WellSprings Journal

Kim Cape explains how ministry in a rapidly changing world like ours requires dianoia – loving God with one’s mind, loving God with the way we put things together, and loving God with the way we put our world together in the name of the Gospel.

Tiffany Knowlin, of the South Carolina Area of the United Methodist Church, explains how believers must be deliberate in our effort and our commitment to honor and respect difference as we work together to worship the one living God. There will be difficulties and challenges to work through, yet as we do the work of the kingdom, fear of rejection, fear of acceptance, and fear of division cannot reign.

Quynh-Hoa Nguyen, a UMC missionary in Viet Nam, shares how patriarchal hierarchy, sociopolitical vulnerability, and an otherworldly, deterministic theology have reinforced fear and silence among the evangelical Christians in Viet Nam. She uses the Exodus story to challenge Vietnamese Christians to embrace courage and freedom, to find their voice, and to speak truth that has been silenced in the presence of power.

Rosanna C. Panizo shares how at a gathering of Peruvian Methodist women in October, she realized the Holy Spirit keeps moving beyond our imagination and perspectives. “We learned again that we, as part of the people of God, can have different and even opposite experiences of life. If we are willing to listen with the purpose of understanding each other, and not first reacting to what we are listening to, then the Holy Spirit will work in us and through us.”

Grace Cajiuat, of the Wisconsin Area of the United Methodist Church, shares how when we learn of and from our identities, we can better develop and practice humility, curiosity, and empathy: the three traits that can hold together our integrity in the tapestry we are trying to weave. When we take the time to discover the fibers/identities that make the yarn, we align love with truth that makes the weaving that is the “kin-dom” of God.

Rosemarie Wenner explains that unity doesn’t necessarily mean harmony. “If we insist on harmony, we will create an illusion and disregard the reality of those who are excluded, silenced, or forced to fit into our system. Conflict is not the opposite of unity. It is, instead, a lively expression of seeking reconciliation of interests.”

Kathryn Armistead, of the Tennessee Area of the United Methodist Church, makes a plea for unity and shares how disagreements within the church in recent years have overshadowed the Missio Dei: “We have failed to be an obedient church. We have not done your will; we have broken your law; we have rebelled against your love; we have not loved our neighbors, and we have not heard the cry of the needy.”

In the aftermath of the special General Conference in St. Louis, HiRho Y. Park shares how United Methodists need to optimize our commitment to worldwide connectionalism; localized regional culture, internal diversity; and global mobility. In a word, United Methodists need to update ourselves for life in the 21st Century. VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT

Victoria A. Rebeck, of the Minnesota Area of the United Methodist Church, describes how clergywomen can revitalize the church while serving as elders and deacons. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT 0:01        When women come together there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings Journal Podcast, where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives to speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit awaits. Listen now. 0:34        Breaking Ranks: Women Elders and Women Deacons in Ministry Partnership, by Victoria A. Rebeck, Minnesota Annual Conference 0:43        Scripture tells us that loving God entails loving neighbor. Piety that does not include advocacy for the marginalized and compassion for the suffering is no piety at all. “Is this not the fast I choose,” we read in Isaiah 58:6-7, “to loose the bonds of injustice, / to undo the thongs of the yoke, / to let the oppressed go free, / and to break every yoke / . . . to share your bread with the hungry, / and bring the homeless poor into your house . . . ?” The United Methodist Church’s ordering of clergy into two distinct orders, deacon and elder, represents this inseparable combination. Elders lead the people in piety: ordering the life of the church and making sure that God’s people receive sacraments. Deacons connect piety with compassion and justice for neighbors, leading God’s people into ministry outside the walls of the church. When deacons and elders collaborate, the fullness of the church’s ministry is represented and led, in the equal and united manner that is reinforced throughout Scripture. 1:51        Evolution of the Diaconate The partnership style of leadership originated in the church’s first centuries. The earliest leadership offices in the church were bishop and deacon, says James Monroe Barnett in The Diaconate: A Full and Equal Order. Bishops oversaw churches, much like pastors. Deacons led those congregations in ministry to those in need—partners in leading the people in love of God and neighbor. “To think of subordination to the bishops… is largely to forget the character of the Church of the late New Testament period,” Barnett says. However, by the end of the fourth century, the church began adopting the hierarchical forms of civic society, the Roman Empire. The diaconate was reduced to a step up in the clergy hierarchy. The days of equality among clergy and laity faded. This pattern persisted in The United Methodist Church until 1996. Denominations that did not retain some form of clergy diaconate eventually recreated it in various lay forms. In Protestant churches, it is mostly women who have retained the purpose of diakonia, rebirthing this ancient Christian office as a central expression of Christian ministry. 3:12        Even John Wesley promoted the role of deaconess, though I have found no references to its being an official role. In a Nov. 5, 1788, letter to Adam Clarke, John Wesley recommends that Mrs. Clarke “fulfill the office of a deaconess.” Without a record of a description of the deaconess’s function, we can only speculate. We might guess that it entailed service and leadership, perhaps among the women faithful. Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin called for renewal of the deacon as minister among the poor. Theodor Fliedner and his wife, Friederike Münster, led the formation of a deaconess community through the founding of a motherhouse in Kaiserswerth, Germany, in 1836. Living in community, the deaconesses focused on community ministries, particularly health care. Such vocational opportunities for women grew during the industrial era of the late nineteenth century, along with urbanization and immigration in England and North America. The United Methodist lay deaconesses (and their spiritual brothers, the home missioners) are heirs to this movement. The United Methodist Church developed the office of lay worker in 1968, which comprised, to a significant extent, congregational directors of Christian education. In 1976, the lay worker was succeeded by the diaconal minister. (Despite an effort to unite the different forms into one diaconia, deaconesses remained separate.) Ordained clergy were predominantly male; many women who were called to congregational leadership found access via the role of Christian educator. Thus, the ministries of compassion, justice, and empowerment of laypeople became the women’s work of the church. “Men’s work” — congregational and denominational leadership as the pastor—enjoyed greater respect in a patriarchal, hierarchal church. Women with the call to order the life of the church were often blocked from ordination, or even licensing. The ordained diaconate was mostly reserved for men, a pastoral role and transitional step toward elder. 5:29        Full Clergy Status In 1996, The United Methodist Church followed ecumenical partners and evolved in its understanding of diaconia by forming a full and equal clergy order of deacon. No longer elders-in-the-making, deacons in The United Methodist Church are now more like deacons from the second through seventh centuries, who “oversaw the pastoral care of the Church… were administrators of the Church’s charities… were assistants of its bishops, often succeeding them in office… had a major role in the Church’s liturgies… were the great symbol of the servant ministry to which the Church has been called by Christ.” The 1996 General Conference chose to discontinue the commissioning of new diaconal ministers. Current diaconal ministers (some of whom may have been lay workers) had the opportunity to transition to the ordained office of deacon. However, the language of the Discipline makes clear that deacon is not simply a new name for lay worker or diaconal minister. Deacons fulfill servant ministry in the world and lead the Church in relating the gathered life of Christians to their ministries in the world, interrelating worship in the gathered community with service to God in world. Deacons give leadership in the Church’s life in teaching and proclaiming the World; in contributing to worship, and in assisting the elders in administering the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper; in forming and nurturing disciples; in conducting marriages and burying the dead; in embodying the church’s mission to the world, and in leading congregations in interpreting the needs, concerns, and hopes of the world. 7:18        For many deacons, “forming and nurturing disciples” means serving in congregational staff positions as Christian educators, children’s and youth ministers, pastoral-care providers, and family or age-group ministry leaders. As United Methodist congregations shrink and can afford to employ fewer people, particularly clergy, deacons’ ministry in The United Methodist Church is increasingly a ministry outside the walls of the church. Deacons serve as truck-stop chaplains, prison ministers, directors of peace-and-justice ministries and compassion organizations, to name only few. The diaconate was and is most of all ministry of “interrelating worship in the gathering community with service of God in the world.” Ecumenically and around the world, diakonia takes lay and clergy forms. Among the churches that have non-transitioning (not a step toward presbyter or priest) deacons are the Methodist Church in Britain, the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church. United Methodist deacons are active in the United States and Europe. The Lutheran communion churches have active lay orders of diaconia. 8:36        Obstacles to Partnership Full-member clergy deacons strengthen The United Methodist Church. However, the evolution from lay worker to diaconal minister to deacon has put United Methodist clergywomen at odds with one another. Many women who found leadership opportunities as committed and trained lay Christian educators eventually discerned the call to the ordained diaconate. Other women who heard the call to the pastorate slowly but persistently pursued ordination as elders and eventually gained full clergy rights for women (1956). Unfortunately — having worked hard for recognition as ordained, full clergy members — some of those early pioneering women elders look on their sisters who pursued Christian education (or other age-group leadership) as having made a lesser choice. This attitude pits women clergy leaders against women clergy leaders. It is a capitulation to patriarchal hierarchy. It takes away the very respect for clergywomen’s leadership that the pioneering women elders worked to obtain. It also devalues Christian education and other deacon ministries. At the time of this publication, The United Methodist Church in the U.S. is wringing its hands over the aging of the church membership and the dearth of young adults in congregations. If we truly value young people, we would consider Christian education and youth ministry among the most important ministries the church undertakes. 10:15     Further, many young people report that the church fails to attract them because they are more interested in healing brokenness and injustice in the world than they are in sitting on committees, often the church’s first choice for engaging laypeople. Given that the deacons are to “relate the gathered life of Christians to their ministries in the world,” deacons are particularly well positioned to engage young adults in Christian discipleship. This is particularly true of deacons serving appointments in congregational outreach, as mission coordinators for conferences or jurisdictions, and for those leading social-service agencies beyond the local church (and in secondary appointment to congregations). For example, the Rev. Donnie Shumate Mitchem’s primary appointment is as a school psychologist in Western North Carolina. She also leads the parishioners in her secondary appointment to pack book bags for children of limited means, clean classrooms, and pray for students and teachers. The Rev. Scott Parrish, mission specialist for Connectional Ministries for the North Georgia Conference and a mission strategist for General Board of Global Ministries, explicitly guides churches to help young adults to find their place in the United Methodist global mission movement. 11:40     Embracing the Both/And of Clergy Partnership Women elders and women deacons have an opportunity to lead the church away from hierarchical patterns and back to the organic, horizontal understanding of the whole church’s ministry. This includes leading laypeople back into active discipleship that includes both piety and compassionate action. When asked the most important commandment, Jesus said, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’… And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40). The ministries of the elder and deacon embody these two commandments. To paraphrase Isaiah, this is the piety God chooses: both the spiritual development that takes place in worship and the active, selfless service that takes place outside the church’s walls. Women clergy can revitalize ministry in The United Methodist Church by restoring the mutually empowering, mutually serving discipleship described in the Gospels and epistles. Not everyone has the same gifts; and, through practice of the varying gifts and passions, the realm of God is built. 13:00     United Methodist clergywomen — deacons and elders — across the international connection can strengthen the United Methodist witness in the world by supporting and advocating for each other’s ministries. On an international scale, this entails learning about each other’s cultural contexts. The careerism that has crept into ministry in the United States may not be the practice in other nations. The role of women in society varies from culture to culture as well. As United Methodist clergywomen learn one another’s contexts, hopes, and callings, they can work toward rebirthing in The United Methodist Church an understanding of ministry as mutual and empowering of all the baptized. The Rev. Doris Dalton is a deacon in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference who has served in partnership ministries with elders in both primary (district office) and secondary (church start) appointments. “I have found that successful partnerships between deacons and elders require the following factors: alignment of calling and vision, establishing communication agreements, understanding and respecting roles, and knowing thyself, she says in her blog post “How deacons and elders can partner in ministry.” Dalton encourages elders and deacons to engage in intentional conversation on deepening ministry partnerships between deacons and elders. “Many elders are reluctant to engage in a deacon-elder partnership because the details and responsibilities can seem daunting,” she observes. “Demythologizing assumptions and sharing concrete details can provide for a smoother beginning to ministry partnerships.” 14:49     Elders can start by sharpening their understanding of the historic ministry of the deacon. Margaret Ann Crain’s book The United Methodist Deacon is a good start. Women elders in a conference might demonstrate genuine interest and respect by inviting deacons, including those appointed beyond the local church, to join them in discussing ministry challenges. Elders may discover deacons who are doing exciting, innovative ministry and who can enhance the elders’ congregational ministry through training or secondary appointment. Deacons should step up in leadership and not wait to be noticed. Volunteer for ministry discernment events, lay ministry trainings, annual conference leadership, and more. Devise ways to share your ministry expertise across the district or conference. Raise your profile through leadership. Build relationships among elders, help them perceive the deacon/elder ministry wholeness, and propose partnerships (including short-term ones). Perpetuating the hierarchical ranking of ministry we inherited from a patriarchal church continues to hold back all women as well as the gospel’s countercultural ordering of ministry. Women clergy have the perspective and perhaps the working preferences to renew the church through egalitarian ministry partnerships — if we have the courage to do so. 16:18     Thank you for listening to the WellSprings Journal podcast. Be sure to visit WellSpringsJournal.org to find more resources for the journey.  

Bishop Cynthia Fierro Harvey, of the Louisiana Area of the United Methodist Church, shares how an encounter with Jesus can change one’s perspective for the rest their life. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT 0:01        When women come together there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings Journal Podcast, where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives to speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit awaits. Listen now. 0:34        And They Saw, and They Went – By Bishop Cynthia Fierro Harvey, of the Louisiana Area of the United Methodist Church The next day John was standing again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus walking along he said, “Look! The Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard what he said, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he asked, “What are you looking for?” They said, “Rabbi, . . . where are you staying?” He replied, “Come and see.” So they went and saw.  John 1:35-39 – Common English Bible 1:14        And they went, and they saw; or is it they saw, and they went? John is standing by with two of his disciples when Jesus comes along. John says, “Look! The Lamb of God.” The two hear what John says and they follow Jesus. In two verses, they followed Jesus! They don’t ask any questions. They don’t ask, “You sure that’s him? How do you really know, John?” What follows is a domino effect; Andrew, one of the two, goes straight to his brother Simon and says, “We have found the Messiah.” He leads him right to Jesus. The next day Jesus finds Philip, and Philip follows. I wonder if he was lost? Then Philip finds Nathanael, and says, “We have found the one Moses wrote about.” Nathanael is a bit sarcastic, and that’s when we hear his famous line, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Then it’s as if Philip double-dog dares him and says, “Come and See.” See for yourself! 2:18        This calling of the disciples comes quickly. There is a lot of seeing and hearing in the Gospel of John. The writer employs all the senses, which might help us understand why seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling might be important to believing. Once a person meets Jesus—once you see, and hear and taste and smell life in Jesus—you don’t see things the same way ever again. It is risky business to enter into conversation with Jesus. Who knows where it might take you? Sometimes it takes just two words: Follow me! When we traveled to the Holy Land with the ordinands in 2013, we had a magnificent guide. He is smart, knows his Bible and his history. He also comes from a long line of olive wood carvers. Actually, they are more than just carvers, they are artists. His father and grandfather were both artists, and now he is following in their footsteps. 3:19        On the trip, I fell in love with one of his pieces, truly a piece of art! It is Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. He agreed to carve a special piece for us that would be shipped to us later. Several weeks passed, and a magnificent—and I would add huge—piece of olive wood art arrived at the episcopal residence. It is far more than I ever imagined. We found a perfect place for it in our home, and it has become the center of a great deal of conversation. Last year, our guide visited Baton Rouge, and we invited him to dinner, along with several people who had traveled to the Holy Land. Of course, the olive wood piece was once again the center of conversation. The carving is so intricate. Jesus’ hair and eyes are unbelievably detailed. Someone asked our guide if he had a picture to follow as he carved. He said, almost nonchalantly, “No, that is just how I see Jesus in my mind’s eye.” I turned to him in astonishment and said, “In order to carve with this kind of attention to detail, you have got to not just see Jesus in your mind, but you have to see him from the very depth of your soul.” 4:32        I believe this is the kind of “seeing” the gospel writer is trying to convey. People in this gospel see—they come and see, they saw and they went, they see greater things, you will see the heavens open—this kind of seeing is much deeper. It is not just visual. In A Longing for Holiness, John Wesley wrote, “where the loving eye of the soul is continually fixed upon God, there can be no darkness at all.” To see with your soul is to see through the heart of God. Today we are called to “see” through the heart of God. There are several times in this gospel when people see and hear with more than just their ears and their eyes. 5:19        There is the Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at the well, and she can hardly contain herself. A Jewish man talking to a Samaritan woman and at high noon! She runs back to her village and says, “Come and see this one who knows everything about me” . . . and you almost want to finish her sentence for her . . . “and loves me anyway.” She is so moved by her experience of Jesus and is in such a hurry to tell everyone in her village that she leaves her jar behind. As soon as her friends hear her story, they leave the city and are on their way. I envision the people being so moved by what the woman has to say (I find it remarkable that they would even listen to her!) that they too want to experience what she has experienced. They probably leave their soup pots on the stove and forget to lock the door (read John 4:1-42). 6:13        There are others who hear and see it and believe it. There is Mary Magdalene at the tomb. She doesn’t recognize Jesus until she hears her name. Maybe seeing and hearing is believing. It is risky to enter into conversation with Jesus. It might lead you to places you don’t want to go. Jesus has a knack for that and for making unlikely choices. He didn’t stand outside the temple waiting for holy people. God shows up most of the time when you are minding your own business. He calls ordinary people to extraordinary tasks so that we might share our story of God’s extravagant love. We have a story to tell. People invest in dreams they are part of. People want to be a part of your kind of story. I have this pesky problem when I read a book or watch a movie or a sporting event. I become a character in the movie or the book. If I watch a basketball game, I play every minute of the game or every down of a football game. I even get nervous on the Food Network cooking competitions, like Chopped, when they have only minutes to prepare an entree. I am exhausted when it’s over. I invest myself in the story, so much so that sometimes I stay up all night trying to “finish” the story or change the outcome of the game, or I think, “You know, if she had only remembered the secret ingredient.” 7:38        People want to be a part of a great story. Do you dream of a love story of ministry filled with the life-giving breath of the Spirit? We must be attentive to the stirring of the Spirit. Proverbs 20:12 reminds us that we must have ears to hear and eyes to see. The Lord made them both! I am not sure we can just see or just hear; perhaps it takes both to fully grasp the working of the Spirit upon our lives. Attentiveness is a gift from God, and it causes us to pay attention most often to what we don’t want to see. Think of all the times you haven’t paid attention and an accident occurred, or we missed the laughter of a child, the homeless woman, the hungry child, the sunrise. We must be attentive and open to the movement of God all around. God often shows up when we are minding our own business. 8:32        When children’s television host Mr. Rogers was asked why he talked so slowly, his answer was that the time between speaking and hearing was sacred. It is in this piece of time that the Spirit can take what is said and translate it for the hearer. This world is in a rush, and we rarely do one task at a time. We are multi-taskers. We don’t just drive; we talk on our cellphones and drive and juggle multiple tasks at work. The Spirit can work within all our rushing around. However, are we as good at noticing the Spirit if we never slow down? It is not likely that our world will slow down. However, maybe within the rush we can be like Mr. Rogers and create a space for the Spirit to move. Instead of listening and forming our reply, we can listen first for the Spirit. Then with fuller knowledge and understanding, we can reply. 9:32        What might happen if we first listen for the Spirit’s stirring? Is it possible we could discover the unexpected? We must be prepared to share our own experience of the living God. We have a story to tell, and people want to be a part of it. Sharing our story can be risky, but we are called to risk, maybe to risk it all so that the world might be changed. We must focus on that which will make for a different place for your children, your children’s children, and their children, that they might also have a story of faith to tell. Can you imagine what might happen if we focused—with laser-like focus—on leading people to Christ so that they might be changed people? Can you imagine living in a changed world? 10:19     We may not yet have eyes to see or ears to hear, but even then the Spirit will twist and turn and churn and weave our lives into a legacy that will set the world on fire. It will be more than you could ever imagine. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he asked, “What are you looking for?” They said, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” He replied, “Come and See.” So they went and they saw. Do you know where Jesus is staying? Come and See! 10:53     Thank you for listening to the WellSprings Journal podcast. Be sure to visit WellSpringsJournal.org to find more resources for the journey.    

