Living into challenge or opportunity: Jubilee Mennonite Church's journey to becoming inclusive of LGBTQ+ people

 

On November 19, 2022, Chris Friesen, congregational chairperson at Winnipeg’s Jubilee Mennonite Church, shared the following with the Mennonite Brethren Church of Manitoba (MBCM) Council of Representatives.

Written following consultation with the church council and our congregation. Its purpose is to explain the process by which Jubilee decided to become inclusive of LGBTQ+ people.

The hope is that other Mennonite and Mennonite Brethren churches might read this story and understand difficult conversations are possible—regardless of the content of the conversation—without splitting apart. 

In late September, Jubilee's membership in MBCM was suspended over its decision to be inclusive, the first step in being expelled from the conference.

Thought experiment: Think of your own congregation, the people and personalities, the overall character of it.

Think also of an issue or question that if addressed and discussed, has the real potential to be controversial and divide your congregation into antagonistic sides.

It could be a doctrinal issue, or a matter of scriptural interpretation, it could be an ethical question, or maybe one of church practice (like worship music or use of face masks).

How hard was it for you to think of something like this in your congregation?

For Jubilee Mennonite Church (JMC), one of these questions was about LGBTQ inclusion.

Questions about this had been percolating at JMC for many years and finally got to the point where a broader congregational conversation about it was needed. Members of JMC had friends, neighbours, and family members that were part of the LGBTQ community. We had members of JMC that came out as LGBTQ. JMC’s community ministry programs regularly connected with LGBTQ people.

As biologists continue to better understand the science of sexuality, the social and scientific context in which we live, work, and minister has changed much in recent decades. It was time for conversation. We needed to talk.

Mennonite history, of both distant past and recent memory, offers far too many examples of churches being unable or unwilling to engage with such questions without divisiveness.

It’s scary as church leaders to address these kinds of questions. Mennonite history, of both distant past and recent memory, offers far too many examples of churches being unable or unwilling to engage with such questions without divisiveness—how many church splits and excommunications have there been? How many good and sincere Christians, including pastors and church leaders, have been shown the door? At the same time, we the divisiveness in society more broadly.

In short, we could see all that could go wrong—hurt feelings, broken relationships, people leaving the congregation, impacts to our community ministry, tension with our denominations (JMC is a member of both MBCM and MCM). We certainly had these concerns at JMC, both among church leadership and within the congregation in general.

We knew that there was a diversity of perspectives present at JMC regarding LGBTQ inclusion. But we, both leadership and congregation, knew that a conversation could no longer be avoided and ignored. The focus for us as a church council then became ensuring that the framing and structure of the conversation was such that the opportunity for constructive conversation was maximised and the opportunity for divisive conversation was minimised.

We wanted to welcome diverse perspectives, but not divisiveness.

Notice my choice of words here: minimize the opportunity for divisiveness. We wanted to welcome diverse perspectives, but not divisiveness.

Before our intentional discussions began in earnest, our pastor (Ken Warkentin) held one-on-one conversations with all JMC congregants to see where we were as individuals. These conversations were structured around several questions that Ken asked each member to help us get a more detailed understanding of people’s thoughts, perspectives, and questions about LGBTQ inclusion.

The challenge for us as church leadership was then to find a way to have a congregational conversation that drew out and gave space to the diversity of perspectives we knew existed within JMC in a way that promoted mutual understanding; a way that would help us live into one of our mission statements: to know one another in loving community.

We started by talking about talking. At the leadership level this meant many hours at council meetings discussing how to meet this challenge (or was it an opportunity?).

At the congregational level, many members read and discussed the book ‘How the Body of Christ Talks’, which discusses the theory and practice of having hard but healthy conversations in the church.

These were valuable exercises in that they helped us as a congregation focus not on arriving at a particular outcome regarding LGBTQ inclusion, but rather on developing a process that welcomed diverse perspectives in a way that built up rather than tore down.

We all recognized that what we needed and desired was a conversation, not a debate.

