I am so glad I went to the Love Across the Spectrum conference. I found it to be an incredibly valuable experience for so many reasons, but there’s one in particular that I think would be good to share. My hometown is in southern California, and it’s so much easier for me to identify as gay rather than Christian. In any case I find it difficult to call myself Christian because I always feel like I’m missing something. Sitting in church, it seems like everyone else is there because something has touched them, something clicks for them that I don’t understand. I feel like identifying myself with the Christian faith would put me in a position where I’m lying about that feeling that I’ve never experienced before.

It seems whenever I tell this to anyone, they are very encouraging in my struggles, they tell me that I should keep questioning. I suppose it’s nice to know I’m not doing something wrong, but I’d like to get it right at least some of the time. At least one or two answers would be nice. What questions should I even be asking? Suffice it to say I question my faith a lot. I’ll admit to not being entirely comfortable going to the conference because of that fact. However, at the very end of the conference, during closing worship, I think that may have changed a little.

Listening to Amy DeLong preach was an experience all in its own. Her story gives me so much hope, and somewhere halfway through the sermon, I realized that this must be what people were talking about when they called themselves Christian, this feeling in me, brought out by Amy’s words, must have been what it meant to have a connection with God. It was odd. There wasn’t any fanfare of excitement that followed, just a very calm comforting realization. This must be it. It was beautiful, and I feel I understand what it means to be Christian at least a little better now. Read more ›

During this experience I learned a lot about judgments I have not faced even though I am part of the LGBTQ community, judgments people go through that not only because they identify as something other than straight but because they identify as this and are part of a religious affiliation.

Something I found extremely powerful or interesting was when the first keynote speaker was talking about what Christian churchgoers and non-churchgoers think about Christians in one word. This one word was anti-gay. 80% of churchgoers and 91% of non-churchgoers stated that when they think of Christians they think of anti-gays. It shocked me that out of all the things these people could say to describe Christians 85.5% of people, both churchgoers and non-churchgoers, the one thing they agreed on was that Christians were anti-gay.

I found a lot of information helpful and interesting for me to take away from the conference but this fact was something that will continue to stick with me every day, always in the back of my mind. It makes you think what do people think of me and my views in just one word? Do I portray something so negative that it could hurt someone else? Read more ›

The keynote speakers were amazing: Justin Lee is the founder of The Gay Christian Network and shared his story and ways to best talk to people who disagree with our perspective about LGBT issues. Jennifer Knapp is an AMAZING musician who sang and talked about her experience with the Christian music industry and then being kicked out when she “came out”. Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet, theologian, and peace worker from Ireland who works the Irish Peace Center’s project that led to “LGBT experiences of faith and church I’m Northern Ireland. I talked to him for a bit afterwards and found out that he knows my cousin, Jenna Liechty and her husband Peter because they lived in Ireland for the past few years and worked along with him. Amy DeLong is an ordained Elder in the United Methodist Church who led our worship service and gave a great sermon about being progressive in our outreach towards LGBT persons and our restorative justice to those who disagree.

There were so many workshops to choose from, but two of them I enjoyed were a panel of the Boltz family when their Christian musician father came out and their amazing journey of full acceptance, and then a workshop called LGBTs and the bible. Heather Rittenhouse spoke of the scripture verses and translations that are often used to condemn homosexuality as well as those that are used to SUPPORT the full acceptance of LGBT persons and their relationships. Read more ›

~Text by Audrey Roth Kraybill from her presentation at Bethel University

I stood in line, my heart pounding, waiting my turn to do something I hadn’t done in a long time: act up in church.

I was participating in a silent protest at a national delegate session of Mennonite Church USA.  I stood with a group called Pink Menno waiting to quietly and respectfully show that I totally disagree with church policy regarding   homosexuality.

One by one we entered the room, each of us carrying a photo of someone alienated by the church polity. Then it was my turn. I asked to carry a photo of a young man. I wanted to represent my 25 year-old gay son. I walked through the door and held my photo up high, holding back my tears.

Pink Menno is a movement that supports inclusion of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender members in the Mennonite church. It started in 2008 when a brother and sister imagined a church where all are welcome. They wear pink to demonstrate their support for LGBT members of the church, and to work toward changing its exclusionary polity toward them.

How did I, an average grey haired, bifocal wearing Mennonite Mother who prefers being gently draped in figure-disguising clothes find myself willingly crammed into a tight Pink tee shirt that accented every bulge? How did I, a Mennonite Mother studying for masters of divinity at a Mennonite seminary find myself doing ecclesiastical disobedience in the very denomination I want to serve? Read more ›

Pink Menno is excited to continue the momentum around lgbtq inclusion in the Mennonite Church, in between bi-annual conventions. In the coming year, we are focusing on building organizing capacity on our Mennonite college campuses. One powerful, effective way we can do this right now is to rally financial support from the Pink Menno network for the Bluffton University Safe Spaces.

This fall, student leaders want to attend Love Across the Spectrum, from Nov. 8th and 9th. $475 will get 10 student leaders to this conference. Bluffton Safe Spaces does not have equal access to funding. Because Safe Spaces is a campus initiative that reports directly to President Jim Harder, a move President Harder made three years ago in order to allow the group to continue to function at Bluffton after having been denied in its application for student organization status, the annual budget for the group is set at $750.00.  However, Safe Spaces programming has exceeded that budget cap for every year of its existence, and has had to draw on additional sources of financial support to carry off its programming.  Among those past sources, the Women’s Studies Committee at Bluffton, the BMC for LGBTQ Concerns, and private donations from faculty, staff, and alumni have been instrumental in supporting Safe Spaces programming.  This year, Bluffton Safe Spaces has reached out to Pink Menno for help. Read more ›