Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Reconciling in Christ
Fayetteville congregation recognized for welcome.
You all are a part of the Body of Christ,” Anita Andres told the congregants Sunday at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Fayetteville. “We all are a part of God’s creation.”
Andres, regional coordinator for ReconcilingWorks, affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, visited Good Shepherd to present the congregation with a certificate designating it as a Reconciling in Christ church. The designation announces that the church welcomes all people and offers them a safe place to worship.
The Reconciling in Christ churches, more specifically, send the message of welcome to members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual community. But the welcome also is extended to those of varied ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities, of various socio-economic statuses and other disenfranchised people.
“Certain cultures are looking for a sign that they will not be just tolerated but included,” said the Rev. Clint Schnekloth, pastor of Good Shepherd.
SANCTUARY
Good Shepherd includes on its membership rolls individuals and families of the LGBT community, and the membership has a “strong self-identity as a ‘welcoming congregation,’” Schnekloth said.
“I’ve always felt welcome here,” said David Walton, who on Sunday wore the colors of gay pride in the form of belts, bracelets and pins. “Everybody talks to you. They say, ‘Come in.’ I was invited to Bible study and classes. This was before they knew I was gay, but I immediately let them know, and no one was ever negative.”
The conversation about formalizing the church philosophy and receiving the Reconciling in Christ certification started a few years ago, Schnekloth said.
“I think they were energized by stuff going on in the community,” he said, listing the Fayetteville antidiscrimination policy and the Supreme Court’s ruling affirming same-sex marriages.
Members of a church committee wrote the church’s welcoming statement in the spring of 2015. The membership adopted it and applied for the ReconcilingWorks designation.
The church also offered a study of Christian faith and human sexuality. “People have a lot of questions,” Schnekloth said.
The study included materials from ReconcilingWorks and the ELCA. “It’s been a long-standing commitment of the denomination to think about people in our culture, our society, who are unjustly excluded from places of faith,” Schnekloth said. “The Lutherans are leading the way, and I’m really proud of us to be leading the way.”
Church members also shared their testimonies about “what it means to be gay in the church,” Schnekloth continued. “Some were powerful, hard stories of rejection by family members.”
“I was asked to leave four churches,” Walton said. “And each church had a sign saying you were welcome.”
He said he spent several months not attending worship, which “seemed weird, strange,” he said. “It’s an emotional thing. Everybody should be welcome.”
“The community had a hunger and were shunned by so many,” said Phyllis Gambill, a four-year member of the church. “How sad that they did not have the same opportunity to belong to a church.”
Schnekloth said some churches tell members of the LGBT community they can attend church but only in a partial way. “They’re welcome only if they change. They’ve been told they can, ‘Pray the gay away,’ if they just get involved in the church.
“But the church is supposed to be a sanctuary,” he continued.
LGBT members are part of all the ministries at Good Shepherd, he said: They serve on the church council and the committee for the Reconciling status. They teach Sunday school. And some were married in the sanctuary.
“I’m just really proud to be part of this congregation, just to reach this goal,” said member Diana Kendall-Huss. “It was not something that was possible a year ago.”
As Good Shepherd worked to become inclusive, members realized that, by including some, they might be excluding others. In fact, part of the membership left in the winter of 2014 to form their own church in a different Lutheran denomination, Schnekloth said.
“We are ‘big tent Lutheran,’” Schnekloth explained. “We’ve had space in our congregation for a wide variety of social identities all along. We fully support marriage rites and believe in full inclusion.
“It caused an identity crisis in Good Shepherd’s congregation,” he continued. “It was hard. Friendships and relationships were strained.
“It was a hard thing to go through, but I see a lot of opportunities for both congregations to act on how God calls them to serve in the community.”
JESUS, TOO
During worship, Schnekloth shared the story of Jesus being rejected in Nazareth — his hometown. Jesus spoke in
the synagogue, reading from the scroll of Isaiah:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
— Luke 4: 18-19 First, they welcomed Jesus, recognizing him as the son of Joseph, one of their townsmen. But then the Jews rebuked him for his work among the marginalized, and a mob attempted to kill him.