In addition, since it focused on the process rather than the issue itself, it helped establish an ethos and atmosphere of listening, learning, and understanding. It helped bring us to the place where we all recognized that what we needed and desired was a conversation, not a debate.

The goal of a debate is to win, to convince and persuade; it encourages entrenchment instead of openness. A debate was not what we wanted.

We also didn’t want a conversation with a constrained or pre-determined outcome; why bother having a conversation if you know what the outcome is going to be? No, we needed to have an open conversation. This was true for both the form of the outcome and the substance of the outcome.

We didn’t start these conversations with a plan to issue a statement at the end.

Regarding the form, this meant we didn’t start these conversations with a plan to issue a statement at the end—we didn’t know what, if anything, we would do. Regarding the substance of the outcome, we didn’t know where these conversations would lead us in regards to LGBTQ inclusion. And, importantly, we as leadership were very intentional about not leading or pushing the congregation toward a particular outcome.

The board of Mennonite Brethren Church Manitoba (MBCM) has expressed dissatisfaction that JMC did not invite conference representatives to have a bigger part in our conversation. It was quite intentional that we did not issue such invitations to either of the conferences to which we belong.

Both of our conferences have confessions of faith with similar perspectives on marriage and sexuality. One of our concerns with conference involvement was that, as participants in the conversation, conference representatives could not be truly open to different outcomes and may feel the need to adopt a posture of defensiveness and/or a posture of persuasion regarding the confession of faith.

Such postures tend to foster debate rather than an open conversation where participants must be willing to at least entertain the possibility of a change in understanding. This was what we asked of ourselves at Jubilee.

Uniformity of thought was an unrealistic expectation.

Just as important as being open to different outcomes, it was important to have realistic expectations. Critically, this meant acknowledging that no matter how the conversation went, there would still be a spectrum of perspectives at the end. Uniformity of thought was an unrealistic expectation. We were entering this conversation with a diversity of perspectives and in all likelihood would be finishing this conversation with a diversity of perspectives.

The importance of recognizing this is hard to overstate. Knowing that there would always be a diversity of perspectives freed us from the burden and pressure of trying to get everyone to agree on everything. It allowed us to have a truly open conversation instead of a debate. It helped each of us individually recognize that we had, for many years, already been worshipping and serving alongside those who had different perspectives.

While the particular question of LGTBQ inclusion remained directly in front of us, the question in the background now came into focus, and centred on the relationship between unity and uniformity. Was unity without uniformity possible? And if so, what did it look like in the context of LGBTQ inclusion at JMC?

The first step we took was to look to the Bible.

It was against this backdrop that we entered intentional congregational conversations. The first step we took was to look to the Bible. Both within our congregation and Christendom at large, there are various understandings of the Biblical message when it comes to LGBTQ inclusion in the church. We wanted to explore and understand these different perspectives and have a forum in which people could ask questions about the Biblical text.

We invited professor Dan Epp-Thiessen of Canadian Mennonite University to provide us with this biblical background. He graciously spent three evenings with us, describing the various ways in which people understand the biblical message in this context. He made it clear that the writers of the Bible understood heterosexuality to be the cultural and moral norm, and that in those instances where the biblical authors explicitly discuss sexuality, they do so from this perspective, and that this has been the traditional perspective of the church.

It’s important to recognize that there are sincere, Bible-believing Christians on both sides of this issue.

He then discussed how some Christians see this traditional perspective to be in tension with the broader biblical themes of love of neighbour, welcome, non-judgementalism, and humility. He emphasized that it’s important to recognize that there are sincere, Bible-believing Christians on both sides of this issue (or perhaps more accurately, along the full spectrum of perspectives). This was, and still is, true of JMC.

We then held a series of conversation events that each focused on different aspects of the question of LGTBQ inclusion at JMC. The structure and questions of a given event were discussed and approved by council, and often modified based on the outcomes of previous events.

We didn’t pre-determine how many events we would need, or how long this process would take. We knew that this conversation was challenging for many people—it was emotional at times, it pushed and pulled each of us in various ways and directions. As leadership we were aware of the tension between the desire to let the conversation take as long as it needed to take, while also respecting the emotional and relational energy it took for people to engage in it.

