When did I become one of the most radical people in the room?

[hermionesviolin]

A room of GLBTA United Methodists.

And not even like how I would come back to Norwood from Smith (where I felt wicked conservative) and feel wicked radical 'cause I was, for example, an ally to the polyamorous community.

I was not a fan of this morning's worship (though I did like the sermon better than last night's), and the workshop I went to was mostly useless, but Intersections Plenary? Which I thought was supposed to be about Race and Religion. Was I guess White Privilege 101. Complete with bonus ableismn. (Doing the Walk/Circle of Privilege and repeatedly saying "take a step" WHEN ONE OF THE PARTICIPANTS IS IN A WHEELCHAIR. That is exponentially worse than last night's sermon-giver talking about "lame excuses" and then later quoting Scriptrue which uses "lame" in the "physically-impaired" sense -- which reminded me that I still owe comment replies to this entry.)

I told Ari last night: "Convo has been, worth coming to, despite its not being awesome. There's been stuff that's made me feel energized to (continue to) work to make the church the welcoming and inclusive place it is called to be (often in reaction to stuff not being awesome, rather than being inspired by positive stuff, but it's better than just being depressed and demoralized by the not-awesome), and there have been moments when I have totally loved Marla."

Comments

[sweet-adelheid.livejournal.com]

Responding at midday instead of 7am in the hustle of trying to get out the door...

I know that one of the things that is upsetting is the way that I take conversations like this very personally: take criticisms of how I view things as criticisms of who I am. This is clearly *my* problem, not anyone else's, but having been aware of this for a good five years now, it still hasn't changed much. ~sigh~

I think that maybe this is one of those times when you actually *can't* include everyone. The language that you're talking about would be great for some people - not great, and in fact downright offputting - for others. As long as we can all find somewhere to worship where we feel welcomed, included, and encouraged to feel worshipful (one of my big concerns is that as the UCA gets more and more "contemporary" in their worship (which to me generally means slipshod in their liturgies, dubious in their theology, and downright neglectful of decent music), there will be no where left for me. That terrifies me. (Which again has something to do with how personally I may be taking all this.) Something that also annoys me is a tendency to frame our services for people who aren't there, instead of those who are - "if we change our music, suddenly people will come back to church" etc. I *know* I've got way too much baggage with this stuff that you couldn't possibly know, but my filters have been missing on these things for years now, and I'm sorry.

I've only spent thirty years with "Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer": that's enough for me to be jarred by "receive our prayer". (It's the rhythm as much as anything else: just doesn't sound right.) Trying to change entire congregations of over-70s to whom a lot of this language is intensely important - we're only *just* at a point in the UCA where the changeover in language for the Our Father is beginning to stick, and that came in close to twenty years ago now.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

I definitely agree that no one place is going to be right for everyone. Ironically, one of my problems with the American Left is that in trying to be "inclusive" of "everyone" it becomes so meaningless (plus it's a lie, because of course there are things they *don't* want to affirm or even accept).

Near the beginning of the Just Worship workshop, Marla talked about how the changes to liturgy that have happened at CWM aren't imposed but reflect who the congregation is/has become, which I think is very important.

I definitely don't mean my concern for attention to those who are not present but might be as a "how can we grow our numbers?" ploy, though now that you say it I can definitely see how that would be a concern.

I thought I remembered reading a post on Jeremy's blog (http://blog.hackingchristianity.net/) about how churches trying to do church growth so often focus on marketing strategies instead of focusing on BEING the church ... but I can't find such a post now that I look.

When I talk about being inclusive of and accessible to people who aren't visibly present but might be, I'm thinking more about literal accessibility (e.g., can newcomers follow what's happening in the service? can people with food issues take part in the fellowship meal?), and also about being the church that we say we are. Who do we want to be a part of our worship community (or at least who are we open to being a part of our worship community, even if we might not be actively seeking them out), and does our liturgy reflect that? What are our theological concerns and does our worship embody that?

I worry that I'm talking around your concerns, that I'm not addressing them directly enough. I really do respect your concerns -- and you're articulating them such that I at least don't feel like you have anything to apologize for.