Tracy Smith Malone, of the Northern Illinois Area of the United Methodist Church, and Barbara Dick, of the Wisconsin area, draw parallels between the development of a worldwide church and the birthing process. “We are going to be in the womb together for a long time. Are we going to be Jacob and Esau, fighting in the womb all the time?” (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT 0:01        When women come together there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings Journal Podcast, where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives to speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit await. Listen now. 0:34        Shared Thoughts on a Worldwide Church, by Tracy Smith Malone and Barbara Dick. We just love the fact that the theme verse WellSprings Journal has this season is John 16:21: “When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world.” As women in leadership - clergy and laity, African American and Caucasian - we came to our hour-long Skype call as strangers. Our conversation was, at times, a call-and response of ideas and feelings, with many “Amens” and lots of laughter. We shared our stories and forged a bond of friendship as we “prophetically named” the racism and other isms that exist in the church and society and boldly proclaimed a revolution of love and reconciliation that tears down walls and holds us all in the womb of God’s love. Tracy defined “prophetically naming” as more than pointing to brokenness. It is naming existing opportunities and efforts to create environments or opportunities for vital conversations. Through vital conversations and relationship building we can have authentic conversations to name fears and anxieties and begin to work through some of the preconceived notions and myths about who people are, to really hear and learn people’s stories. Through storytelling, we learn that we have so much in common, so many of the same desires. That makes my heart have a desire to know your heart. And that’s what builds true sisterhood and brotherhood. And so, here are our shared thoughts on birthing a worldwide church: The Beloved Part 2:36        We pondered where clergywomen and laywomen can come together to share the stories that cross all those boundaries. As women in leadership, it really doesn’t matter if we’re clergy or lay. We have stories to share and important work to do together. Tracy shared that even as clergywomen attend national and international gatherings, they are often more like spectators than full participants. We agreed that we can begin to lead the way to break down those barriers between clergy and lay as women of faith. The idea of birthing a worldwide church evokes the whole realm of laity leadership in areas where clergy are not available. That’s an issue across the globe in ways that it’s not in the U.S., although it is also a concern in some urban areas and some deeply rural areas of the U.S. What if clergywomen led this movement of removing the line, blurring it? 3:40        There is great value in a trained, educated clergy to bring a level of scholarly expertise, a watching of the integrity of how we move through living out the gospel; but we have so professionalized clergy that the laity have in some ways been disempowered. And so, when we talk about empowering the laity, it’s a remedial step. It’s re-empowering the laity, waking them up to the power they already have. We sometimes confuse the role of the priestly function. We misunderstand that the holiness and the sacredness comes through the movement and the power of the Holy Spirit at work through the elements. Barbara Brown Taylor says it so well, that it’s the broken bread and the poured out wine for the world. And so, as we break the bread and as we serve it, those who receive it - all of us, lay and clergy - become the broken bread and the poured-out wine for the world. Again, it’s the Holy Spirit’s work, and that’s the sacredness, the holiness in the mystery of it all. 4:51        We, as women, have more potential to find a different approach to this - culturally, if not physically. If it’s not innate in us, it’s bred into us. How nice if we could inspire that, which exists in men as well, to grow, because that’s part of what’s missing in our sense of beloved community . . . the beloved part. Empowering is the language of the church now. So a better approach might be to embolden or to nurture. The Spirit of God is already in you, so we are stirring up the gift, bringing it to birth. We’re midwifing. The nurturing - that’s the birthing, the coming forth, the newness that comes through when we are open, nurturing, and allowing for creativity - not a threat but a divine opportunity. As women, we know about it. That’s our experience. If Jesus were a woman today, he might tell more parables about birth than about farming. We Know Birthing 6:00        Consider the whole birthing process, cycles that the body has to go through; you have to incubate. There’s nurturing and feeding, listening and rubbing and touching. There’s a level of intimacy that goes back to the relationships. Studies have shown that a baby born with no touch within a certain amount of time after birth has a higher risk of death. And then, of course, there’s pain involved. We sometimes want to shield ourselves. There is risk in being vulnerable, open to listening to your story, able to hear your pain; to take that on, and maybe even see my role in that, whether knowingly or unknowingly. That is the key when we talk about isms, the notion that somehow my story is a threat to your story. That’s absurd. My story is just my story. And it’s not for me to right it to wrong it or even to validate it, because I don’t have to. I don’t need your validation and you don’t need mine. Part of birthing is also the deep emotion that comes, and with that the tears and laughter. It’s all part of the experience. You don’t want to just be stagnant and going through the motions. Giving birth is something new, thinking out of the box and being willing to explore. If there’s going to be any creativity, if there’s going to be any change, if we are going to live in a new possibility, we have to be willing to explore, even the places that have not yet been trod. The Isms 7:42        It’s so hard when we’re talking about race and sexuality, and in some places, about threatening people’s jobs because we’re empowering other people to lead. It’s so scary for some people. The isms lead to violence because of suppression, and then people just violently act or violently speak. They say something that’s hurtful or harmful, any act of violence. Some of that is due to unaddressed, unresolved, fear and anxiety, lack of clarity - separation. We’ve got extremes of violence - violence in the news that we can’t deny or ignore - but even in the church, violence stems from and leads to denial, the inability or unwillingness to know. That alone is an act of violence. When we are willing to be vulnerable and transparent, that breaks down some of the barriers and the walls and more readily prevents me from saying or doing something that causes harm because I’m more in touch, more aware. Even if one person says something that may feel offensive or off-putting for another- if we have heard one another’s stories, we have the option of navigating that in a different way. If I don’t know who you are, and I don’t care about who you are, I care about my position - not my story - but my position, and I have no space to hear. In the Womb Together 9:17        So, our call is to intentionally create space. Then the space becomes the common place for us to talk through, work through—whether we agree or disagree—to still do it in love. In terms of the birthing metaphor, that’s the womb. If we’re going to birth a worldwide church, we have to spend some time in the womb together, being nurtured and fed and allowing God to fill us up with good things, so we can survive to develop our organs. The womb - that holy space. And the paradox of the womb is that even though it goes through such turmoil to bring forth life, the womb is also a holy place, a safe place where life is being shaped. And when we’re in the womb, we’re vulnerable, we’re not in charge - it’s the place where the Holy Spirit does its work. 10:18     It’s the same place that’s life giving, where the body is taking shape and form, as life is springing forth. There may be some tears, there may be some bruises, but that’s all part of the process. We are crushed but not broken. We are perplexed but not confused. It’s a wonderful paradox. It’s why Jesus spoke in parables. It’s so hard to grab on to this stuff and hold it in your hand. You really can’t. You have to let it kind of sift through and form on its own. We also love the image of the womb because, when we’re talking about nurturing life, we’re talking about cell differentiation. Each cell has a unique purpose, but cell walls are membranes, they’re not hard. They depend on each other. Cell walls are permeable, and cells are interdependent. And that’s the beloved community. Our opportunity is to bring that to life in community. It may be that the only way to do that is through this kind of conversation, to have the conversation and plant it and let it germinate. 11:38     Intentional relationship building and listening and sharing is a mutual sharing. As you share a part of who you are, and I share part of who I am, there are more spaces and places to be intentional—showing a genuine interest in one another’s stories. With that comes the desire, not just to know more about you, but to discover more about who God is in you, that I might connect with you and connect with the God in you. We are who we are the way God made us, but we are always in the process of becoming. We’re all flawed, and the more we are in relationship with others, the more we help to shape each other into the persons we are becoming. We talk about isms. We’re human; we make judgments; we stereotype. But if we’re going to truly be the beloved community, we need to acknowledge that there’s more to the story, more than what you hear and what you see. The question is, do you desire to know more, or do you even care to know more, beyond the surface, superficial relationships that sometimes exist? This doesn’t just happen. No, it has to be intentional. Intentional Community and General Conference 13:07     Right, intentional community. I (Barbara) have that “desire to know more” when I’m one-on-one with somebody. But if WellSprings hadn’t set this up, Tracy and Barbara wouldn’t know each other. We would meet at General Conference next year, and Barbara wouldn’t know more than that Tracy is African American clergywoman from Northern Illinois. So the opportunity is to provide spaces where the desire to know more can be nurtured. Because once that desire is awakened it’ll happen. People will find ways for it to happen. And what if there was a part of General Conference where this was built in before we move into our committees. Where is real, genuine space - except for the listening sessions to help us know how to be in conversation with each other and not harm each other? 14:00     We get to talk to each other, but to know one’s story and culture and tradition? There really is no space for that. Now that would be a wonderful new vision or creative approach to how we do the - talk about some holy conferencing, Christian conferencing - that’s Christian conferencing. It will be interesting to see how even this perfunctory new approach to coming to consensus rather than simply going directly to the vote, how even that tiny change makes a difference. It’s like the whole birthing process. Everything matters, even if it’s a baby step. Everything matters. Just like when you’re carrying a child. When you’re giving birth, the doctor cannot skip anything  . . .  every step matters. You have to have the urge, you have to dilate, you have to push; all of those steps of giving birth, as painful—and unique—as they are from one woman to another, matter. Story Matters 15:03     Relationships matter, story matters. We can talk all the facts and figures about how the population of the church is moving to the southern hemisphere; belief systems in Africa are very different from the belief systems we’ve gotten very comfortable with here in the U.S. There are folks who are educated and incredibly smart who have beliefs we don’t share. That’s part of their culture; it’s just part of who people are. We are never going to say that God can’t do what God’s going to do. If a belief brings you closer to God and closer to other people, what can we learn from that? That’s the key to a worldwide church that our institution is not supporting. We can make the space for people to share their desire to know about one another and create a womb in which we can grow together and develop our new organs as the church is changing. The church has to change. It’s what we’re called to. 16:02     To truly embrace the worldwide nature of the church is to be able to learn from each other and inspire each one for a greater faith—a greater service in the world. Traditions and cultures and customs are contextual. At what point does it become a violent act for us—whether it’s the U.S. or not—to determine what is the “right” approach for someone else? That’s one of the efforts that we’re striving toward now. What do we hold together in common, and what is more contextual, where we need to share freedom? We will still challenge and push each other toward God’s greater goodness. Is it our task to change each other, or is it our task to help each other grow and experience the change that the Holy Spirit is working in us? It is the biggest challenge. Do I show you that I love you and care for you by changing you? Or do I get to know you, and pray for you that God’s work and God’s Spirit will be at work in you for God’s greater good — for you and for the world. 17:07     How do we offer that kind of space in an institution that is so locked in place? We appreciate that the Connectional Table is offering this new process. Baby steps are still steps. But that doesn’t feel organic enough. It’s still safe, and almost to an extreme of fireproof—safe. What will it take and how long will it take? Years. A long time . . . It takes nine months to birth a baby. We didn’t get here yesterday. Consider the whole LGBTQ movement and the frustration—and we totally get the frustration - waiting for so long. When Tracy thinks about us as African Americans, waiting for so long, and we’re regressing, almost like history is repeating. But we’re always in a state of making new history. So it will take continually working at it, pushing and prodding and challenging. Be emboldened and name it, saying, “This is not enough.” Don’t be OK with it, because then you end up resigning, settling for the status quo and becoming complacent. But there’s always more to it. If we believe that God’s Spirit is always at work in moving and changing that; that’s where hope comes from. We have to believe that God is not finished with the church, with us, and it ain’t gonna be over ’til God says it’s over. And that baby’s not gonna come until that baby comes. We know the cycle is nine months. Or is it really ten months? You can go three weeks past due; you can have a preemie. But God will birth something new. What if what we’re birthing is the kingdom of God, and it’s going to take until Jesus comes back for that to happen? We are going to be in the womb together for a long time. Are we going to be Jacob and Esau, fighting in the womb all the time? The Now and the Not Yet 19:14     Let’s take it just a step further. Yes, we are in the womb, but there are some births springing forth. Staying in the womb could become a little scary. We know we’re birthing the kingdom, and we’re in God’s hands, and we’re all in there together. But some life is coming out. It’s ongoing and it’s a cycle: you get pregnant, you deliver; you get pregnant, you deliver. So we can talk about the pregnancy of God—that there’s always new birth springing forth—but do we have eyes to see it? Do we have the desire to stay in the womb so that more new life can spring forth? The whole concept of staying in the womb—the womb being the holy place, the mystery, the kingdom—it’s the now and the not yet. The not yetness is staying in there; the now is new life always springing forth, if we will have eyes to recognize it as new birth. Take JFON (Justice for Our Neighbors), for example. We’re not where we want to be with immigration, but a birth—JFON. We’re not where we want to be with the world in global peace, but a birth—the Connectional Table. You know it’s not the end all and be all, but it’s moving us in the right direction. We had the whole Plan UMC at the last GC; whether or not we agreed on it, the point is we recognize that something needs to be different. 20:50     Something was birthed. If that was never birthed, we wouldn’t be having the greater conversations. New life by the power of God’s Spirit is always being birthed because God is the giver of life. Yes, the activity around Plan UMC has given birth to new conversation about where we need to go. The concern is that the conversation is still about the shape of the womb. It’s not about who’s going to be mama and papa; it’s about the shape of the womb. And that goes back to God being in charge. That’s what keeps us hopeful, because if we ever lose sight of that, it’s all over. What are we striving for? Going back to Holy Communion, we must not lose sight that it’s the Holy Spirit’s work, where the sacred is the mystery and the holiness. We don’t want to lose our church history and tradition of the priestly role, but when we professionalize or institutionalize it too much, we do violence—we forget who is the head of this table. When we talked earlier about people from different cultural perspectives deciding for each other what’s essential and not essential, we used the term violate. And we do violate each other when we assume that we have the answer for anybody, even ourselves. 22:10     The beauty of The UMC is that we’re not a creedal church in a sense where one tells another what to think and what to believe. That’s a gift. At our best, when it comes to respect for the role and position of women, lay and clergywomen alike, we serve in capacities, you know, where in some other institutions a woman would not even hold a place. We are not perfect, but if we are not sitting at the table, having the conversation, nothing changes. The glory and gift of the UM system is that everybody gets to sit at the table. We have a responsibility, a social responsibility, for what goes on in Korea or Africa or Europe. Yes, we are our brothers’ keeper. That’s what we love too about the UMC, and it’s also one of our gifts. While we have all the isms and schisms, the gift of the church is that we have, at least, an intended strategy for how we—not fix it, because only God can fix—but address and name it, work toward wholeness. But it’s God who does the fixing. 23:25     Thank you for listening to the WellSprings Journal podcast. Be sure to visit WellSpringsJournal.org to find more resources for the journey.    