All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of town and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down a cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
— Luke 4:28-30 “Some in this room have never been rejected by their hometown or family,” Schnekloth said. “Others went home and told their parents they were gay, and their parents told them, ‘I want to kill you.’ What a switch, from ‘We love you,’ to ‘We want you dead.’ Shocking!
“The church does the same thing. For years, people have heard this passage and said, ‘That’s me!’ ‘That’s what I’m going through.’ ‘That’s what I’m still going through.’”
Jesus shook up those at the synagogue with his illustration of ministry to a different community of people, Schnekloth said. “They were very comfortable thinking their normal was normal. They had systems in place so nothing would disrupt their sense of normal.”
Just as many do today, he continued. “If you’re gay, you’re not supposed to talk about it. You’re supposed to keep it hidden, closeted, for the safety of the group normal. If someone you love is in prison, if you have disabled children, don’t talk about that. There are systems to buffer and protect ‘normal,’ so the ‘common’ is not impinged.
“But would we willing to become uncomfortable to welcome people? Could we shift our ‘normal’ to make it comfortable for a person who is autistic, to make it comfortable so they are not disrupted? Or sit through a Spanish worship service?
“Jesus reminds us — if we are willing to listen — that God goes to be with people our faith community would like to exclude. But radical love, reconciliation is our responsibility. Love is our rule. Justice is our practice.
“All are welcome at this table,” Schnekloth said as he began to serve communion.
STEPPING OUT
“We want to keep communicating that we are a welcoming church,” Schnekloth pointed to the congregation’s next steps. “A lot of people were hurt in the past by churches. It will take a lot of consistency in the same direction to build trust, to let them know that this is for real.”
The exterior doors of the church feature a sticker of hearts in the rainbow color scheme announcing that Good Shepherd is a Reconciling in Christ church, and the congregation is listed on the ReconcilingWorks website. The welcome statement is printed each week on the top of the bulletin. And the welcome is included in sermons and lessons.
“We will go out of our way in speech and actions,” Schnekloth said. “You can’t assume they know they are welcome. I think a lot of exclusion comes from blindness — people don’t realize what they do, but they really are trying to be welcoming.
“We will keep learning, and the people in our congregation know best how to teach us. It’s an ongoing activity to continually figure out how to hear God’s calling.”
In addition to the church designation, some members of the congregation joined ReconcilingWorks as individuals and have organized a local chapter. The group walked in the Fayetteville PRIDE parade and will man tables at the upcoming ELCA Arkansas-Oklahoma Synod meeting, telling other churches about the Reconciling in Christ church program.
And the members will look at other areas of the culture rife with exclusion. “Racism is still an issue in our culture,” Schnekloth said. “We are committed to working on the whole part of our welcome.”
Good Shepherd is the first church in the state of Arkansas and in the ELCA Arkansas-Oklahoma Synod to be certified as a Reconciling in Christ church. “I’m really proud to be a reconciling church in this part of the country,” Schnekloth said.
“As you carry it forward, let your minds be inspired by your spirit,” Andres said. “Be a light in your community and the world around you.”
Church member Anita Crosby doesn’t expect the designation to change the identity of the church. “The changes have already been made. The certification recognizes what kind of church we decided to be.”
Gambill agreed. “We’ve been doing it. Perhaps the (formal recognition) will let some of the marginalized know this is a safe place.”
“It think it’s huge,” said Cody Steussy of the certification. Steussy and his husband Ricky Phommachanh have been members of the church for about two years. “It’s publicly thrown out there who we are. A lot of LGBT people are looking for a church home, and thanks to the network, they realize it’s a safe place.”
The ReconcilingWorks website includes Good Shepherd in a search for Reconciling in Christ churches, which will no doubt lead to listings on other websites accessed by the LGBT community looking for a safe place to worship, Steussy said.
“It’s amazing. I am speechless,” said Phommachanh of the ReconcilingWorks accreditation. “It’s not just about homosexual people. The people are all here for God and Jesus, and that means more to me than anything.”
“It just feels like something we should be doing as a church,” said Jessica McClard, president of the church council.
“God made us as we are, and we are all here to worship,” Steussy continued.
“We are all members of the human race, and I wish people would remember that,” Andres concluded her comments.
“God gave us one great commandment: Love God, and love others.”