We sensed that the congregation was ready to move beyond conversation and was wanting to distill our collective understanding into something like a statement.

After several of these events, we sensed that the congregation was ready to move beyond conversation and was wanting to distill our collective understanding into something like a statement. We conducted an anonymous poll of the congregation to determine if our sense was correct. This poll showed unanimous support for moving towards full inclusion of members of the LGBTQ community at JMC.

I want to remind you that a diversity of perspectives on LGBTQ inclusion is still very much present at JMC. And, as expected, we did not end up at a place of uniformity of thought on this. However, the congregation was unanimous that JMC, as a congregation, should move forward in this particular way.

We achieved unity for our direction as a collective, but not uniformity of thought as individuals.

We achieved unity for our direction as a collective, but not uniformity of thought as individuals. We have decided how we as JMC will move forward together, while ensuring there is room for a diversity of individual perspectives. We are now living into the challenge (or is it an opportunity?) of figuring out how this looks in our particular time and space.

JMC was born out of the union of two congregations: Northdale Mennonite Fellowship and Valley Gardens Mennonite Brethren Church. Even before the MB’s and GC’s came together to found Canadian Mennonite University, the two conferences had come together in the form of this little congregation.

While I wasn’t around at the time, I’m told by those who were that there was much conversation and introspection. This was new and different—could something like this work? What did it look like to be part of two conferences? Was unity possible despite diversity?

The conferences were bold and took a chance, letting their respective congregations take their first steps as a united congregation. Since its founding in 1995, JMC has lived out this experiment. By no means has the path always been clear and easy, but we’re still here.

Mennonite Brethrenness is baked into who JMC is.

There are still some at JMC who were part of Valley Gardens MB and there are others who have joined JMC along the way that are MBers. Mennonite Brethrenness is baked into who JMC is. It is a part of who we are. And being part of the larger body is important to us.

We have benefitted immensely from the resources and wisdom of MBCM. And we strive to contribute where we can, whether that’s helping fund missionaries like Richard and Hazel Funk, which we did for many years, joining with our neighbouring MB churches to put on Christmas dinners for our local community, sharing our experiences of community ministry with other MB churches, or lending our unique voice to conference conversations. Being part of the larger MB body is important to us, and there is much we have in common.

We recognized at the outset that by having an open-ended conversation about LGBTQ inclusion JMC might end up at a place that wasn’t entirely consistent with our conferences’ confessions of faith. For example, both of our conferences have confessions of faith that define marriage as exclusively heterosexual. It was certainly not our intention to cause friction with our conferences, though we weren’t ignorant of that possibility, either.

Like we did 27 years ago, JMC is again embarking on an experiment.

Like we did 27 years ago, JMC is again embarking on an experiment, testing our discernment, trying to live out our unity in Christ despite our diversity of perspectives. Our hope is that MBCM will once again be bold and continue to journey with us. It is part of our history, it is part of our present, and we certainly hope it will be part of our future.

I’ll end today with some questions. Throughout this conversation with the MB conference, we’ve invited our members to bring us their thoughts, concerns, and questions. These are the questions Jubileers are asking.

Questions for the MBCM from JMC are:

1) Has there been enough talking about talking? Has the response process been intentional and well-thought out? What’s the rush?

2) What are the goals of the process? Persuasion in order to achieve compliance? Is discipline the best lens with which to view this process?

3) Is uniformity of thought consistently practised and/or a realistic expectation? Does it exist presently? Consider the thought experiment at the beginning, think of your congregation, think of the conference as a whole.

4) Is uniformity of thought and practice desirable? To what degree is such uniformity a liability rather than an asset?

5) Is this a question of authority of scripture as opposed to authority of Confession of Faith (CoF)? Scriptural interpretation has been shown to have relativity to it over the centuries. What is the role of the CoF—to centre or box in?

6) Is there an opportunity for true and open-ended conversation with MBCM? One without a pre-determined outcome? An opportunity to explore what unity without uniformity? What might look like within MBCM?

Shared with this blog with permission from Jubilee Mennonite Church.