Pritchard
This
Spring 2005 issue was completed on March 26, 2005 and posted on the web on March
29, 2005.
Produced
on something like a quarterly schedule. Submissions in MS Word format to
mark94110 at yahoo.com, or on paper to Mark c/o the church office, 152 Church
St., San Francisco, Calif. 94114. Submissions may be on any topic related to
spirituality or the work of the people.
Opinions
expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily of St. Francis
Church, its staff or members.
Read
previous issues of Instrument |
Go back to the St. Francis home page