The big Methodist church in the Southern city where I grew up taught me a lot. There I helped make dolls to send to African children at Dr. Albert Schweitzer's clinic along the Congo. I learned that a woman who was part of a Mixed Marriage (her husband was Catholic) could be a great Sunday School teacher. I learned that our senior pastor did not have to be charming or a great speaker if the church needed him to be a good manager.
I was a teenager there when the congregation was struggling, less gracefully than it should have, to embrace racial integration. There were comments among my parents' Sunday School friends such as "why can't THEY go to the [black] church down the street; we even help to support that church?" Years later my mother mentioned with delight the new black preacher in "her" pulpit.
And today I heard from my sister, who still lives and worships where I grew up, that communion had been served by a lesbian couple. Good for them. Good for Methodists.
Reconciling Ministries Network mobilizes United Methodists of all sexual orientations and gender identities to transform our Church and world into the full expression of Christ’s inclusive love.
