No Need to Wait

Beloved:

             I was in Birmingham last week to attend the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly.  I got excited about the good work in progress that CBF is doing in so many places.  Here are some examples: 

• Washington D.C. ~ The Baptist Joint Committee (BJC) is defending religious liberty for all Americans. Check out their cool website.
• Uganda, Spain, N. Carolina, Belgium, Haiti, Virginia, Missouri, Macedonia, Rio Grande Valley, Bali, Cambodia, Houston ~ a few of the places CBF field personnel serve the three CBF mission priorities of global church, global poverty, and global migration.  Read about it here.
• Atlanta ~ CBF National headquarters from which the primary mission of CBF – to serve churches and help them thrive as they minister to their communities – is delivered.  They train young ministers by supporting seminary education and provide continuing ed for old ones like me.  They do way more than I can tell here, so go read all about it.
• Macon, GA & Dallas, TX ~ Amazing stories of racial reconciliation happening between white and black Baptist believers, telling hard truths about how the past is alive in the present and must be faithfully remembered, repented, and repaired.  Here.

             No doubt, my favorite parts of the meetings are seeing people I know and meeting people I don’t.  I met up with Southern Seminary folks I’ve known 30+ years, a few of whom look weirdly older than I feel.  The best is when I run into students from my IU campus ministry days, now in their own ministry placements, and my heart nearly bursts with pride.
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             My least favorite part of the assembly was the hurt and grief murmuring audibly just below the joyful laughter:  hurt and grief for want of reconciliation regarding the inclusion of our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters.  We’ve tried so hard to cooperate, we ended up claiming unity where no true consensus was ever reached.

             Is not unity the highest purpose of the gospel?  LGBTQ+ friends and allies, myself included, feel expected quietly to submit to this feigned unity or be considered uncooperative, a term that casts doubt upon our commitment to ministry and missions.  Perhaps this bind is less real than I imagine, but I sense its pull all the same.  I even wonder if CBF friends with dissimilar convictions can also feel its presence.

             Such conditions strike me as akin to those which prompted Reverend King’s 1963 Letter From a Birmingham Jail, his response to an editorial by white clergymen arguing that civil rights ought be gained slowly and quietly through the court system instead of in the streets.  Just how quiet, patient, and submissive are we going to be while those in power are constrained by fear of the inevitable future in which our children see what we cannot, just as we saw what our own parents could not?  The unconditional and full inclusion of our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters in the life and leadership of our churches is just as obvious as the inclusion of women and people of color was once upon a time.

             We are Baptists!  And the beauty of being Baptist is, we aren’t required to wait on our leadership to get brave.  We can be brave right now.  Another reason I’m glad to have cast my lot with you all, UBC Bloomington, Indiana.  You have no idea how you shine every time I tell other Baptists how generously inclusive you are.

             The hashtag #ITSYOURCHURCHTOO popped into my head last night.  Jodi (the millennial) explained to us (the old people) how hashtags are supposed to look and then Laura Beth made it pretty.  I love it so much and want to smear it on everything that has our church name on it, so folks who think church may not love them might find their way to us – and even if they don’t, we tell the truth as best we know it:  the church belongs to everyone, no exceptions.  I’ve gone on much too long, so thanks for your sweet patience.  You are all so dear to me. 

~peace & prayers, 
pastor annette  #itsyourchurchtoo♥