In April of 2016, United Methodist clergywomen gathered to explore the theme, “Birthing the Worldwide Church.” In this episode, Rev. Dr. HiRho Y. Park reviews the progress that’s been made and looks at the challenges that remain. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT 0:01        When women come together there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings Journal Podcast, where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives to speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit awaits. Listen now. 0:33        "Imagine Strong and Prophetic Leadership," by HiRho Y. Park, Executive Director of Clergy Lifelong Learning & the United Methodist Church’s Cyber Campus. 0:44        Oneness is something that many United Methodists are striving to understand as a worldwide church, especially what that means in the midst of gender, racial/ethnic, cultural, economic, and theological diversity among clergy leadership in the church. United Methodist clergywomen gathered two days prior to the World Methodist Council, (WMC) August 29-31, 2016, exploring the theme: “Birthing the Worldwide Church,” and engaging women leaders of the World Methodist Council (WMC). The gathering was held at the Hilton-Americas Hotel and Conference Center in Houston, Texas. 1:26        This Global United Methodist Clergywomen Gathering encouraged UM clergywomen to learn from each other in a variety of ministry settings and locations, an opportunity to envision, articulate, and participate in leading the worldwide church as women clergy. Gathered UM clergywomen across the world discussed what excites them about future global ministry opportunities and what would be the greatest global challenges facing UM clergywomen in the future. This special gathering strengthened networks of international relationships among UM clergywomen and other Methodist leaders, and most of all, we imagined a model of being a global church as women. 2:14        Let me share with you some history of UMC clergywomen. First, we have much to celebrate. In 2006, UM clergywomen celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of full clergy rights for women in the Methodist tradition. The General Board of Higher Education and Ministry organized the celebration in Chicago, Illinois. During our gathering in 2016, we celebrated sixty years of full clergy rights for women in the Methodist tradition and twenty years of ordained deacons in United Methodism. Deacons in the United Methodist Church are ordained to a ministry of Word, Service, Compassion, and Justice whereas elders are ordained to Word, Sacrament, Order and Service. 3:04        In 1956, there were 27 Methodist clergywomen who received full clergy rights. By 2014, the number of UM clergywomen had grown to 11, 388 active and 2,525 retired clergywomen, among a total of 54,474 UM clergy as of 2016, which means women account for 27 percent of all clergy. The number of female clergy grew 25 percent since 1992. 3:41        The number of lead women pastors serving churches with membership of one thousand or more has grown to 137 clergywomen as of 2012, compared to 64 in 2008. This is 114 percent growth within just four years. 4:01        The number of young clergywomen is growing also; 6 percent of elders are under the age of 35, 39 percent of those are female. Seventy-five percent of all ordained deacons are young clergywomen as of 2014. According to the recent report from the Lewis Center, “Young Clergy Numbers Grow among Clergywomen,” in the last ten years, the number of young clergywomen elders has increased 10 percent (31 percent in 2005, 41 percent in 2015), the highest in the history of The United Methodist Church. The number of young ordained deacons who are women has increased 12 percent (68 percent in 2012, 80 percent in 2015 of all ordained deacons). Women local pastors represent a quarter of the entire number of the group. 4:47        Along with the celebration, we have challenges to address, and we did. There are only 12 active female bishops in the entire UM connection, 10 in the United States and two in the Central Conferences as of 2015.  In 2016, we elected seven more women bishops including four African American women bishops.  Now we have 17 active women bishops since two women bishops retired.  5:18        Since then, 350 United Methodist clergywomen of Africa and 150 Filipina United Methodist clergywomen gathered in 2018 to affirm women’s leadership in the Church and society and to seek gender justice and equity within the church system.  There will be two US based Southeast and South Central regional leadership development conferences of United Methodist clergywomen in 2019.  5:58        What does this all mean to The United Methodist Church? If this is “feminization of clergy leadership” in the church, what does that look like in the future? Here, I use the word feminization from the perspective of women advancing in ecclesial leadership and, of course, not supporting misogyny within Christianity. 6:21        How does women’s clergy leadership make a difference, especially when we are becoming, more and more, a worldwide church? There will be no simple answers to these questions. However, I believe that the time is ripe for United Methodist clergywomen to explore responses to these questions. The Global UM Clergywomen Gathering in 2016 was the perfect opportunity to do so. 6:47        We raised scholarships for those who receive minimum salaries and serve in Central Conferences since we wanted as many as UM clergywomen and seminarians as possible to be a part of this historic gathering in 2016.  As a result, we were able to host 450 United Methodist clergywomen from 27 countries around the world speaking six different languages.  7:15        Let us pray for one another across the globe so that United Methodist clergywomen not only imagine strong and prophetic leadership for the future but also take actions to implement those dreams for younger generations of women! 7:33     Thank you for listening to the WellSprings Journal podcast. Be sure to visit WellSpringsJournal.org to find more resources for the journey.

Dr. Hwa-Young Chong, of the Northern Illinois Area of the United Methodist Church, shares how the incarnation of God in human flesh liberates us from all dehumanizing systems and structures of the world, so that we may freely and joyfully participate in creating our world as a more loving, compassionate, and peaceful place to be. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT 0:01        When women come together there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings Journal Podcast, where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives to speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit await. Listen now. 0:32        A Liberating Incarnation: Bodies, Suffering, and the Church, by Hwa-Young Chong, Northern Illinois Area of the United Methodist Church 0:43        God in Human Flesh – The Word made flesh. How is it possible that the infinite and eternal God has found a home in the finite and temporal humanity? 0:56        At first, incarnation seems contradictory. God comes to our world as a newborn baby? God grows and changes just like one of us? God suffers and dies on the cross? How can divinity and humanity coexist? Yet incarnation powerfully tells us that, in God, the impossible is possible and the unimaginable becomes real. The good news is that the almighty God assumed human body, and by doing so, God became intimate and accessible to the human world. At the same time, God’s own embodiment challenges us to find sacredness in our bodies and to resist any abuse, violence, or injustice forced upon our bodies. 1:50        In our incarnate God, powerfulness and vulnerability become one. God enters our world as a “fellow sufferer.” Theologian Jürgen Moltmann even indicates that all the suffering in history is the suffering of God, when he writes, “There is no suffering which in this history of God is not God’s suffering; no death which has not been God’s death in the history of Golgotha.” As the one who knows the pain of tortured death, God suffers with all suffering bodies, and brings new life to our fragile world. Incarnation has a liberating message for all whose full humanity has been denied, harmed, and oppressed due to their bodily aspects. A liberating incarnation calls for a way of justice for all. 2:45        Bodies in the Bible – When it comes to understanding bodies, there seem to be conflicting messages in the Bible. On one hand, bodies are considered sacred. Both men and women were created in the image of God to reflect the sacredness in human bodies. Paul, in his letters to the Corinthians, affirms that Christians are the “temples of the living God” and human bodies are the holy vessels in which the divine Spirit dwells. Becoming one communal body in Christ brings healing and reconciliation, putting an end to hostility and enmity. The body, or soma in Greek, is used to express the state of “being in Christ.” According to Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, soma, as a key symbol in the early church, evoked “an emancipatory political symbolic universe and vision.” In this regard, body is a powerful symbol of a just community where all are invited to be one with Christ. 3:54        On the other hand, in traditional Judaism and in Jesus’s lifetime, some aspects of bodies—such as sick bodies, dead bodies, Gentile bodies, and women’s bodies — were considered defiled. A woman who gave birth to a son was considered unclean for one week, and a woman who gave birth to a daughter was considered doubly unclean — for two weeks. No unclean bodies were allowed in the temple, and unclean bodies had to go through a ritual purification. Such bodily conditions were used for segregation, discrimination, and exclusion. In this way, the sacredness of bodies was painfully ignored and denied. It is in the midst of both positive and negative understandings of bodies that Jesus reached out to all people. 4:51        Bodies and Jesus’s Ministry Jesus was well aware of the oppressive nature of condemning bodies. Gospel writers witness that Jesus’s ministry extensively involved those who were affected by bodily conditions: lepers, a woman with a bleeding condition, a bent-over woman, and people with visual disability. These people were declared ritually unclean and thus isolated from their communities socially and religiously. The social perceptions and practices also made it difficult for them to participate in community life. Jesus’s healing was, first of all, the healing of their physical conditions, but equally important was the restoration of their status in the community. 5:41        In the healing story of the lepers, Jesus asked the lepers to go to the temple and show their healed bodies to the priests, so that the priests would declare them clean and they could be included in the worshiping community. Jesus similarly declared that the bent-over woman was free from her ailment, indicating that she was not going to be socially restricted. Jesus also rejected linking the body’s condition to spiritual sinfulness. When he was asked whether a man was born blind due to his own sin or his parents’ sin, Jesus responded that it was not due to anyone’s sin. In a similar vein, Jesus ate with prostitutes and so-called sinners, those who were ritually unclean. In Jesus’s parable of the great dinner, when the invited guests did not come to the dinner, the host invited “the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame”, indicating that, in God’s kingdom, no one would be excluded based on their social or physical conditions, which was in contrast to the experience of  those hearing the parable. 6:54        Jesus, the incarnate deity, defied the unjust laws that alienated people and served to oppress bodies. In taking on human flesh through Jesus, God challenged discrimination and prejudice based on bodily conditions. Jesus embraced stigmatized bodies, a powerful act in both our time as well as his time. In Jesus’s life and ministry, incarnation was a life-transforming and world-liberating power, far from an abstract philosophical principle. 7:31        Bodies and the Church – As we have examined thus far, in Judeo-Christian traditions, bodies were considered to reflect divine grace, and at the same time, were considered defiled. This ambiguity caused much fear, conflict, and division in the church. The bodily aspect of circumcision, which was considered both the physical sign and the spiritual symbol of God’s covenant, was at the heart of the early church’s intense struggle as to whether or not the Gentiles were part of salvation history. By the power of the Spirit, the Jerusalem conference concluded that circumcision was not needed to enter into the Christian community, which provided the springboard for the church to become an inclusive community. Had the insistence on circumcision remained a requirement, many of today’s Christians would not have been able to be part of the church. 8:36        Discrimination based on gender, race, age, sexual orientation, and ethnicity are related intimately to physical features, sabotaging God’s call to embody diversity in the one body of Christ. Despite a painful history that has considered particular bodies to be dangerous, fearful, unclean, or inferior, the church today must live out incarnational theology and strive to be a place where all differently colored, sexualized, and functional bodies gather together safely and confidently. 9:15        Defying the Cultural Norms of Bodies – Incarnation indicates to us that our bodies are the dwelling sites of the divine, yet some cultural and religious expectations of our bodies have become barriers to fully realizing sacredness. The contemporary cultural ideal of women’s bodies as being thin and physically fit or men’s ideal bodies as muscular and athletic, for instance, tend to promote unhealthy stereotypical body images, and may also lead to psychological, physical, and even spiritual problems. 9:54        Conflicting messages about bodies also exist. In Korean Confucian tradition, for example, bodies are gifts from one’s honored ancestors and thus are to be respected. To harm one’s body is to dishonor it. The Buddhist tradition also values all lives, both human and animal, as sacred and worthy of awe and reverence. The practice of vegetarianism in Buddhism can be understood in the large context of respecting all lives and bodies. 10:28     Yet women’s bodies have not always been treated with respect. For example, in Confucian Korea, there was a social stigma attached to women who were childless, asexual, or married more than once. While such prejudices are no longer overtly shared in contemporary Korean culture, women’s bodies still “exist for men’s everyday living and to cater to the male ego.” A sense of shame often has been forced upon female victims of sexual violence, which deepens the trauma and pain inflicted upon their bodies. 11:07     A liberating incarnation defies such injustice done to our bodies. Incarnation powerfully proclaims that God became human in Jesus. Incarnation declares that all bodies are sacred, regardless of color, physical ability, age, fertility, sexual orientation, sexual history, or marital status. 11:31     Stories Written on Bodies – Our bodies tell our stories, and our stories are embedded in our bodies. Racism, sexism, alienation, oppression, fear, and horror are all written on our bodies. 11:49     I will never forget the first time when, as a graduate student many years ago, I met a comfort woman survivor. “Comfort Woman” is a euphemism for women who were forced into sexual slavery during World War II under Japanese imperialism. These women typically were teenagers when they were raped and tortured in captivity. Kap-Soon Choi was one of these brave and courageous survivors who spoke up, even though it was extremely painful to share the oppression and harm done to her body. 12:24     She showed many signs of hardship and physical aging: deep wrinkles, missing teeth, and a bent-over back. Hearing her speak of the pain of having her body “ripped” in sexual slavery was heartbreaking. She spoke of the injustice of sexism and sexual violence, both with her words and with her body. It was transformative for me to experience her presence. This encounter profoundly changed the way I understood the broken body of Christ. The terribly abused bodies of comfort women opened my eyes to understand Jesus’s incarnation in a new way. 13:07     Jesus’s suffering on the cross not only happened once but also continues today in the suffering of men and women due to war, political and economic corruption, sexual violence, unjust marriage systems, commercialization of bodies, buying and selling of sex, and discrimination based on sexuality. Our incarnational God bring us hope by continuously entering into our lives to bring about healing, restoration, and resurrection. 13:41     Body of Christ, Broken for You – “The body of Christ broken for you.” We often say these words during the sacrament of Holy Communion. What do these words mean for those whose bodies have been broken by injustice and violence? 13:59     Each time I participate in Communion, I am reminded of, not only Jesus’s broken body and bloodshed, but also the suffering of women, men, children of all races and ethnicity. At the same time, Communion is a call for justice. Each time we break the bread, we participate in Christ’s vision for a new community. The open table of The United Methodist Church powerfully declares that all God’s people are invited. At this table we are challenged never to forget the suffering of broken bodies among us, and join Christ in an embodied dance of compassion, peace, and justice. 14:45     Holy Communion is a radical form of hospitality. In its sacramental form, the practice of Holy Communion both recalls the table fellowship of Jesus and envisions the eschatological banquet of God’s reign. The practice of table fellowship nourishes bodies, heals brokenness, and builds community. 15:10     A Liberating Incarnation – Our hope is in the incarnate God, who is manifest in our bodies. God’s suffering on the cross should never be interpreted as reflecting the suffering of the world. Rather, a suffering, incarnate God tells us that God will not tolerate suffering anymore. The broken bread of Holy Communion reminds Christian communities that Jesus’s body was broken to end human suffering, and that sharing in the body of Christ is making a commitment never to participate in violence. Holy Communion envisions a Spirit-led community that seeks justice and peace for all people. 15:56     The incarnate God liberates us from all dehumanizing systems and structures of the world, so that we may freely and joyfully participate in creating our world as a more loving, compassionate, and peaceful place to be. God invites us to an incarnational life. This is an invitation to be one body with Christ, to embody Christ’s peace, compassion, and justice in our daily life. The church is called to be God’s reign on earth, living out a liberating incarnation. 16:33     The gospel is in our bodies. God assumed human flesh and lived among us. God dwells in our bodies today. As those who bear the image of God and cradle the spirit of Christ, may the people of Christ’s body live out a liberating incarnation every day! 16:54     The Word became flesh. Thanks be to God! 16:59        Thank you for listening to the WellSprings Journal podcast. Be sure to visit WellSpringsJournal.org to find more resources for the journey.  

In this episode, Stephanie Anna Hixon, of the Susquehanna Area of the United Methodist Church, focuses on reconciliation and restoration. She says how the body knows and remembers reminds us that responses to traumatic events, violence, harm, or oppression are matters not experienced solely in cognitive ways. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT 0:01        When women come together there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings Journal Podcast, where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives to speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit await. Listen now. 0:32        The Body Re-Members, by Stephanie Anna Hixon, of the Susquehanna Area of the United Methodist Church 0:40        She told me that the body remembers these things: the feel of wet heat of the summer, the damp smell of murky flood waters lingering too long, the anxiety of trauma revisited, the tenderness within one’s joints and soul. How the body knows and remembers reminds us that responses to traumatic events, violence, harm, or oppression are matters not experienced solely in cognitive ways. 1:09        The Spirit of Remaining or Abiding – While we often encounter the dichotomy of spirit and flesh in biblical tradition, the Gospel of John invites us to embrace the human and divine, the essence of spirit and body through water, wine, fish, bread, the touch of wounds, the staying presence of women, the familiar voice at the tomb. John provides fertile ground for Shelly Rambo as she explores the “middle spirit,” the power of the spirit remaining and abiding in Holy Saturday, between death and life. In “Spirit and Trauma: A Theology of Remaining,” she articulates a theology that refrains from moving too quickly to a triumphant resurrection experience, but persists with the power of spirit remaining, being present with, and giving witness to death and suffering. 2:10        Ruptures, Strains, and Disembodiment – Much of the experience of the world today keeps us intensely aware of violence, conflict, ruptured eco systems, stresses, and threats to a flourishing life. Even if we are privileged to be in a place of well-being, safety, and security, we are not far from vivid reminders of human suffering and hostile relationships. Deeper understandings of the impact of trauma, oppression or violence on individuals as well as the legacy of historical harms in communities calls us to reimagine what it means to be redeemed, transformed, reconciled, and made whole. 2:57        Powerfully rooted in women’s narratives of violence, coping, faith, and healing, Stephanie Crumpton writes in “A Womanist Pastoral Theology” against Intimate and Cultural Violence: “Women’s healing from intimate violence also involves recovering themselves from cultural practices that normalize violence committed against them,” Faith is the context from which women can both claim their distinctiveness in the image of God and challenge the culture, including that of church, that contributes to normalizing violence against them. 3:33        As a mother, pastor, and theologian, Kelly Brown Douglas invites us to know more fully the historic paths that shape the environment in the United States and impacts lives for and with black and brown persons in Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God. 3:53        Reconciliation Is a Journey – Reconciliation is not necessarily a point in time or even a destination, but a journey with varied paths and experiences of forgiveness; justice; restoration; connection with God, self, and community. Standing in Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, England, decades ago, among mostly male clergy colleagues who were delighting in the history and connection of the Anglican Church and the legacy of the Wesleys, I was keenly aware that my feet were planted in more than one sphere. At that moment, the history of women as ordained clergy complicated my sense of belonging to the celebration. 4:37        Intersecting spheres or dimensions are what many of us navigate along paths to be fully alive as God’s beloved in the places where we reside. “When Blood and Bones Cry Out: Journeys through the Soundscape of Healing and Reconciliation” captures the essence of reconciliation as resonance, ways of knowing and experiencing healing in the midst of unspeakable tragedy and conflict. Reminiscent of “sighs too deep for words,” noted Romans 8:26, the power of the Spirit to move and beckon through many facets encourages us to explore the arts and peace building. Books, spoken word, poetry, drama, film, music, visual, and other arts vivify our lived experiences. 5:28        Rooted in Grace and Spiritual Practices – Singing, lamenting, weeping, wailing, healing somatic work, walking along the earth, exercising vigorously, savoring a cup of tea, dancing flamboyantly, or moving with more measured steps to the beat of a drum are but a few of the ways that diverse and differently abled persons seek to be wonderfully and fully human as inspired by the divine. These prayerful practices, along with traditional prayer, fasting, study, and other means of grace, enliven the gospel through body, mind, soul, and spirit. 6:12        Punctuated by witnesses of women exploring the Word, The Common English Women’s Bible provides a window to scripture. Christine Pohl invites communities to cultivate practices that sustain us: “making and keeping promises, speaking and telling the truth, expressing gratitude, and extending hospitality.” Elaine Heath offers a group study of wisdom from Galatians as we seek to be the body of Christ in a changing world. 6:42        The Body Remembered – Reflecting on the trial-tested strength and nurturing gifts of family elders, Adrienne Sparrow Trevathan writes: If I have genuinely lost the ability to experience the enfleshed revelation of my family, perhaps it is because I have become so satiated with my half-life that I forget the glory of the flower, the potential of existence, the glory of God to me — to us — in bread and wine. How can I get the church to understand? Let us remember and be thankful. 7:19        Thank you for listening to the WellSprings Journal podcast. Be sure to visit WellSpringsJournal.org to find more resources for the journey.  

