Comments on: National Young Adult Conference

By: Dana

Dana — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:01:25 +0000

Thanks, Anna Lisa and others, for this discussion place!

I also noticed and bristled a little at how solidly male God was in NYAC worship services, but I felt the explicit issue of exclusive language much less than the implicit and simmering church conflict over sexuality.

You asked, Anna Lisa, if there is any way to welcome and inclusion without walking through the muck. I think the answer is definitely not. In some ways, that makes me sad – why do we have to be so divided and cause each other so much pain? On the other hand, I think the muck is an inherent part of being the church together. A welcome would be cheap and inclusion wouldn’t be full if we didn’t work together, all the way through the mud and the muck, to get there.

And, should all church leadership be prophetic? The biblical prophets usually came from outside current structures of power, were usually shunned (or at least ignored) by their communities, and generally weren’t great at keeping communities together…

This is a really important conversation – thanks for creating a place to have it!

By: Travis

Travis — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:51:12 +0000

There’s biphobia too. Has queerphobia been used as a term in lgbtq discourse?

By: Paula Ziegler Ulrich

Paula Ziegler Ulrich — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:51:28 +0000

I wasn’t at NYAC of course (being too old), but I noticed the lack of inclusive language during worship at Annual Conference this year. Was it because we were meshing with the Brethren Church? Was it because leadership was trying not to offend the majority? I don’t know, but I felt sad and disappointed.

But then, our final sermon was Melissa Bennett’s, which was wonderfully refreshing, honest, brave, and inspiring! Probably, for some, it was pretty controversial, but an “Amen Sister!” rose up in me when she preached inclusively with language and on issues. Until that moment, homosexuality had been ignored and skirted around as if the church is the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand. For that moment, at least, the ostrich’s head came up and looked everyone straight in the eyes.

By: Jan Eller

Jan Eller — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:02:33 +0000

Great comments, Anna Lisa and Maggie. Your insights were very “right on,” as we older ones used to say. Too bad that usage of inclusive language has lapsed back into familiar patriarchal language without thought to how that affects us. I think part of the problem is that we are trying to hard to appease various “factions” within the church without offending anyone, which means that ultimately we offend everyone. I think many of our church “leaders” lack courage to follow their convictions. Prophets are rarely popular but immensely valuable to the movement of the Spirit among us. We’ve lost our prophetic voice by trying to be all to everyone.

By: Maggie

Maggie — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:48:30 +0000

As the current volunteer with BMC, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to meet other lgbtq and ally young adults at NYAC. I’m going to think more about my thoughts there for another post.

I will say that I learned so much from women, womaen, womyn, etc. at this conference. All workshops I chose to attend were lead by strong women — a presence I often see sliding away in the CoB. Wendy Matheny’s workshop on Feminism and the Church of the Brethren really opened my eyes to just how sad the state of the Church is for the feminists in that room. I think my favorite term used to describe the CoB was “glacial.”

There is a spark in young adults in the Church of the Brethren… it at times brought me to tears at NYAC. I realized that out of the maybe 8 times I teared up at the conference (it was an emotional week for me), 7 of those times were a result of witnessing the power of women. The CoB is lucky to have us, whether it realizes it or not.