UPDATE: I will write more about the meeting and how things are going to play out, but I just wanted to update everyone and let you know that the meeting today went very well (albeit the fact that it was 4 hours long)! Thank you for your prayers! Everyone was very eager to just have some honest conversation about everything. I think I presented myself very well and responded to their concerns honestly and openly. There was even some laughter in the room at times. After we met, they voted to transfer me down to the Presbytery of San Francisco, which is what I was hoping would happen. There are going to be a lot of details to work out with that process, but today really went as well as it could! Thanks again for everyone’s prayers and support.
I’m not going to go into many details at this point, but many of you knew I was supposed to get ordained by Kendall Presbytery in Idaho on December 7th. Some of you even got invitations to the Ordination Worship Service. But it did not happen. I’ve made many semi-ambiguous and flat-out ambiguous Facebook/Twitter updates about the process and what is going on, but haven’t shared much more of what happened. I’m not going to share many details now either, but I did want to give a short update.
In the planning of my ordination worship service, I invited my good friend Tony to preach at the service. There were some, including my home church, who were shocked that I’d ask someone who is gay to preach, and that is the incident that ended up derailing my examination before presbytery and consequently my ordination service. Over the past 3 months, I have been accused of many things, I have had my call referred to as “selfish” and “self-serving”, I have had a pastor sign an email to me “With No Respect” and many other things.
At 10am today, as you are reading this post, I am meeting with the Committee on Ministry (COM) to apparently respond to these accusations. There is a group of people who have called my fitness for ministry into question, and have made a recommendation to COM that I be removed as a Candidate for Ministry. I have no sense of how this meeting is going to go, and that is a bit anxiety-producing to say the least. There is so much more that I could say about this, but don’t feel like I should at this time. If you are a person who prays, please pray for myself and all the members of the Committee on Ministry; please pray that we would really hear each other and listen to one another. Please pray that we would all “clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience…”
Needless to say, since this is such a personal situation, I ask that if anyone feels like leaving a comment here, that it not be an attempt to start a debate with me about any of the issues surrounding my situation. I reserve the right to delete any comments.