Courtney McHill, of the Oregon-Idaho Area of the United Methodist Church, shares how many of her male clergy contemporaries were surprised to hear about some of the challenges that clergywomen still face today, and how she deals with them by remembering that God created her in God’s image, as good and whole, in female flesh. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT 0:01        When women come together there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings Journal Podcast, where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives to speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit await. Listen now. 0:35        God in Flesh Is Just Like Me – By Courtney McHill, of the Oregon–Idaho Area of the United Methodist Church. 0:44        I rearranged the living room again to have just the right vibe. I got out the snacks and the couple of bottles of wine because it was my turn to host in my home. I moved that one chair again and added a few more chairs over there. I dusted all the furniture and the old fixtures. Even though we live in the parsonage just a few feet away from the church, I try to give it touches here and there to make it more comfy for people to hang out here. The group decided to switch to meet in people’s homes to add just these touches. We let down our guard more if we feel safer to do so. We agreed with one another to meet every three weeks in this kind of rotation. Lately, each of us had added snacks and beverages to make it even more comfortable and intimate. 1:30        The community of practice began when 12 of us in north and northeast Portland, Oregon vocalized a similar yearning. We, as younger clergy in mainline denominations in Portland, were seeking others with similar values, practices, and passions to create more of a foundation for one another and more of a voice in Portland. We have been figuring out a different way to be in ministry with one another in this way — a community of practice — for the past year. Gathering in homes has been the next step in answering this yearning. We are ELCA, UMC, Disciples of Christ, Presbyterians, UCC, and Episcopalian so far — half male and half female — all eager to navigate a different version of church. 2:17        This particular day, in my home, somehow the subject of gender in ministry came up. My male colleagues were incredulous that we, as youngish female clergy, were treated any differently. My female colleagues and I looked at them with skepticism. “You don’t believe we are treated any differently,” exclaimed one female colleague. The other United Methodist clergyperson and I exchanged knowing glances. 2:43        I have been in appointed ministry for 10 years. I went directly from college to seminary and into an appointment. My first appointment was as an associate pastor in a larger Oregon church in a college town. My senior pastor had been doing this for 40 years. In fact, the year I was ordained, we celebrated his 40th year in ordination. It was a gift to work for him, but that was when I discovered just how different it is to be a young woman in this work. The touches are different, the critique is different, the compliments are different, the intimacy in conversations is different, and the expectations are different. 3:26        After four years, I moved into an appointment that was a cooperative ministry between a UMC and an ELCA church. I had an ELCA co-pastor. My colleague was 40 years older, very wise, but not in the ways of administration as much. I took on the administrative role, and yet I still saw blatant differences in how we were treated. 3:49        After five years there, I was moved to a solo pastor gig where I have been the senior pastor of a larger Portland United Methodist congregation. I am their first woman pastor. The underlying assumptions are still there, and yet here we are still in this conversation. My male colleague spoke out and said, “It’s not that I don’t believe you are treated differently, but aren’t we past that?” 4:14        My United Methodist Church colleague and I exchanged glances and we started to banter: “Let me just fix that piece of clothing of yours.” “Such a cute haircut (as they start touching and rearranging hair)” “What do you wear under that robe?” “I can’t worship while you wear heels, they distract me. You might fall!” “Why don’t you wear makeup?” “You wear too much makeup!” “What kind of makeup do you wear?” “When do you have time for family?” “Do you want kids?” “Oh Pastor, that baby looks good on your hip!” “Don’t you think that dress shows too much?” “Doesn’t the Bible say that woman should keep silent?” “I will just wait for the real pastor to talk to me.” 4:56        And the list went on and on. When we finally came up for air, half of the room looked shocked, and the other half had a smile spread across their faces. One man asked, “Does this happen?” All of the women in the room said, “Yes!” in unison. 5:13        So many women have gone before me in this profession, paving the way for me to be here, and I am so grateful. I can’t imagine this profession and this call even 30 years ago. I have just a taste of what it means in the clergy world to be a called woman in ministry, and yet I have a taste. I know what it feels like to be touched, prodded, poked, and rearranged before a worship service by kind but unknowing congregants. I know what it feels like to be brushed over in order to get to the male pastor standing right beside me. I know what it is like to be called and told that my opinion isn’t valued as much. I am aware of the people who want to, “save my soul,” because I am woman called by God. I am keenly tuned into the fact that I am treated differently just because of what body I resonate with. 6:07        In April of 2016, I applied and was chosen to travel to Cuba with other amazing clergywomen through The United Methodist Church. Our group was headed to Cuba as clergywomen in order to learn about women in ministry in Cuba. It was an incredible trip. We studied and asked questions. We experienced arts and life in Cuba. We played a bit and toured a bit. We bonded with women in Cuba, but most of all we lifted one another up when we needed it the most. All of us on this trip were searching for something, and we really found one another. We all served in different contexts and in different ways. We all walked around the world with a bit of defensiveness, built up over years of serving in ministry. One night, we gathered in one of our rooms and just started telling stories. We told stories of what people had said to us or when they had passed us over. We told stories of mustering courage and finding our voices. We told stories of when we needed one another the most. We created bonds that have continued. We prayed together and continue to cheer the others on. 7:16        This is why I invest so much of my theology in that simple line that John gives us, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” This is the only way that I know that God knows me. God has been embodied before. God knows a body so intimately that God knows what it means to feel and hear these things. God knows what it means to feel the sun on God’s flesh and feel shame because of this body. Surely God knows what it means to be confident in the body and proud of what God has given us. God has to know what it means to hold someone else or whisper in another’s ear. God has to know how lovely it is to smell a newborn baby’s head or to hold an old woman’s hand as she gives her last breath. God must know what it feels like to preach the word and watch the word transform before our eyes. I am sure that God has felt hurt feet and a hurt heart. God’s heart has definitely been broken. 8:22        At the same time, God knows what it means to feel that bit of urgency when new hope presents itself. God has felt a heart that has a quickened pulse. God has been in love. God has wept. God has leapt when all of the things align just right and when the air gets crisp in fall. God has felt and played in the dirt, and God has been washed clean after a long day. God has to know these things, because God became flesh at one point. 8:52        This is the only way I know how to serve this God and continue to serve this God in the midst of people looking down on my body or saying it isn’t enough. When God becomes an incarnate being, that is when I can acknowledge my God. When I get discouraged that, as a young woman clergyperson, I have to work a bit harder to be heard, this is what gets me back into my called space. God has been here before and knows what it means to be in flesh and to be judged by that flesh. When I get written off because I am “younger, inexperienced, and insecure”—and I am sure that I haven’t claimed any of that and I know it to not be true because I have done this for 10 years and many times before—I know that God was passed over because God was too young and new. God was flesh and dwelled among us in the margins, to the unknown, and in vulnerable spaces. When I get told that I am just cute instead of qualified, I remember when God knew what it was to create the cutest and most qualified creatures. When the expectations are infused into a male body instead of mine, I remember that God created me in God’s image, as good and whole, in female flesh. 10:14     “Do people really say that stuff to you?? Really?” my male colleague asks again in my community of practice. “Yes. All of the time. And now you know. What will you do about it?” This is how I respond, because I know God continues to work through our flesh. It is my job to be my voice and to witness to what God is doing. It is my job to empower the one who has never experienced these petty comments to make them stop. It is my job to continue to preach a God who has been in flesh—incarnate. 10:49     It is my job to stand next to other women all over the world to hear their stories and continue to bond over commonalities in order to work together. It is my job to work with more security and experience than I did before. It is my job to encourage the women who come after me to continue in their call and to walk alongside them. It is my job to continue to vocalize my call in this world and make church safe for the little girl to have a different role model. It is my job to thank those who went before me who did the same for me. 11:27     Thank you for listening to the WellSprings Journal podcast. Be sure to visit WellSpringsJournal.org to find more resources for the journey.

In 1984, there were only two ordained clergywomen in the Zimbabwe Annual Conference. Today, Africa has more than 300 clergywomen. Beauty Rosebery Maenzanise, of the East Zimbabwe Area of the United Methodist Church, shares the struggles of the Rev. Anne-Grace Chingonzo, one of the first Zimbabwe clergywomen, and her struggle to gain acceptance, and how the words in a dream provided the inspiration to persevere. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT 0:01        When women come together there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings Journal Podcast, where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives to speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit await. Listen now. 0:34        Come and See Harare, by Beauty Rosebery Maenzanise, of the East Zimbabwe Area of the United Methodist Church 0:42        The ministry of clergywomen in the Methodist tradition, which has a testimony of sixty years, has been focused on the North American context for decades. While the clergywomen in North America witnessed to the gospel and celebrated their sisterhood, many women who received the call in Methodism across the globe lived in their oppression, years after the approval of the ordination of women by the 1956 the General Conference. 1:09        With the growing number of clergywomen in the United States and their testimonies to the living Word of God, the fire of the Gospel caught on other parts of the globe. In Zimbabwe for example, with people like the late Bishop Abel Tendekayi Muzorewa, women with a call to ordained ministry started to have backbone. In 1984, there were only two ordained clergywomen in the Zimbabwe Annual Conference. Being one of the three clergywomen who were ordained elders in 1988 as the second group, I felt the care of a shepherd from Bishop Muzorewa. To demonstrate his opening of doors for women in this ministry, he would many times be heard during the annual Pastors’ School sessions saying: “Men, we need to remember that biblically we are leaders of the Old Testament. The women are leaders of the New Testament based on the resurrection story of Jesus (Mark 16).” This statement gave us fire within. With the support of our African bishops, now, based on 2012 statistics, Africa has more than three hundred clergywomen. 2:17        Let us hear the voice of one of the Zimbabwe clergywomen, the Rev. Anne-Grace Chingonzo, who was interviewed by the writer in 2001: 2:26        For me to want to continue as a Christian I started worshiping while I was still young. As I was in Grade Four, I started to like preaching so much. I always felt like preaching and wanting people to be saved, to know God. One of the contributing factors was that I always dreamt about preaching. Sometimes I would dream seeing someone calling me saying: “Come and see people who need the message.” Then I would preach in my dream. That same sermon when I preached it next time, it would be very effective. 2:58        In my life I wanted to become a nun, and I was so close to Roman Catholic sisters. I admired their service together with their love and care. These sisters arranged a trip for me to go to Switzerland for that training, but I was not allowed to let my parents know about it. But the secret became known to my parents. They transferred me from Mhangura. They said: “You are not going anywhere.” 3:22        When I went to Mutambara, there was Rev. [Christopher] Jokomo as the pastor, and he was told about my story that: “We removed her from there because of this condition, so please assist her.” That’s when he took me to a sister, Deaconess, Pat Fulmer, who was working at the United Methodist Head Office. He said: “So you can be a sister in the United Methodist, and we can train you here in Zimbabwe.” 3:48        While there at Mutambara doing Form Four in 1983, I had a dream. Rev. Jokomo was in America by then. I dreamt being in a valley with a mountain nearby which had lawn throughout. That mountain had a very narrow path which people could use. Rev. Jokomo was wearing a yellow gown, and he said: “Annie, I want to show you where you are. If you choose to walk this road, I want you to see how hard it is to walk that road. There are thorns on the road, especially when you get to that point. It is very painful.” Then he said: “Follow me.” I followed him walking in front of me. He would say: “You see, walk this way. Make sure you are walking on the right road. Don’t step on the sides of the road. You will be hurt.” We walked and arrived where there were thorns, and he said: “Be very careful.” Then I woke up. All those dreams pushed me to think about ordained ministry. 4:47        I became a Local Preacher when I was doing my Form Three, and I was preaching. Towards the end of November of my Form Four, that’s when I was interviewed for ministry. But the main challenge which pushed me to go to ministry was that I was concerned about women. The fact which pushed me was that, as women, there is not much direct contact we have with the pastor as parishioners. Whereas when a woman has a need or a problem, they share with the pastor’s wife, and that pastor’s wife would then share with her husband. The pastor will then try to solve the issue indirectly through the wife. So it was a long process. I then felt that if I become a pastor being a clergywoman like this, I can manage to go direct to the women and talk to them. 5:33        I was ordained as a Deacon in 1986 at Old Mutate, and the dream I had in 1983 was fulfilled in 1986. How? That was the year Rev. Jokomo came back from America. As we were assembled to process into the Old Mutare Church, I was surprised to see Rev. Jokomo because I didn’t know that he was back. He greeted us all then said: “Annie, come here.” We stood at a corner and he said: “Annie, are you serious that you want to go and vow that you want to become a pastor? Do you know what they will say about your crying all the time? I want to pray for you so that when you give vows you need to know the meaning of what you are going to say. You will be belittled. They will say this and that about you.” And he later said: “Let’s pray.” It did not have much meaning to me as he was praying at that moment. We processed in and sat down. As soon as I sat down.  it hit me that this was the hard road which I was accompanied by Rev. Jokomo. He did it vividly, and that same person prayed for me. I had not shared this dream with him when he prayed for me. 6:46        After graduation from College, I was appointed in Murehwa. When I got to Murehwa, I was not welcome. Why? I was the first clergywoman in that area, and worse, I was a single woman. And, yes, I was single, but the situation was worsened because of the area I came from, Manicaland. As soon as they saw me, to them I was not a pastor. I was so confused and did not know what to do next. Going to church, there was no respect that they were receiving their pastor. Before March 17 of that year, there was a death of a soldier in my parish. They did not even inform me of the death of my member’s son. 7:29        When the Headmaster said to me: “Do you know that your members spent the night at a funeral?” I took my bicycle and books then went there. When I arrived, no one greeted me. I extended my hand to give my condolence, and no one wanted to touch my hand. No one communicated with me, and no one was willing to sit close to me. I went and sat outside by myself. A family member who was the head of the family came to me and said: “Pastor, I am telling you that it’s better for you to leave and go back home. You are not wanted here. One, you are Muzorewa’s representative and two, people don’t want you here. Last night there were songs which were sung against you. The person who died is an ex-combatant. You can be killed here.” 8:15        I said: “I am here for my member’s child who died. He is the one I came here to mourn. I am here, and I am not going to leave this place until after burial.” He said: “Anyway, I told you. Whatever happens to you, you are forewarned.” Then the man left. 8:34        After he said those words, everyone looked down. I stood up and went to where the soldiers were. I said to them: “Can I please see your Chaplain?” They sent one of the soldiers for him. The soldiers welcomed me saying “The pastor is now here.” 8:49        When the Chaplain finally came, he said: “Thank you so much, pastor, for coming. Do everything during this funeral service. I will let you know where we will need to have some gun salutes, and I will tell you what to do.” We drafted the program together, and we called people to come closer. This was me now, calling people and leading the call to worship with that authority. For a while people stared at me, but they later came because I was standing beside my partner now, the Chaplain. After prayer we led the procession to the grave yard.  On the way we were having the salutes, and everything which was supposed to be done during the funeral of an army person. The Chaplain would tell me what to do next. So people thought that I knew all those things. 9:36        Before we left for the graveyard, I asked the family if they had a representative who would like to say a few words, and they said they had nothing to do with “our person.” When we arrived at the graveyard, I only gave time to people from his job and his Burial Society.  I preached.  After the burial we got onto the Puma and went back to the home. After the meal I was about to leave. The soldiers said: “You are not going to ride your bicycle back home, pastor.” They put my bicycle into the Puma, and I went to the front seat. As the engine was being started, all the people from the area I lived started saying: “Pastor, can we get a ride?” I said to the soldiers: “Give them a ride.” 10:20     This was a Wednesday. before Sunday there was a meeting organized by our church members preparing a big welcome for me on 17th March 1989. From there I was the pastor of the community even to non-Methodists. Then I went to Bulawayo. From Bulawayo I was transferred to Old Mutare where there were many challenges. Challenging in the sense that I had only “O” (ordinary) Level education, and I was a pastor of people with degrees, from the medical doctor, headmaster and some teachers. That really challenged me. I was challenged positively . . . to the point that I wanted to further my education. What was challenging was that all those people with degrees respected me so much. But as soon as I was appointed, people started echoing, “A woman at Old Mutare,” because I was the first clergywoman there as the Station Chairperson and Chaplain. But the greatest challenge I had was on marriage. You could see that my husband was welcome more than I was. But the good part of it was that my husband understood me. But even with that, the top leadership respected me. 11:30     As a person who believes in dreams, there is a dream I had which was unveiled this year. I was at UTC, and I dreamt hearing: “Come and see Harare.” It was as if we were on top of the Harare Kopje. While at the Harare Kopje, I was told: “All Harare needs your preaching.” I was being shown all the low and high density areas. It was said: “This is where you are supposed to be preaching the Gospel.” As things were unveiling, I realized it was Jesus who was holding my hand as we went on top of the Harare Kopje. He started to leave me behind, and I said: “Don’t leave me, Jesus.” He said: “That’s a challenge for you.” That dream came vivid this year after my appointment as DS. The whole area I was shown in my dream is where I am overseeing as Superintendent. But the dream happened in 1986. So I believe in these dreams, and they really come true. So that’s my spiritual journey. 12:33     Using this example, we see now that what started as a North American clergywomen’s venture has now windows open to a wider global sisterhood. 12:43     Thank you for listening to the WellSprings Journal podcast. Be sure to visit WellSpringsJournal.org to find more resources for the journey.

