From June 4,2017
How appropriate that I should find myself being discontinued from Provisional Deacon status, ending my 9- year pursuit of ordained ministry, on Pentecost Sunday by the Alabama West Florida Conference tonight on recommendation of the Board of Ministry after a three year struggle with how to maintain my authentic self and try to meet the Board’s expectations for ordained ministry. Somehow I don’t think the early apostles and deacons that carried the gospel to the world faced such a gauntlet as I have felt that I have faced in pursuit of ordination to the ministry of Word, service, and acts of justice and mercy in the UMC today. ironically, it is as if the divisive forces at work in the national and global church have been the same divisive forces at work in my journey toward ordination since February 2014, when the Lord told me exactly that as I sat before the examining board. I suspected then that my journey would end this way. It has been a three year process of grieving what has been a sorrowful loss of my sense of that to which God had called me. As I have discovered, however, my call by God is assuredly to a Purpose (teaching/discipleship/mentoring) and a People (women and families in crisis). With regard to the Place (any particular church or parachurch ministry) or a Professional Religious Order (Ordained Deacons or other), I believe those are things that have no significant bearing on God’s call to Purpose and People and over which God has given choices to those of us who must work together to accomplish the larger goal of building the Kingdom of God. This has been a valuable process of discovery of that truth. If perhaps others called to ministry who are battling within the UMC at levels far above my own could come to the same realization, we might find a peaceful, though still sorrowful, way to part ways with those whom God has called differently, but has still called nonetheless to the primary call to Purpose and People! When we can honor and affirm one another’s call to Purpose and People while agreeing that Place and Professional Religious Orders are in dispute, we can find better ways to agree to disagree. But unless we have those conversations with one another honestly and openly it can’t happen. I pray that those in positions of authority will be given the wisdom to guide those holy conversations better than those into whose authority I have been thrust these last three years.
“Deacons are ordained United Methodist clergy who lead the church in relating Christians to their ministries in the world through worship leadership, preaching, teaching, nurturing spiritual vitality and leading ministries of service, love, and justice. They may work primarily in congregations or they may work primarily in settings like hospitals, social-service agencies, mission agencies, schools, counseling centers, denominational agencies, and more.”
I did what I could to live into that purpose through the process of ordination as a Deacon in the UMC and faithful to my primary identity in Christ and not in an institution, even one that I have loved and served for 45 years.. The fact that it was inadequate by the standards applied by the AWFUMC Board of Ministry has not diminished what I have felt as God’s favor and blessing upon the ministry that I do. I will continue to fulfill my call by God even though it is has not been compatible with the AWFUMC.
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