Mennonite church offers shelter to LGBTQ members

When it comes COLUMBUS — to welcoming the LGBTQ community, the Columbus Mennonite Church exemplifies “the best of the Mennonite tradition.”

That’s according to Carol Wise, executive director of the Brethren Mennonite Council for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Interests. Wise runs the Minneapolis-based organization, founded in 1976, which has a program called the Supportive Communities Network. The network is made up of Mennonite and Church of the Brethren churches that publicly affirm LGBTQ members.

Overall, there are about 114 member churches, and the Columbus Mennonite Church in Clintonville is one of them.

Like the United Methodist Church and some other denominations, the Mennonites are debating where they stand on LGBTQ issues. Can a member of the LGBTQ community be married in the church? Be a member? Be a clergy member?

Columbus Mennonite has spelled out that LGBTQ individuals can do all three of these things within its walls at 35 Oakland Park Ave., but other Mennonite churches are staunchly opposed.

As of Jan. 1, the Lancaster Mennonite Conference, which includes more than 170 Mennonite churches in Pennsylvania, New York and northeastern Ohio, split from the larger denomination, Mennonite Church USA.

The reason for the break was the conference’s opposition to same-sex marriage.

Though the Lancaster conference decided to leave the larger church organization, Mennonite Church USA hasn’t actually spelled out definitively where it falls on LGBTQ issues. At a 2015 conference, Mennonite Church USA stated that it “acknowledges that there is not currently a consensus” on samesex relationships.

Though the larger Mennonite organization doesn’t support same-sex marriage or license same-sex pastors, some regional conferences within the church do, said Joel Miller, pastor at the Columbus Mennonite Church.

The Central District Conference of Mennonite Church USA, which includes Columbus Mennonite, accepts LGBTQ individuals and will license them as pastors.

Mark Rupp, a pastor in charge of education and small groups at Columbus Mennonite Church, is gay and has worked at the church for about four years. Before he started there, the church had voiced support publicly for LGBTQ individuals, but hadn’t fully defined what that meant.

In 2014, it did.

The church said it accepts LGBTQ individuals as members, ministers and in marriage. The congregation voted unanimously to approve the statement.