Dr. Safiyah Fosua, of the Greater New Jersey Area of the United Methodist Church, shares how a loom and a spinning wheel became God’s instruments to awaken her soul and release her creative spirit. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT 0:01        When women come together there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings Journal Podcast, where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives to speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit await. Listen now. 0:34        The call of the Wheel and the Loom – By Dr. Safiyah Fosua, of the Greater New Jersey Area of the United Methodist Church 0:44        Of late, I frequently hear the call of the wheel and the loom. This year, I bought a large, Norwood, four-shaft floor loom and a Schacht, castle-style spinning wheel. The intent was to begin collecting “retirement toys” while I am still employed enough to pay for them. My rationale was to have a new craft or two to break me out of several mind-numbing routines that were threatening to swallow my soul. I did not realize that Ms. Norwood and Ladybug (as they have been named) would become God’s instruments to awaken my soul. 1:20        At the wheel, a handful of sheep’s wool begins to resemble yarn or thread. At the loom bench, an orderly tangle of threads becomes cloth. Both acts of creativity satisfy the longing of my soul to imitate the creativity of the One who created me, in ways the mundane and unimaginative tasks of ministry cannot. Like many of you, I am exhausted after working my way through the to-do pile. For me, the pile contains assignment grids, rubrics, correcting grammar, or grading papers from an assignment that I have been giving students for the last ten semesters. For you, it may be hospital calls, staff meetings, budgets, sermons, and Bible study lesson plans. All require that we be fully present, that we be Christ to those on the receiving end. However, as I am honest with myself, I recognize that so much of what we do in ministry as we know it these days does not require huge amounts of creative energy. 2:25        Yet my soul cries out to be creative, even when I am too tired to engage in the creative processes that birth poetry from the numinous cloud inside of my head onto the printed page. Even when I am dragged-out tired and bleary-eyed, however, I can spin wool into thread and sit at the loom in awe as I watch colored threads become patterned cloth. And sometimes, a bit of poetry also finds her way to my yellow note pad while the creative flood gate is barely propped open. 2:59        So then, in this call of the wheel and the loom, I experience a call to remembrance. There, I remember that I am created in the image and likeness of the One who is introduced to us in Genesis as the Creating One. I am called to remember that even the call to discipleship and evangelism is a call to creativity. We are co-creators with a God who creates one family of the disparate human factions that we have created. We midwife the rebirth of souls that have often been reduced to nothing but despair and whispered prayers. It requires creativity to gather the isolated to community, the self-contained to covenant, and the world-weary to the safety of the gospel of peace. And, if we are attentive to the cries of the earth, she also reaches out to us for creative restoration. 3:56        At the wheel, I also remember that one act of creativity often begets, or opens the doors for, others. It is no accident that so many who have accepted the call to ministry also paint, sculpt, construct things, play, sing, or write music, or engage in countless other acts of creativity. They have stumbled upon the secret that, for them — for us — one act of creativity frequently opens the door for others. The tactile stimulation of wool into thread, the repetitive click of knitting needles, the messiness of batik, or the physicality of kneading dough or pounding fufu often busy the restless body long enough for thoughts from the heavenly realm to bubble up to the surface. 4:45        The creating spirit is our birthright. That spirit is within us. It is part of what it means to be created in the image of God. We who bear the Imago Dei are driven to imitate our Creator by hovering over the chaos of the mundane by creating something. The creating spirit is a cry for more than just subsistence. And so, no matter how rich or poor we are, you may find several of us in a braiding circle, hovering over a head and creating something meaningful. Or you may find us working together on a quilt. You may be found hovering over piano keys, a drum, or a sitar until a new sound emerges; hovering over the breadboard, or the pounding stick, or the grinding bowl. All of these are acts of creativity. 5:38        Creativity is a part of meaning-making that distinguishes humans from others in the created order. It appears across our embroidered globe in expressions too varied to number. When the creating spirit is suppressed, so also are we. When it is flowing freely among us, we feel alive. 6:01        I end this essay as I began. Of late, I hear the call of the wheel and the loom. 6:08        Thank you for listening to the WellSprings Journal podcast. Be sure to visit WellSpringsJournal.org to find more resources for the journey.

Robin Starr Minthorn, of the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference, recounts the oppression Indigenous peoples have faced and explains why it is important to understand the past that lives within the generations of today. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT 0:01        When women come together there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings Journal Podcast, where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives to speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit await. Listen now. 0:34        Oppression and Empowerment of Native Americans, by Robin Starr Minthorn of the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference. 0:43        At this time in our world, in our communities, there are so many situations that surround us concerning the safety of women, children, and our environment, which are all intricately connected. I am speaking as a layperson, as a Kiowa tribal member, as a Native woman, as a United Methodist who grew up in a predominantly Native American conference, where language and culture were both accepted and rejected at the same time. I will share in this space the story of my own experiences and the lived realities of Indigenous women in the church, in their communities, and in the world. I am not the representative of all, but I have lived in all of these contexts. 1:32        As a grandchild of a Native American pastor in The United Methodist Church and the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference, I can say there were times in which the Native culture was told not to be honored or used along with serving the church. But you could speak your language and create songs and your own hymns. I have also seen and heard of my grandpa’s and grandma’s efforts to create a community of believers with a true sense of community, care, trust, and support. I have seen my grandmother find ways to contribute alongside her husband, while also raising children; but not having her mother to guide her. Her mother died when my grandma was two years old. My grandma went to boarding school, starting at the age of five, was able to attend public school for only a few years of her schooling, and ended up graduating from a boarding school in Lawrence, Kansas. This was partially because she did not have her mother, and partially because it was sometimes the only choice available to her. 2:38        For many Native Americans, boarding school is not a distant memory; it still haunts the generations of today. Why might you ask? Children of Native peoples who attended boarding schools two generations ago were forcefully removed (mostly) from their parents and communities, so that the federal policy of “Kill the Indian, Save the Man” could be fulfilled. This policy of General Richard Henry Pratt began in 1879, with the creation of Carlisle Boarding School, as an assimilation effort to displace children from their families and communities. Removing them encouraged losses—of language, culture, and traditions of having long hair—and forced them to wear Western clothing and learn trades that would help assimilate them. Why does this matter? Due to this policy, parenting traditions were lost, and families were broken up. This created dysfunction in our communities between generations of both males and females, as their traditions were lost and gaps created. This is one policy that was implemented by the federal government. There were many, and this does not even include actions addressed by the Act of Repentance that was passed at the 2012 UM General Conference and other tortuous acts carried out by religious leaders of various denominations in North America. 4:06        I share this, not to dwell on the past, but when we speak of where we are right now, it is important to understand the past that lives within the generations of today. When we talk about the atrocious rates of diabetes, alcoholism, poverty, and suicide that pervade Native American communities in reservation, urban, and rural settings, we must link the past to the present. When we talk about the “Native Lives Matter” movement, we must acknowledge that it exists because the highest number of killings by law enforcement is of Native Americans, and there is an epidemic of homelessness where there are larger numbers of Native peoples in urban cities. Then we see environmental injustice that plagues reservations and tribal land bases, including uranium mining, fracking, water contamination, and pipeline building that will jeopardize the water sources of millions. Then we see statistics for the overwhelming amount of rape, domestic violence, and murder that exists for Native American women and children. This is not just true in the United States; these issues impact Indigenous peoples to the north and south of us. Indigenous peoples have been subjected to colonialism, genocide, assimilation tactics, and forced religion; they have been raped by Western thoughts and beliefs every day since contact was made. 5:33        So, when I think about the theme of “Bodies, Oppression, and Gospel,” I think of how much of an oxymoron that can be to populations who have been oppressed for centuries. I think about how clergywomen are often called to care for others, empathize with the oppression that is faced by others. Yet I wonder how many have paid attention to the silent cries and beautiful presence of Indigenous peoples of yesterday and today. I think, “What would Jesus do if he saw the plight of Indigenous people? Would he weep, would he show love and compassion?” 6:10        I think God created each of us to have a unique language, creation story, and journey; but many have misinterpreted the Bible so that they can use it for their own purposes. There is, however, an opportunity for clergywomen to become allies and advocates for Indigenous populations. Do you know who the Indigenous people are in the land base you serve? Even if there is not one located there presently, whose homelands, historically, are from that area? Understanding that history, acknowledging it, and teaching others about it is the first step. The next step is to find ways to advocate and become allies for issues impacting Indigenous People’s—locally, nationally, and even internationally. 6:55        Advocacy can begin by understanding the history, but must also address the current plight. In all of this, reflect on the beauty and resilience of Indigenous peoples: women, children, men, and elders. There were once hundreds of millions of Indigenous peoples; now there are less than five million. Yet the language, culture, ceremonies, and ways of being have continued to live on within tribal communities, families, and the ancestors of those who survived colonial acts of genocide and assimilation. Understanding both the history and today’s lived reality it will provide a foundation for clergywomen across The UMC on beginning to ask the questions: What can I do? What can we do? How will I begin to understand what it means for the “Word to become flesh, and lived among us”? This means to understand those who are the least understood and to truly live among and with others, specifically, the Indigenous peoples of this land. 8:03   Thank you for listening to the WellSprings Journal podcast. Be sure to visit WellSpringsJournal.org to find more resources for the journey.

The Rev. Anita Phillips executive director of the Native American Comprehensive Plan of the United Methodist Church, shares her perspective as a Native American clergywoman on the matter of bodies, oppression, and the Gospel. She responds to the oppression visited upon indigenous people, and particularly Native American women, by proclaiming release to the captives. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT 0:01        When women come together there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings JournalPodcast, where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives to speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit await. Listen now. 0:34        Release to the Captives, by the Rev. Anita Phillips executive director of the Native American Comprehensive Plan of The United Methodist Church. 0:44        Introduction -- It is my honor to share from my perspective as a Native American clergywoman on the matter of bodies, oppression, and the gospel. As I begin, it is important to lift a significant point from the perspective of Native Americans. We are not one indistinguishable group of human beings. A crucial aspect of our identity is the nations to which we belong. At present, there are 562 federally recognized tribes and nations in the United  States, and many additionally recognized by individual states. Each Native American nation has its own history, language, culture, and identity. However, there are elements one may identify that represent common core values and beliefs among Native Americans. In the context of this conversation, I will most often be speaking to these. 1:44        The Corn Mother -- “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” This is the ultimate revelation from the Gospel of John, that human beings can know God through the life, teachings, and identity of Jesus the Christ. 2:01        The notion of the Creator (or aspects of the Creator) embodied in physical form is not unique to Western theology. The sacred figure of the Corn Mother plays a significant role in creation stories for many Native American nations. My own nations, the Cherokee and the Keetoowah, include the story of Corn Mother, also called Selu, which is the Cherokee word for corn. The details vary from tribe to tribe, but the critical elements are much the same. The focus of the story is the willing self-sacrifice of Corn Mother, who recognizes that she must die in order to bring about the birth of corn, beans, squash, and other produce of the earth to feed her children. Before she dies, she gives instruction on how to plant and raise corn. She provides the seed corn from her body, which in due course saves the people. In some stories, she instructs her children to use her blood to fertilize the fields. As I reflect on the story of Corn Mother, I discover the divine elements of self-sacrifice and unconditional love of others. These elements are revealed to the world through human form and are fully released and realized only through the death of the bearer. 3:28        Many moons ago, before serving as a United Methodist clergywoman, I served as a social worker in the administration of Cherokee Principal Chief Wilma Mankiller. She was the first woman to hold this highest office in my nation. She was simultaneously a Christian and a Native American who claimed her identity as a traditional and ceremonial woman. In her life’s journey, she manifested the characteristics of both Jesus Christ and Corn Mother. Chief Mankiller loved our people despite times of turmoil and conflict in serving them. There were times of great resistance and oppression toward her personally from powerful governmental and economic entities. She served despite great physical affliction, and made tremendous sacrifices on behalf of others. She died in 2010, and in the reflections I have made on her life and my own, I realize she has perhaps been the single most important mentor who has influenced me as a Native American United Methodist clergywoman. 4:37        Gender and Oppression -- Native American women share with all women the bond of oppression related to our female gender. This form of oppression was not historically a part of our societies prior to the arrival of Europeans on this continent many centuries ago. Prior to this invasion, women lived as did men, as part of the interrelatedness of all creation. Every element of creation was seen as essential to the ultimate balance, harmony, and survival of the entirety. Women fulfilled roles that were equally important to the community as those that men occupied. The introduction of patriarchy, along with many other alien beliefs and values, was part of the traumatic assault experienced by Native Americans during Western expansion. 5:29        Native American clergywomen share an inheritance of both the best the world has offered women and the worst. Within our many nations, the being of women—the totality of mind, body, and spirit—was viewed as holy and vital for its contribution to the ongoing existence of the community and all of creation. Gender was more a matter of complementary roles that contributed to harmony and balance within a society. Manifestations of this may be seen today through ongoing matriarchal systems of clan membership, property, and residence. My own clan membership was determined through my grandmother. I belong to the Long Hair Clan. 6:17        Patriarchy was introduced and enforced by both missionaries and governmental entities. The concept of the superiority of men often accompanied “conversion at gun point” or was adopted as a desperate attempt at survival through identification with the oppressor. Indigenous women experienced a “perfect storm” during this period of our history. While the notion of the female body as sacred and important began to submerge beneath a dominating Western worldview, other crucial aspects of our Native identity—community, relationship, the value of the group over the individual, complementary characteristics leading to a balanced society, the Creator with us and interrelated in all things—began to fade as supportive realities of our daily lives. Simultaneously, boarding schools worked to stamp out Indigenous languages. Into this numbness and trauma came the realization that the value of a woman’s body was determined by the men in power. 7:27        Trails of Tears -- As people of oral history, most of our greatest stories are not recorded in writing, but are passed along through storytelling. One of the stories that both inspires and haunts me comes from the era of the Trails of Tears. The term “Trail of Tears” is used to describe the forced removal of Native American people from the southeastern United States to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River in the early 1800s. Peoples of the Cherokee, Muscogee Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole Nations were forced onto these death marches by the U.S. federal and state governments in order to open their lands  to White settlers. The destination for these nations was what is now the state of Oklahoma. Soldiers of the U.S. Calvary accompanied the Native American people on these Trails of Tears to ensure they followed the prescribed routes to Oklahoma Territory and to guard against persons escaping to return to their homelands. 8:36        One of the traumatic realities of historical conquest is that the conquerors lay claim to everything belonging to the conquered captives. Not only are their physical possessions taken, including the land upon which the people live, but also their bodies, minds, and spirits. For Native women, alien powers laying claim to their children, their homes, their fields, and their sexuality was the foundation for destroying the elements of their personhood. The notion that violent sexual access to the women and girls of conquered nations was the right of conquering forces has been documented throughout history. Such violent assault also occurred on the Trails of Tears. Stories have been passed down in my family of soldiers carrying off young women and girls into the darkness for the purpose of rape and degradation. Recognizing the trauma visited upon these young members of the Cherokee community, a group of mature women, many of whom were mothers, stepped forward to offer themselves as victims to the sexual assaults in place of the younger women and girls. They sacrificed their bodies every night as the spoils of war. The stories that have been passed down recount the response of the Native community: when these sacrificial actions by the women were taking place, the people would sing. Knowing that these women would feel so alone out there in the darkness, the people would sing very loudly so that their voices would carry beyond the campfires. 10:18     Most of these tribes had been heavily missionized by various denominations for many years and a great number of Native peoples coming from the southeast on the Trails of Tears were Christian. The Gospel was brought along on these terrible journeys. I have no doubt the scripture focus of this issue of WellSprings from the Gospel of John was lifted and preached by some of the missionaries who chose to stay with the people and made the forced march with them. What a contradiction! As preachers proclaimed God, revealed through the flesh of Jesus the Christ, the flesh of indigenous women was desecrated with impunity! The oppression of my grandmothers in this way brings great grief to my heart; their courage brings great pride and strength to my spirit. 11:13     Into the Future -- One of the experiences I have valued as an elder within my conference, the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference, has been serving as mentor to several Native American women local pastors as they progressed through their candidacy toward ordination. I presently mentor a Chickasaw clergywoman, whose particular interests include Native American women in the postcolonial period of U.S. history and the present impact of Christian missionizing on the personhood of these women. In an unpublished paper, “Re/Membering Indigenous Women: Ghost Stories and Imago Dei,” she writes of the duality of good versus evil imposed by Western theologies and how the culture and identity of Indigenous peoples were framed as the embodiment of sin, thus legitimizing any oppressive or violent actions that would drive out the evil. We have talked together of the oppression imposed on the bodies of Native women and how that bitter inheritance is still visited on our communities today—how Native women in this present time experience the highest rates of rape and sexual violence of any racial-ethnic group. We speak with other Native American clergywomen of our responsibility to counteract this bitter inheritance within our ministries with Native women and men. We join with other Native American women, united in our commitment to live our lives as the blessings we were created to be. The holiness of the incarnation of Native women is again becoming a part of our culture. 12:58     As a Native American clergywoman, I celebrate the gospel found within our Christian scripture. The Gospel of John’s presentation of God revealed through the physical personhood of Jesus is a sermon that I have preached. However, the revelations experienced by my people about Creator God and the value of both genders within the interrelatedness of all creation, is also important to preach. It is vital to respond to the oppression visited upon my people, and particularly our women, by proclaiming release to the captives. In this present day, it is a joyful thing to contemplate new generations of Indigenous children living into the reality of their sacred worth. 13:48   Thank you for listening to the WellSprings Journal podcast. Be sure to visit WellSpringsJournal.org to find more resources for the journey.

In this special collaborative episode, five ordained women come together to lament, confess, celebrate, and ultimately reclaim an embodied and faithful way to move in their professional, spiritual, and personal lives. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT When women come together there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings Journal Podcast, where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives to speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit await. Listen now. 0:39     Lament, Gospel, Response – a collaborative effort by Nannette Banks, Isabel Docampo, Allison St. Louis, Trudy Hawkins Stringer, and Laura Tuach. 0:52     Introduction by Laura Tuach. “The Word became flesh and lived among us.” John 1:14 calls us to embrace the embodiment of God’s grace through Christ. 1:05     This article is a collaborative project. A living, breathing, and evolving endeavor by five ordained women of differing faith communities, differing bodies and stories, differing experiences of the Divine. We are five religious professionals located within the academy, training and supporting the next generation of congregational leaders. We are of Cuban descent, African American descent, Anglo descent, and African and Indian descent. We are deeply faithful women, serving our calls in academia while maintaining our connections to the Episcopal, Progressive Baptist, United Methodist, and United Church of Christ denominations. We are each embodied, fleshy, and beautifully and wonderfully made, reflecting God’s complexity, diversity, and magnificence. Over the past three years, we gathered virtually and in person for mutual professional support and to produce writing that reflects our deepest commitments and beliefs. In this article we lament, confess, celebrate, and ultimately reclaim an embodied and faithful way to move in our professional, spiritual, and personal lives. 2:25     We begin exploring the theme of this issue with lament. As an all-female community of practice, we lament our individual and collective traumas. We tell the truth about the violence inflicted on women’s bodies, bodies of those who are “othered,” and our own bodies. We lament the barrage of images and messages we cannot escape in a culture that worships consumerism and productivity and a prescribed definition of beauty. We lament this injustice and ask for forgiveness for our own complicity in systems of oppression that deny full human expression through the body. We hear the good news that the word became flesh and lived among us. We respond by creating ritual and worshiping together. In this article, we invite you to explore these words of John without divorcing them from your own body and the bodies of the women and girls you minister to. As women of all shapes, colors, sizes, and experiences, we are called to celebrate our bodies and the ways in which the living God is enfleshed in each of us. 3:40     Lament by Trudy Hawkins Stringer -- “But flesh has ambiguous connotations. Indeed, its materiality often carries the weight of sin.” — Mayra Rivera 3:53     How is it that in the Christian tradition we hold the radical claim that God became flesh and dwelt among us, and yet in the same tradition, flesh, as Rivera writes, “carries the weight of sin”? We begin with lament, an ancient practice of weeping and wailing, of grieving loss. Lament as an embodied, communal practice has fallen out of favor, so we turn our mourning inward, silencing it and forcing it to molder in the nether reaches of our bodies. We seek to reclaim lament as a necessary step in remembering our being, calling “flesh, spirit, mind, soul” from the long loneliness of dichotomies of: spirit / flesh, soul / body, mind / body. 4:45     In Enfleshing Freedom, M. Shawn Copeland writes: The ambivalence with which Christian thought focuses on the sex of the matter may be traced to a persistent somatophobia or fear of flesh. This fear stems from a conceptual axis that compounds both distortions of Neoplatonism, with its tendency to idealism, suspicion of ambiguity, and discomfort with matter, and Pauline and Augustinian warnings about flesh and its pleasures. We lament somatophobia entrenched in Christian traditions. We lament all cultural constructions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and able-ness that encourage exclusion, domination, and violence. 5:34     We lament the violence acted out on bodies—raced bodies, gendered bodies, ethnic bodies, queer bodies, diseased bodies, disabled bodies. We lament masculinities that teach violence and debasement of women and emotional numbness to men. We lament raced identities that construct white supremacy and condone slavery and Jim Crow in old and new iterations.  We lament sexual teaching that denies the sacred worth of human sexuality. We lament the role of religion in creating and perpetuating cultural distortions of flesh. We lament and confess our own complicity, by commission and omission, in cultural, societal, and religious systems that distort, degrade, and commodify flesh. 6:28     We ask forgiveness. We seek to participate in the re-sacrilizing of our flesh: flesh as a source of our knowing and of joy, flesh welcome in worship, flesh necessary for ritual, flesh foundational to sacramental practices of baptism and Eucharist. We seek forgiveness and the collective courage to reimagine flesh as sacred gift. 6:58     Response: Hope in “Isness” by Nannette Banks.  “I CAN’T BREATHE!” the tragically famous last words of Brother Eric Garner, and according to Yale ethicist, the Rev. Dr. Ebony Marshall Turman, declaring his “isness.” As we watch that black male body struggle to survive while being choked to the ground, we hear him proclaim his existence: “I CAN’T BREATHE.” This moment is reminiscent of Malcolm X’s father being tied to active train tracks with the sound of the train’s horn and the blinding light shining on him, shouting, “I AM A MAN!” and the screen goes blank. It is reminiscent of Fannie Lou Hammer rebuffing—without reticence and with clarity—the oppressors with, “I AM SICK AND TIRED OF BEING SICK AND TIRED!” These are not defeatist statements; instead, they are declarations of “isness,” existence and “I am somebody.” To unapologetically declare your space, place and “isness” as human in the face of hatred, brute force, and injustice is the zenith of resistance; giving no one real power over your being—body or mind. 8:23     Continual blows of dehumanization can leave the being—body and mind—bereft and without hope, unless you know that you exist! It is the spirit of resistance that stirs in us to confront the oppressors’/dehumanizers’ glare and physical force with the fact of our existence and place. Recall Jesus on the cross, declaring his “isness” with his last few words, even while he was being mocked. The embodiment of such gumption and spirit destabilizes governments’; economic, political platforms; unjust systems; privilege; ancestral supremacy; and religion. This very spirit is present in each of our bodies, limbs, “isness,” and declarations. It’s in our showing up and in our very flesh (hard to unravel the two, impossible really)—spirit and flesh together. One without the other leaves a gaping hole of prayers with no protest or protest with no prayers; a gaping hole of embodiment with no sure housing, words with no real meaning, and life with no real point. Again, recall Jesus: the word became flesh! God inhabits/embodies the praises, the declarations of the people. Show up, inhabit, embody, become flesh with your very first, until your very last, word and breath. 10:01   Gospel: Good News by Isabel Docampo. The encounters of Simon, the social outcast and unclean leper, a nameless woman, and Jesus in the Gospel of Mark’s 14th chapter offer good news of the Divine’s transfiguration of oppression to hope. When these three hurting people encounter one another in the Gospel story, they are moved to care for one another’s flesh: their bodily and emotional wounds. Simon offers shelter and fills Jesus’ hungry stomach. The woman offers human touch as she spreads the oil on his head, shoulders, and feet. Jesus, the Divine made flesh, gratefully receives these gifts. Here the Divine is embraced and embraces, crossing the boundaries between Creator and Creature. In the compassionate embrace of the Other’s wounds and pain, these three experience the Divine “touch” that helps them transcend their bodily oppression and move forward in hope! 11:08   The body is the pathway by which we experience the world. The body is an historical receptacle. It carries our ancestors’ stories in its DNA—of intermarriages, diseases, migrations, and the truth of our inescapable biological and cultural hybridity—for survival within political and economic histories. Our perception of our own bodies and that of the Other’s body reveals the marks of these histories on our emotional psyche that is an extension of our body. Latina studies have explored the legacies of colonialism, whose violence on all indigenous bodies (particularly the female body) was enacted to produce “bodily traits” for a perfect economic commodity. Colonialism’s power persists in our subconscious, producing a self-desire for certain bodily traits to the point of masochistic surgeries in a quest for bodies deemed safe and most likely to succeed. 12:12   Emilie Townes says it well: “We do not love ourselves. We have become cavalier with each other’s lives . . . we live in a time when the disregard for human lives in general is astoundingly sanctioned by a legal system that fails all of us when black and brown and native lives are taken and no one is responsible. ”Ultimately, we are responsible for all of the bodies that we see on our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feeds, and on podcasts, with eyes glazed over by trauma. These bodies are collateral damage in the quest for postcolonial, global economic stability. Categorizing the human body as a commodity remains as much a moral act of oppression today as it was in colonial times. Powerful nations are not helpless, but rather hesitant, to enact new policies and disrupt their geopolitical and economic arrangements. Their hesitancy in the postcolonial reality is counter to our moral imperative as Christians: to love God and love one another as ourselves. Like the nameless woman, we need to get out of the shadows and enter into the space, bravely, and anoint our collective body with oil. 13:34   The good news is that the Divine loves the Creation so much that the Godself chose the limitations of the complex human body. Why? That remains a mystery. Yet our experiences of the flesh help us unravel it. Stories from across the ages tell of life-changing moments when human beings from different groups transcend limitations to commune together for truth-telling, justice, and mercy. In those intimate moments of vulnerability and shared bodily knowledge of pain, power is experienced outside and within the self that engenders inexplicable hope in the face of losing odds. It becomes holy ground as we are able to see in the faces looking back at us that we are love-able. And, so, by loving one another, we begin to be healed so we can love ourselves. 14:32   Biblical references to glory frequently allude to the transfiguration of the ordinary in its encounter with the divine .. . Thus the glory of God is always encountered as flesh … Past relations leave their marks in our bodies … signs of renewal as well as scars. These scars are never absent from our encounters. When we see, hear, or touch the Other, we touch upon the Other’s scars … become transfigured in the divine embrace. Again, and again, and again. We may not fully understand the unconditional love of the Godself choosing embodiment. Nevertheless, we can bear witness that by doing so the Divine’s identity is revealed as one that can never be reduced to historically frozen faith tenets. Instead, the Godself can be many things, and is, and is all things at one time, and is differentiated yet never separated from the Creation. 15:38   The good news is that as children of the Creator, we, too, have multiple identities that we move in and out of, and the Divine delights in our complexity! The good news is that we are differentiated yet tethered to one another without fear. Fear has no place in love; and the Divine loves completely. If God is to be found in the Other . . . ethics becomes a central concern of theology. Theology … shall call us to transform our bodies so that they become capable of embracing without grasping, to transform our eyes to see and ears to hear. Theology shall encourage us to perceive the transcendence of the Other as the glory of God. We are invited to repeatedly encounter the Divine within, between, and beyond us as we reach toward one another to fearlessly re-order life without the categorization and commodification of bodies. We are freed by love to mutually offer and receive shelter, food, and healing oil. Good news, indeed! 16:53   Response: Embodied Ritual by Allison St. Louis. Ritual practices are ways of remembering. Ritual practices can also serve to help communities “re-member.” The following ritual is a call for our bodies to enter into their rightful place in the kingdom come. 17:15   Service of Healing and Celebration of Our Embodiment. Let us give thanks to our Creator God, Who made heaven and earth. Let us give thanks to our Creator God, Who knit us together in our mothers’ womb. Let us give thanks to our Creator God, Whose life-giving spirit dwells in us. 17:36   Scripture Reading: Psalm 139:1-18. O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. 18:38   If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night’, even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them—they are more than the sand; I come to the end — I am still with you. 19:42   Litany of Confession and Healing. For forgetting that we are created in your image: Forgive us Holy God. For colluding with cultural standards of beauty and worth: Forgive us, Holy God. For remaining silent about oppression, abuse, and violence: Forgive us, Holy God. With embracing the holiness of our bodies: Gift us, Healer God. With appreciating the beauty of all bodies: Gift us, Healer God. With unrelenting courage to speak up for the voiceless: Gift us, Healer God. 20:21   Closing Prayer: “The Lord’s Prayer.” The Word became flesh! God embodies the praises, the declaration of the people. Show up, embody, become flesh from your very first, until your very last, word! Let us bless the Word become Flesh. Thanks be to God! 20:45   Thank you for listening to the WellSprings Journal podcast. Be sure to visit WellSpringsJournal.org to find more resources for the journey.

The theme of Season 2 is “Bodies, Oppression, and Gospel,” and in Episode 1, the Rev. Cristian de la Rosa, of the Baltimore-Washington area of the United Methodist Church, takes a critical look at how many of the violent practices and processes that have led to the marginalization of women of color are intrinsically related to the introduction (as Catholicism) and re-introduction (as Protestantism) of Christianity in the Americas. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT When women come together there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings Journal Podcast, where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives to speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit await. Listen now. 00:35     Mujer: A Body of Dangerous Memories. By Cristian de la Rosa, of the Baltimore-Washington area of the United Methodist Church. 00:45     The theme for this season conjures what I understand to be a spirit of Mujer in all women, but which is clearly evident in the struggles for life and justice of the surviving descendants of indigenous women across the world. As a woman of Nahuatl descent living in the United States, I understand the spirit of Mujer as the female essence that encompasses strength, courage, wisdom, and discerning skills; deployed by female descendants of the colonized (women of color in the particular context of the U.S.); seeking justice and fullness of life in the fragmentation identified by postmodern Western thought. In my experience, the consideration of bodies, oppression, and gospel evokes memories of injustice and the struggles for survival at the intersections of globalization. 01:44     This experience, within the realities of indigenous peoples, is framed with surviving efforts against colonizing violence. It is rooted in socio-political-religious historical processes that produced “visibly recognizable race categories” facilitating the classification of bodies for marginalization. These processes continue to be articulated through a Western philosophy permeated with interpretations of the gospel that perpetuate circumstances of marginalization, subordination, and fragmentation for female bodies of color, which can survive only as the embodied words of empire. 02:30     As Mayra Rivera explains, the bodies I most identify with and as – Latina bodies – are named by language. Latin, the language of the first Christian empire, now signifies the language of the Spanish empire under the power of which these types of bodies were born. The imperial word became flesh. Today the imperial language names bodies.  The linguistic label is, however, insufficient for erasing the carnality of that colonial history. 03:06     The ethos of European colonizing processes that instituted Christianity around the world intentionally erased indigenous cultural and religious points of reference and reconstituted the surviving bodies of indigenous peoples through interpretations of the gospel that rendered them inferior to the colonizers. My social location as a Latina woman in the United States reflects the empire language of conquest by Spain. My faith tradition as a United Methodist clergywoman reflects the empire language of colonization by England. Neither social location nor faith tradition informs my identity as a woman of Nahuatl descent. However, both facilitate my survival in the flesh as a racialized body and continue to inflict fragmentation by misinforming my formation. 04:10     Linda Tuhiwai Smith considers postcolonial theories and explains them in the following manner: As Fanon and later writers such as Nandy have claimed, imperialism and colonialism brought complete disorder to colonized peoples, disconnecting them from their histories, their landscapes, their languages, their social relations and their own ways of thinking, feeling and interacting with the world. It was a process of systematic fragmentation which can still be seen in the disciplinary carve-up of the indigenous world: bones, mummies and skulls to the museums, art work to private collectors, languages to linguistics, “customs” to anthropologists, beliefs and behaviors to psychologists. To discover how fragmented this process was, one needs only to stand in a museum, a library, a bookshop, and ask where indigenous peoples are located. Fragmentation is not a phenomenon of postmodernism as many might claim. For indigenous peoples, fragmentation has been the consequence of imperialism. 05:30     The violent Spanish conquest of Latina America, the treatment of indigenous peoples in the Americas, the acquisition of what is now the Southwestern U.S. from Mexico, the establishment of slavery for economic development in this continent, the internment camps for citizens of Japanese descent, the legal racial segregation after the abolition of slavery, and the manifest-destiny ideology motivating the expansion of the United States – all are intrinsically related to the introduction (as Catholicism) and re-introduction (as Protestantism) of Christianity in the Americas. It is very difficult to forget these violent processes and practices that established and refined the colonial categorization of bodies in this continent, and particularly constituted acts of “nation-building” for the United States. Such processes marked bodies for marginalization, making it impossible to separate the subjugated bodies of the descendants of the colonized from institutionalized experiences of oppression and imposed interpretations of the gospel. 06:50     Remembering the racially based social system designed by the Spanish colonizers in Latin America and thinking of the history of peoples of color within the Protestant denominations in the United States, in light of the Black Lives Matter movement today, is more than a critique or a historical academic exercise. My body feels the limitations of the Christian faith and its interpretation of the gospel in light of historical practices by those that introduced Christianity to indigenous peoples in the Americas. Mayra Rivera notes some of these implications in relation to the interpretation of passages of incarnation of the word and the memory of the flesh. Her theological reflections about subordinated bodies of color interrogate the interpretation of the word that became flesh through the imperial constitution of subjugated bodies. Is the word in my flesh the word of empire? Can women of color find any other words in light of the systemic embedded “isms” of today? 08:03     Tuhiwai Smith invites us to consider that places of marginalization are also spaces of resistance. To acquiesce is to lose ourselves entirely and implicitly agree with all that has been said about us. To resist is to retrench in the margins, retrieve what we were and remake ourselves. The past, our stories local and global, the present, our communities, cultures, languages and social practices — all may be spaces of marginalization, but they have also become spaces of resistance and hope. 08:43     As a contextual theologian, I find myself retrieving insights about the relationship of body, oppression, and gospel from the theological concept of “dangerous memories” noted by Johann Baptist Metz. I do so in relation to the encounter of Jesus and the disciples with the women of Matthew 15, 21 through 28 and Mark 7, 24 through 30. Dangerous memories are memories of suffering that live on in the experiences of the survivors of those who died without justice. 09:21     Metz explains there are dangerous memories, memories that make demands on us. These are memories in which earlier experiences break through to the center of our lives and reveal new and dangerous insights for the present. They illuminate for a few moments, and with a harsh steady light, the questionable nature of things we have apparently come to terms with … They break through the canon of the prevailing structures of plausibility and have certain subversive features. Such memories are like dangerous and incalculable visitations from the past. 10:02     In their own time in history, the Canaanite and Syrophoenician women communicate the subversive essence of dangerous memories. In her suffering, the Canaanite woman breaks away from established social protocols and not only interrupts the walking of Jesus and his disciples but also questions and re-frames their mission and ministry. She is a foreigner with the ability to discern the power in Jesus and the amazing possibilities within the proclamation of a new human-God relationship. Courageously, stepping across all established social and religious boundaries, she asks for help in a public space, probably the market place. The response of Jesus is one of silence. However, upon the request of his disciples to “send her away” because she is probably embarrassing them in public, he articulates the limitations of his mission and with the statement, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” clearly communicates that she is excluded. 11:12     The Canaanite woman does not give up at the denial of her first request for help. She finds courage and interrupts, the walking away of Jesus and the disciples. The narrative tells us that, kneeling before Jesus, she asks again for help. The exclamation mark after her request in the English translations communicates that she is demanding — if not appropriating — her share of God’s power in Jesus. This action generates what can be interpreted as a racial and sexist response. 11:48     It is very difficult for me, as a woman or color, to get around the fact that Jesus calls her a dog and limits the access to new life for her and her daughter with, “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs” as a public statement. This answer on the part of Jesus demands ongoing consideration by women of color. What contextual social and religious formation produced such a statement? What survived, from the contextual power dynamics at the place and time of the narrative, into our own time? What continues to permeate gospel interpretations and religious practices today that obscure the violence against the Canaanite woman and erases all traces of what I consider to be her Spirit of Mujer as the “other” in the Jewish tradition? 12:44     I am amazed at the strength, power, and wisdom of our Canaanite sister. In spite of a second refusal and clear public humiliation, she does not give up! She stands her ground. Retrieving from her own experience of suffering and Spirit of Mujer, which is neither Jewish nor Christian, she confronts the limitations established by Jesus and claims the power of God! She appropriates God’s power for you and me today with the accretion: “Even the dogs eat from the master’s table.” 13:23     In conclusion, I must say we are experiencing very difficult times in our indigenous communities. Violence continues to increase, eroding the social advancements on the issues of race and gender that emerged from the work of the civil rights movements in the 1960s and the numerous social and academic contributions by the first generations of scholars of color in the 1970s and the 1980s. The epistemological retrieval by activists, sociologists, and theologians supported identity formation processes for women and descendants of the colonized. The words that articulated the possible spaces for bodies of color today seem to be lost in theory. We find ourselves at complex intersections, and challenges face our social and religious institutions. 14:19     I have come to understand that the words of imperialism that constituted me as a subjugated body can define me only as a projection of the colonizer’s image and word. The Spanish translation of John 1:14 uses an action word, the verb instead of the noun form of “Word.” This invites me to consider that this verb that became flesh is the Spirit of Mujer that remembers and demands justice in order to facilitate my being. What are the limitations of my being as a reflection of imperial processes and gospel interpretation through Western philosophical categories and a Christian religion complicit with colonizing processes? Hope resides in the fact that I survive in “the memory of the flesh” as “dangerous memory” through the struggle for life and the intentional retrieval of indigenous epistemologies. 15:26     Thank you for listening to the WellSprings Journal podcast. Be sure to visit WellSpringsJournal.org to find more resources for the journey.

The Rev. Dorothy Macaulay, of the Liberia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, tells how God protected her family during the Liberian Civil War and then inspired her to overcome illness and adversity to become a leader in the Methodist Church in Africa. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT When women come together there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings Journal Podcast, where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives to speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit await. Listen now. 00:36     Dorothy Shares Her Story, by the Reverend Dorothy Macaulay of the Liberia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. 00:44     Prior to the 1990 Civil War in Liberia, I was a member of the Georgia Pattern United Methodist Church, where my mother served as a lay speaker. I usually followed her on first Sunday, where lot of activities occurred, and we shared fun with other young adults. When the war intensified in 1990, I was a newlywed with nowhere to go in the township of the New Georgia Community. I said to myself, “I will remain here. If I die, let me die.” There was no food, even if there was money you couldn’t find food to purchase. God being God provided in the midst of the shortage, and one of the soldiers give us a few bags of rice. We started to barter—fish in exchange for rice—which enabled us to have soup of a kind. During that time, I had a nervous breakdown; I couldn’t walk, I was dehydrated, and I lost my sight. The West Africa troops appeared, and I was escorted—in a wheelbarrow—along with my family, to a place called West Point. There we sought refuge in the home of my mother, who had a prayer room. 02:12     Family members and some spiritual children were caring for me. During this decision-making time, I engaged God and made a vow: “Lord, if you heal me I will serve you all the days of my life.” I committed myself to these words, and it seemed like a testing time, with interference from in-laws and lack of finances, but I stood strong through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. I resigned my job as a senior secretary of the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation to go into ministry and attend seminary. Fortunately, the bishop of the Liberia Annual Conference sent an elder, the Rev. Dr. Anthony Dioh, and an evangelist, Sister Theodosia Wah, to open a Preaching Point in the community. I got totally involved with the work of the church. The Church Council recommended me to the Charge Conference to be the first lay speaker, Church School Superintendent, Worship Chairperson, and later, Women President. Those were not easy times because preparation goes before performance. I joined the Evangelism Department in 1995 under the leadership of the Rev. Reginald Goodridge, director of Evangelism and Missions. Upon the completions of one hundred eight credit hours, I requested ordination. This was a difficult decision. I had a family and children to care for, but it is God that equips and make provisions (see Matthew 6:33). 04:04     Before the opening of Annual Conference in 1998, the Evangelism team led a crusade and a call to baptism. The Spirit of the Lord moved in the Sinoe District, and many with life-threatening diseases were healed, while some converted. I was called upon to give the invocation at the closing worship, and the Spirit moved, and I was given divine knowledge during the prayer. The words said were unknown to me. Then the administrative assistant asked me to give the opening invocation at Annual Conference. A similar thing occurred, and the bishop asked, “Who is that lady?” The delegates responded, “She is Sister Macaulay.” He said, “Let her go to the seminary.” And the response was, “She is in the seminary.” 05:02     On Sunday, at the climax of the Conference, I was appointed as Associate Pastor to the A.P. Camphor Church in Clara town Monrovia, Liberia. In February 2002, I was ordained an elder in full connection and appointed District Superintendent to the Tappita District, under the leadership of the Rev. Dr. John G. Innis, Resident Bishop. This was a challenge, a cross-cultural environment where I had to adjust, walking twelve hours, along with my team, to host charge conferences; but God always goes ahead of us to prepare the difficult path, and I made it through. I recruited about fifty-three pastors, constructed churches, and arranged for a rubber farm to sustain the church because there was no income for pastors, which broke my heart. Our farsighted bishop engaged with partners in the Michigan Annual Conference under the episcopal leadership of Bishop Linda Lee. My district partner was the Detroit West District. I was asked to tour the district in 2003, and tell our story; through that we began to receive salary support. When my tenure as district superintendent ended in February 2008, I was appointed coordinator for the Liberia United Methodist Empowered Foundation (LUMEF) where I still serve. The Board of Directors has embarked on an investment plan for the self-sustainability of the church. 06:54     Thank you for listening to the WellSprings Journal podcast. Be sure to visit WellSpringsJournal.org to find more resources for the journey.

Amy Kardash, President of the In Trust Center for Theological Schools, explains how the center’s objective is to strengthen theological schools by connecting their leaders to essential resources for mission vitality. She introduces us to the organization’s many offerings, including Trust Magazine, a quarterly periodical for board members, administrators, faculty, and other stakeholders who care about theological education. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT 00:02     When women come together there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings Journal podcast where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives to speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit await. Listen now. 00:35     In Trust Center for Theological Schools by Amy Kardash, President. Our mission is to strengthen theological schools by connecting their leaders to essential resources for mission vitality. Our institutional values are excellence, service, and trust. The In Trust Center for Theological Schools is a membership organization for seminaries and other institutions of higher education that prepare students for Christian ministry, service, and scholarship. Founded in 1988 and incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 1995, the In Trust Center connects leaders to resources through our resource consulting program, through various educational initiatives, and through both online and print publications. 01:20     The In Trust Center is committed to the ongoing renewal of theological schools in the United States and Canada by helping institutional leaders focus on their school's opportunities and challenges. The center is best known for In Trust Magazine, a quarterly periodical for board members, administrators, faculty, and other stakeholders who care about theological education, which offers broad insights into the landscape of theological education and the field's most pressing current issues. The In Trust Center's resource consulting services connect members to external resources that can best serve their unique needs. Resources, which can originate either within or outside the field of theological education, include expert consultants in organizations, peer institutions and leaders, financial help, online materials, books, and periodicals including In Trust Magazine. 02:12     The In Trust Center also offers webinars that provide opportunities for leaders to hear from and connect with experts on strategic topics including fund raising, presidential evaluation, partnerships, strategic planning, institutional conflict, and others. In addition to the quarterly In Trust Magazine, the center publishes a monthly e-newsletter and regular blog posts. The website at www.intrust.org offers online resources and the full text archive of the magazine. Interested in learning more about the work of the In Trust Center for Theological Schools? Contact us at www.intrust.org or resources@intrust.org. 02:55     Thank you for listening to the WellSprings Journal Podcast. Be sure to visit wellspringsjournal.org to find more resources for the journey.

The Rev. Breanna Illéné, of the Wisconsin area of the United Methodist Church, is one of the bright young clergywomen who is shaping the Church of the future...and the present. She explains how instead of harkening back to the Church's "former glory," we need to rebuild God’s house in a way that responds to the current realities within our communities. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT When women come together there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings Journal podcast where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives to speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit await. Listen now. 00:40     Rebuilding God's temple in a changing world by the Reverend Brianna Eileen, a member of the Wisconsin area of the United Methodist Church. 00:49     The church is dying. Young people are spiritual but not religious. We don't have money for that. These are the phrases that sprinkle my life as a young pastor in the United Methodist Church. Ever since I have been leading in the church, I have heard about how it's changing and not for the better. I hear stories of the glory days and longing to just return to them. I grew up in a healthy church that had a large Sunday school and youth group. Though many of my classmates joined the ranks of spiritual but not religious after confirmation day, I stuck around teaching Sunday school, working at a Bible camp and sitting on various committees. I even contemplated seminary and full-time ministry. I eventually decided that I didn't want to be a pastor because I thought it was a job that involved sitting in an office all day and I wanted to be out helping people. 01:38     As I entered college, I began to feel a disconnect. I understood the church as a powerful force in our communities and faith as something that should affect daily life, yet I didn't see much happening among me and my fellow Christians beyond showing up on Sunday, reading our bibles, and trying to be a good person. I began to grow disenchanted with the church as I realized that the faith I heard most often preached, both from the pulpit and the Christians near me, didn't actually seem to call me to anything beyond being a good consumer of American culture. Thankfully, after graduating college and moving to Chicago I wandered into a neighborhood church that saw action and social justice as integral components of robust faith life. Soon I was working in the church soup kitchen, leading youth groups and mission trips to the city, and helping to run an after-school program that the church hosted for neighborhood children. 02:33     We prayed in the streets and with our neighbors. We worshiped and we worked. I finally saw a connection between the radical Jesus I read about in the Bible and my everyday faith. This church had once boasted 1,000 members and now had around 70. One might say it was a dying church. Though it struggled financially, the people who remained were faithful and sometimes did the work of what still seemed like 1,000 people. Church wasn't only what happened on Sunday morning, but what happened throughout the week as the building was used for mission and ministry. That little church taught me about being a disciple. It was where I once again fell in love with Jesus. It was where I struggled with questions and met people who challenged me to put my faith into action. Fast forward over 10 years and I am now a pastor who is still asking questions. 03:26     Though I work for a church, I often spend time meeting with people who are doing ministry on the margins, and many people who don't go to church at all. One of the things I have discovered from my experience in Chicago until now is that the church isn't dying, it is changing. For many years church is what you did on Sunday and maybe Wednesday if you were really dedicated. Most activities took place within a specialized building except for an occasional mission project that served the community. I am learning that church happens many different ways. Church might happen over beers with young adults as we struggle with questions of racism or faith in our lives. Church happens as the building becomes a bustling food pantry, a place for hungry people to receive a warm meal, or for backpacks of food to be packed to feed school kids over the weekend. 04:17     Church happens with prayer and caring conversation at the local coffee shop. Church happens with spoken word, guitar music, and paintings that glorify God. Church sometimes happens through Facebook conversations about God moving in our lives. I feel a bit like Haggai speaking to his community. As he calls people to rebuild the temple, he listens to people harken back to the temple in its former glory. This is a common refrain I hear today in the church. Our response to these memories of former glory is to try to rebuild our churches exactly as they were years ago. We want to do youth group the way we experienced it as kids. We need to host our 47th annual spring dinner and we wish worship services looked and sounded the way they used to look and sound. Then we are disappointed when our attempts are unsuccessful. We forget that what helped our churches be thriving, vibrant spaces was that they responded to the needs of their community at a certain time in a certain place. 05:19     Culture has shifted. The way people experience the world has shifted. People's needs have shifted. Doing things the way we've always done them no longer works. When we look at the words of Haggai we realize that he was calling the people to rebuild the Lord's house. They were in the process of rebuilding the entire community and they focused first on their own paneled houses while God's house lay in ruins. Haggai calls them to focus, not on their individual homes and businesses, but instead on God's house. Haggai's purpose in calling the people together wasn't so much that God needed a place to live, but that the people needed to remember what was important and should be at the center of their lives. He was reminding them that coming together as a community to worship and serve God should be at the center of everything they did. 06:10     He called them out of focusing on their individual needs to focus instead on the work they were called to do together. I think that in today's church we are like the people Haggai was speaking to. We have forgotten to keep God at the center of our lives. We've become so discouraged in a mindset of scarcity there never seems to be enough, and so mired in trying to rebuild our individual churches to their former glory that we've forgotten the purpose of these spaces. We have focused on trying to rebuild buildings and programs rather than trying to build spaces to worship and serve God. Instead of focusing on the past or even the present Haggai calls the people to a future vision where the latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former. We need to refocus our attention on listening to the needs of our communities and building space for God to move within them. 07:05     Stepping into change is scary. We are comfortable with the way things have been done in the past. We know what to do, how things will unfold, and we know what the end result should look like. It is comfortable to remain where we are now, yet when we remain stagnant and seek to maintain control, we are not acting on faith. Haggai tells God's people to take courage. We must be courageous and step out in faith, trusting that even though the future is unknown, God's spirit abides among us. God's spirit will guide us in the way to rebuild God's temple. We are invited to look around our communities and see where God's spirit is already moving. I think of a time I sat in a room with several hundred young adult entrepreneurs in my community who are part of a local co-working space. We took a moment for mindfulness where we were all invited to take a moment to think of something we were grateful for. 08:01     After several minutes of silence we were invited to offer that up silently. As I walked away from that space I realized that I had just prayed with all of these people. I begin to ask what does it look like for the church to begin cultivating these spaces of mindfulness within our communities? What does it look like for the church to open its doors and create spaces for people to gather, to share the rich Christian traditions of contemplate of prayer and gratitude with a community that is seeking silence and depth in a frenzied noisy world? Is that not helping to build the temple of God? I think of the times our church opens its doors to a local LGBTQ youth theater group. Though they aren't your typical high school youth group, these youth gather each week to share their stories and write theater pieces that are performed for the community each spring. 08:52     Church members show up with snacks and open the building with acts of hospitality. As they practice under the stained glass window of Jesus in the sanctuary or we sit around beforehand, eating snacks, conversations emerge. Who is that guy in the window? What is the meaning of life? We wrestle with deep questions of identity each week in the church basement. Is that not helping to build the temple of God? I think of the hours I spend texting on my phone or in front of my computer. Having conversations with church members, people in the community, and friends of friends. My millennial habits of being constantly connected invite people into conversation in new ways. An afternoon in my office consists of theological conversations with a leader via text, the sharing of a news story about faith and current issues that causes an unchurched contact to ask about visiting my congregation, and sharing a funny story about Bibles on my Facebook page that leads to a church member asking about which translation of the Bible to use. Is this not helping to build the temple of God? 09:56     God's spirit is already moving among us. As God's people we are invited to step out in faith and join into this space. When I think of Haggai and the community he spoke to, I wonder if they avoided rebuilding the temple because they were scared. They knew that the new temple they built might not be as beautiful as the last one. It might not meet their expectations. It might not look how they planned. I wonder if perhaps they spent hours planning and meeting, talking about what could be, but never actually doing the work to build the temple. We do this today. We sit around in meetings wondering what do young adults want from the church? We do studies in our communities. We have meeting after meeting. Our fear holds us back and so we continue to study, plan, and meet rather than take a step forward and begin to build. We need to be courageous and have faith that God is with us. 10:55     We may not know what the church will look like in 10, or 20, or 50 years, but we need to trust that God's spirit moves among us and will guide us. We need to build to rebuild. When we hear a need, we need to figure out how we can reach it. We need to listen to those in our neighborhoods and ask what skills and assets they have that they can put to use in this building project. And we are going to mess up. We might not get things right the first time, but we also follow a God of grace and forgiveness who offers us a chance to try again. And so we step forth in faith asking, “Where is God calling me to build?” “Who was like the Prophet Haggai pointing out the need within my community?” Do not be afraid. Know that God is with you and the future will be even better than we can imagine. 11:43     Thank you for listening to the WellSprings Journal podcast. Be sure to visit WellSpringsJournal.org to find more resources for the journey.

The Rev. Dr. Patience Kisakye, from Uganda, serving in the Upper New York area of the United Methodist Church, and the Rev. Dr. J. Kabamba Kiboko, President of the African Clergywomen Association (from CongoDR serving in the West Ohio Conference), explain the purpose of the African United Methodist Clergywomen Association, and how it is helping build and shape African congregations and the communities while enhancing the participation of women, children, and youth who make up the majority of the population on the continent and across the church. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT When women come together there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings Journal podcast where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives. They speak grace and compassion. They share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit await. Listen now. 00:35     Claim who we are in Christ, by the Reverend Patience Kisakye, who is a member of the Upper New York area of the United Methodist Church. And the Reverend J. Kabamba Kiboko, of the West Ohio area of the United Methodist Church. 00:53     First of all, we want to “Asante Sana” to the general Board of high Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church, for inviting a diverse group of women, including Kabamba and myself to participate in the 2018 edition of the wellSprings Journal. 01:15     'Asante sana' is an expression in the Swahili language, which means 'Thank you very much.' So, again, asante sana for making room for the participation of African clergy women. The Rev. Kabamba Kiboko, PhD and I, are privileged to join a multitude of distinguished voices that have and continue to encounter the divine word of god. 01:42     We make our way into the 2018 WellSprings Journal at a time when the rationale for the African clergy women's theological discourse is rooted in a plethora of theological exercises that seek to; one, build and shape African congregations and the communities within which they are located. Two, enhance the participation of women, children and youth who make the majority of the population on the continent of Africa and across the church. 02:17     Three, celebrate cultural diversity and build bridges across cultures in theological understandings. Four, promote freedom and demand transparency and accountability as well as disclosure balanced with support. And five, challenge injustice and encouraged justice. 02:42     It is therefore imperative to point out right from the onset that the African United Methodist Clergy women association which we represent, is an association whose aim is to promote theological discourse rooted in the word that became flesh and now dwells among us, embedded in Wesleyan Theology through African peoples' lenses. This Mother Africa Clergy Women's organization, ministers with women on the continent and in the diaspora. Engage in theological education as well as gender and identity issues affecting the body of Christ on the continent and beyond. 03:28     It promotes theological discourse, clergy growth and development. And encourages and strengthens the church on the continent at a time when the stakes for humanity are high, among others, because the skills to amass wealth and profits are prioritized over and against the essential values of practicing responsible neighborliness. We therefore want this multifaceted temple, this world, to be filled with infinite opportunities. We want the human spirit that is housed in the temple to be envelope in creative potential, and also to be designated as a house of prayer and offer place to begin life a new, and to celebrate it. 04:16     In reflecting upon the temple we should think of Israel's history, where we are reminded of the first chapter of Haggai. The people returned to Jerusalem with spirituality in the forefront of their minds, but with time, they forecast less on God and more on themselves. The problem here is that the people neglected God's house. They left it in ruins while they built their own homes, their own fields, and lived comfortably in a drug culture. 04:52     Like the Israelites, God's house today is virtually ignored, if not a pit stop, while a few show up once in a while to pray, the majority continue to live in the bondage of sin. The Israelites rejoiced that the Lord had set them free from the bondage of the Egyptians, and enabled them to return to Jerusalem. 05:17     God is still setting the hostages free, restoring the sick to health, opening blind eyes, and announcing good news to the poor. Regrettably, in the midst of all this, the world continues to cast the blind eye and a deaf ear to the Lord's house. After all, the temple is located in an increasingly consumeristic and individualistic society. More often than not, people housed in the temple get discouraged from the ministry of building. There are forces and principalities that get in the way of building the temple. Some get discouraged because they want what they want when they want it, in a microwave culture. And when that doesn't happen they walk away. 06:09     The ancient words of Haggai written during the sixth century BC, continue to speak to the African clergy women in the 21st century. They have the power to transport us to the place where we claim who we are in Christ. Thus, we view this writing moment as a safari, which is the Swahili word for journey. Into the story of our own calling in light of these ancient words found in Haggai. So, welcome. 06:42     As we enter the Hebrew text of Haggai in both chapters one and two, we see one sign that reads “hayah dvar adonia byad haggai” in Hebrew, 'And the word of the Lord was in the hand of Haggai,' in English. The Book of Haggai highlights the significance of the presence of the word by placing it at the entrance. The beginning of chapter's one and two. The first chapter begins with, "In the second year of the king Darius, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord was higher by the prophet Haggai. 07:24     The second chapter opens with, "In the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, the word of the Lord was higher by the prophet Haggai. The verb 'higher' used in association with the word of the Lord occurs at least 27 times, throughout the Hebrew Bible, in addition to the uses cited above. 07:49     Throughout our safari the signs show that the word of the Lord or the Word of God is present. In light of this, we will describe the global village in which we live and then identify the evils as we see, hear, feel and understand them, and name how many continue to embrace the future in relationship to the past. 08:15     The question from our theme: ho is left among you that saw this house in its former glory will be discussed in relationship to the spirit of Sankofa. Sankofa is an Akan word that calls us to go back and reclaim our past, so that we can then move forward. It is an invitation to understand why and how we came to be who we are today. 08:42     The spirit of Sankofa is symbolized in an image of a bird whose head is faced in the opposite direction of its body. This is to call attention to the fact that even as the bird is moving forward, it has a responsibility to pause and reflect from where it has been to ensure a better future. Therefore, the house's former glory and the remnants, the faithful few who returned that may have bore witness to the past, unnecessary aspects of the house's future. 09:18     To this end, Native American Indians might say, "A people without history is like the wind on the buffalo crass." And because the people of Israel have a history lived in the Exodus, the timeline in the text leads to the next question. How does it look to you now? The remnants observations of the former house in the story must be told, had and compare to the observations of the current house. 09:49     Here is why Sankofa's indispensable lessons rest in the knowledge and understanding that one's past is an important aspect of one's future. Therefore, in response to the question, is it not in your sight as nothing? Must come the answer, absolutely not. Here is why, there's yet hope, because through the lens of the spirit of Sankofa, one must visit one's past from time to time, in order to make the best of one's future. 10:24     Additionally, and for our purposes, the house is defined within the Bantu speaking people's frame of reference. Meaning, it is rooted in the spirit of Ubuntu. In other words, I am because we are, and we are, therefore I am. Though the house has sense of self, that self has history, a present, and a future, all of which are always experienced in the community with others. 10:56     It's a house whose freedom is not without its limitations. It's a house that is not static but always in the process of being and becoming. It's transitory in its life, struggle, death, and resurrection. It's a house with a responsibility toward self and others. The house is material in that its physical existence is part of the natural world; however, the house is gifted with the capacity in its spirit to be self-conscious. To remember the past plan for the future. Make deliberate decisions, consider consequences, and the house's actions, and to some extent be self-determining. 11:45     It's problematic that the writer fails to integrate the house's historical unity, but not properly acknowledging the present house's relationship to its past history. Herein, lays dichotomy that begs reconciliation. The house leaves in the midst of tensions that lead it to distort it's sense of holistic self by attending to some aspects of its life, while excluding and isolating others. 12:14     This fragmented view is problematic. I am because we are, implies that the house lives in community with others. In other words, the house's identity is made real in community with other historic, current, and future houses that may be different. 12:35     The problem is that the writer is yet to celebrate the beauty that exists in the difference. The beauty in the text resides in the call for the past and current houses to engage in respectable discourse, to remove beyond contradictions. Both the old house and the new house have their own expressions of freedom as well as limitations. But truth be told, what each house could do was, and is limited by all kinds of circumstances; environmental, economic, political, cultural and historical. 13:14     We cannot help but experience tension as we wonder if the remnants view of the house might be an overestimation of freedoms, as well as an under estimation of limitations experienced in the previous generational house. Could it be that the remnants might bring to bear on the new house unrealistic expectations about the extent to which change might be possible? Or, despair a resignation that change may not be possible? False confidence and compulsive activity may emerge to bring about changes in the modern house, including the deceptive pessimism involved in passive acceptance of the way things exist in the world today. Every authentic house bears witness to both continuity and change. In both individual and integration of dimensions, buildings call for preservation of self identity as well as growth towards more mature representation. In their social dimension, they invite respect for tradition that preserves unchanging truth and reality while also exhibiting readiness for restoration that brings new truth and reality. 14:35     The inherent struggle is the spirit to resist both change and continuity in the house and in the environment within which the house is planted. This spirit breeds fear. The house becomes defensive end resists anything new mistaking rigidity for order. 14:55     The spirit of such a house is stifled rather than trial. It requires to the status quo of commitment to known reality and truth. If nothing is done, it becomes chaotic and irresponsibly resists all change while mistaking lack of discipline for freedom, novelty for creativity, and arbitrary rebellion for progress. 15:20     All of life is lived in the midst of death. No house is permanent. In other words, houses like our mortal bodies are born, live within limits and eventually die. No house can succeed in contradicting its own existence by under or over estimating the importance of its own life and the reality of death. Denying or repressing the reality of death, one may desperately fight for preservation, because of this is a life compromised or sacrifice for the sake of maintaining a life without value. 16:02     If a house does not claim value, it may be in danger of the death. Herein, is the parable of the laborers, yet we are housed in mortal booties, while the idea of speaking to our neighbors about Christ makes us nervous. The spirit of Ubuntu affirms life in the midst of its polarities, limitations, and possibilities as the good. But as Jesus put it, " No one is good, only God." Without the Spirit of God, no single house is willing and able to accept and realize the integration of the polarities, limitations, and possibilities of authentic human existence. 16:48     No house can be fruitful without the Spirit of God in each. How can the remnants see the house becoming the authentic temple built for a people's with the Spirit of God enabling it to be and become what it was destined to become. 17:07     The answer becomes in this Haggai chapter two verse five (b). My Spirit abides among you, do not fear. The house is not without identity, character, or purpose." This house according to Jesus is a house of prayer for all nations. It is rooted in the kingdom of God as exemplified in both the Old and New Testament. 17:36     In the book of Genesis for example, this house is a spirit housed in a body. The ruach of God. And according to St. Paul, we have this treasure inclined as, so that it may be made clear that this extra ordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. 17:58     And in the world often attributed to John Wesley, "Without God humanity cannot, and without humanity, God will not. In other words, a partnership is necessary to see the glory of the house. There is both continuity and change which leads St. Paul to speak into young Timothy's life reminding him of his heritage, potential, purpose, identity, and destiny. His faith had been nurtured within three generations of family including two women, Loice and Eunice. 18:40     Like Timothy, our faith has been nurtured by grandparents, parents, neighbors, and strangers alike. In Timothy's vain, not everyone may appreciate us, not everyone may welcome us; however, we have a gospel and denominational mandate to make disciplines of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. 19:06     We live in a global village under which science has borne witness that we are one as human beings. However, we continue cast the blind eye and deaf ear to this truth because we prefer to label others, while confining ourselves to familiar racial, national, religious, and other groups. Our global village has immense opportunities and grand potential. We are capable of generating food, housing, infrastructure, armaments, and other goods that could transform Global Village responsibly or irresponsibly. In our global village, anyone in urban America can eat any cuisine from any country in the world, yet our actions contradict our shared humanity. 20:03     Regrettably, 10% of the population devours more than 25% of the Global Village's energy. In our global village, death dealing conditions like poverty, are increasing at a fast rate. In our global village, the continent of Africa, which is the richest continent in many ways, is not only perceived as, but labeled as the poorest. 20:32     Prophet Haggai opens the world to both negative and positive realities of life. He calls the global village to seek God above everything else and to make God a priority, so that the world can apply lives of discipline. At the same time, American citizens living in the United States are spotted throughout urban society, dressed in all kinds of African garments. 20:59     The East Africa annual conference is now planting a new faith communities of Chinese speaking brothers and sisters, leaving on the shores of mother Africa. In our global village, it is no longer true that the actions of Western society impact the rest of the world. What happens in Asia or South America now affects Western society. For example, a reduction in H1B US visas, especially from India, will adversely impact the technology industry in America, not to mention the wide eyed girl or boy in Africa. 21:42     And so the Prophet encourages brothers and sisters living on the margins of society not to despair because while God doesn't remove human problems, the Holy Spirit broods over God's people and remains faithfully present with and among them. 22:02     In light of the above, why can't we behave toward one another as fellow human beings? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? If truth be told, the setback experience by humanity is rooted in the violation of cardinal principles and methods. What ethics will inform human actions? What methods will humanity utilize to transform the conditions under which the poorest of the poor live, there by bringing about the transformation of the world? 22:40     If the question is modes of operation and principles, then all institutional systems including the church, governments, banking, insurance, law enforcement and education, have a responsibility to transform themselves from within. While science and technology have established for humanity enormous possibility and potential, institutional systems and organization especially on the continent of Africa, continue to teach the majority of the population, that is, youth under 25 years of age, to live in yesterday's world that is transitory. 23:21     Herein lays the challenge, to train children, youth and young adults in the context of today's independent world, which is being born in which they are going to live. Whereas humanity has globalized commerce, we continue to fail to globalize ethical, cardinal principles, and values. If community were to espouse such principles as values across our global village, science and technology would help to transform the world 23:55     We are called to train children, teens, youth and young adults to learn to place themselves in someone else's shoes. Only then will they learn that they are embodied spirits with a responsibility to not only see that they are the interest, and the interest of their neighbors converge in more ways than they divulge. 24:19     If we don't do this, our house, our global village, our community will continue to expand the scope of production without addressing societal problems. We must learn from the example of young Timothy's grandmother, Lois, and his grandmother Eunice, and build capacity for integration leadership. 24:43     And as God assures us through Haggai, "My Spirit abides among you. Do not fear." In God's dictionary, the word impossible does not exist. Therefore, the prophet challenges us to claim ownership, responsibility, and accountability as we undertake the challenge to rebuild the Lord's house. 25:07     We asked our colleague and sister in Christ, Dorothy McCauley to offer some perspective from the African continent. We are grateful for her contribution. Please listen to the next part of this podcast. 25:24     Thank you for listening to the wellSpring Journal podcast. Be sure to visit wellspringsjournal.org to find more resources for the journey.

At a time when anti-immigrant stories are dominating the news, Rev. Dr. Youngsook Charlene Kang, of the Rocky Mountain area of the United Methodist Church, shares how the interfaith community is bringing comfort and hope to the marginalized. She expresses hope for good pathways for undocumented migrants, because “God is a God of hope and God's mandate for humanity is to live in peace and hope.” (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT 00:02     When women come together, there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings Journal Podcast, where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives that speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit awaits. Listen now. 00:34     Interfaith Spirit of Justice by Reverend Dr. Youngsook Charlene Kang. She's a clergy member of the Rocky Mountain area of the United Methodist Church, Rocky Mountain Conference. 00:47     Is it not in your sight as nothing? We see too much ... sickness, suffering, death. We hear too much ... gunfire, crying, moans. We feel too much ... anguish, anxiety, fatigue. We know too much ... sorrow, loneliness, uncertainty. In a world that turns with troubles upon troubles, Speak now, O God. In a world that hungers and thirsts for righteous indignation and courageous action, Speak now, O God. This poem, written by the Reverend Barbara J. Essex, sounds as if prophet Haggai laments, "Is it not in your sight as nothing?" 01:33     Anti-immigration stories are rampant in the news today. People among us are crying due to the uncertainty in their lives. People among us are moaning because they are forced to be separated from their children. Araceli Velasquez is one of these people. Araceli said to me, "I will be killed if I go back to El Salvador. I know it for sure." Both of us had tears in our eyes as we felt her pain. My former husband, who was abusive, told me clearly that he will kill me when I go back. She went on to say, "My family is here, my husband and three children." Araceli fled El Salvador in fear for her life and sought asylum in the United States but was denied. She is now facing deportation. Araceli declared sanctuary the day before she was supposed to check in with immigration officers in August. The Denver Post reported, "Immigration authorities told her that her stay would not be renewed." Velasquez and her family sought refuge inside Park Hill United Methodist Church and Temple Micah Synagogue on August 8th. She plans to stay there indefinitely to avoid being separated from her husband and her three young children. Araceli is grateful that she was given sanctuary. But at the same time, "It is hard to be in sanctuary," she says. "I feel like I am in jail. I can't go anywhere." Her three children are citizens. Her husband has a temporary work permit. Her oldest son asks her, "Mom, let's go together to see Dad." "It is hard to explain why I can't go with him." It is hard because she really cannot explain why. It is hard because she cannot share her children's lives as a mother as they grow up. What is she seeking? She is seeking the United States government to stop her deportation and review her case again so that she can stay with her husband and children. 03:23     In the midst of her despair she wants to remain hopeful. "My hope comes from the community support," Araceli says. What keeps her alive is her faith. She is a Roman Catholic. While she is in sanctuary at Park Hill United Methodist Church she attends worship at Park Hill on Sundays and she feels strengthened in her faith. "The community is my hope." She is deeply grateful for the support from the community. Araceli is one of the many immigrants who is suffering from living life on the margin. Many immigrants living in the United States today are the least, the last, and the lost. They feel that they live on the border of society. They find themselves living on the margins, belonging nowhere, often with their livelihood threatened. 04:12     While not suffering from the threat of deportation, I walk in the wilderness together with people like Araceli Velasquez. I was called out of my homeland to come to this country as a pilgrim and have lived in the United States for more than 30 years. However, I still feel that I am a stranger in a strange land. I define myself as a person living on the margin. The experience of marginality is something common to ethnic minorities in this country, including Asian Americans, who live between two cultures. Asian Americans are often considered foreigners even though they were born and raised in the United States. Here's the story of my daughter, who came to the United States when she was one year old. When she was a junior in high school, she wrote an essay about her identity for a school assignment. Her essay starts as follows. 05:05     As I was walking home deeply concentrating in my thoughts the words, "Where are you from?" quickly brought me back to reality. It was an autistic boy, my neighbor. I smiled and replied, "From Colorado." But evidently not satisfied with this answer, he again asked me where I was from. This time, knowing what he wanted to hear I answered, "Korea." It startled me that even a little boy noticed that I was different from everyone else. I realized at that moment that it would be a question I would be dealing and struggling with for the rest of my life. 05:39     The reality with which Asian Americans struggle for the rest of our lives points to our attitude towards strangers. When you are considered a stranger, you are pushed from the center to the margin. So marginality is inherent in being a stranger. Using the term of Jung Young Lee, "I, as an ethnic minority woman, live in between. I am a stranger living in two worlds. Although I am a citizen I am often seen as a foreigner or alien." This in between marginal experience is shared among many ethnic minority groups. Ada María Isasi-Díaz, a Hispanic American, feminist theologian, has written, "I am caught between two worlds, neither of which is fully mine, both of which are partially mine. I do not belong in the Cuba of today. I do not belong in the States." Isasi-Díaz moans that she will always remain a marginalized stranger even when she returns to the city of her birth. "The marginality is within," she says. 06:44     Living in between two worlds and two cultures, I often feel I belong in neither. When I visit South Korea, where I was born and grew up, I see people noticing I am different. I internalize marginality as if I were born with it. For undocumented immigrants this internalization takes a painful form as they face their uncertain future. My heart pains at the reality. I have tears in my heart when I see lives lost, dreams shattered, and acts against them far from God's grace. Young people cross borders under the night sky fleeing gangs and violence. Children of El Salvador, children of Guatemala, and children of Honduras grow up never knowing peace. Mothers weep for their lost children. Seeing this painful reality, the ecumenical and inter religious communities, locally and globally come together to voice concerns and take actions. 07:46     I have always felt akin to interfaith work in general and on immigration, in particular. I believe it has to do with my upbringing and identity here in the United States. South Korea, where I was born and raised, was inherently a multi-faith world. In Korea, back then, Christianity was essentially a novelty. An eyewitness Buddhist and Christians living as next door neighbors, Buddhism and Confucianism were deeply embedded in the Korean culture. However, people of all religions live together in harmony. I learned the love of God and love of neighbors from Christianity. I learned to respect others from Confucianism, which was embedded in the Korean culture. I learned the vastness of life from Buddhism. 08:32     My first knowledge of our Christian God was through my mom, who never refused to give a bowl of rice to the street people who knocked on our door. Through her simple acts of kindness I grew up learning to share the love of Jesus Christ. My first image of Christ was that of a middle aged Korean woman. Still holding my mom's Bible in my hands, I share my faith in God's transforming power for all God's creation and my dream and vision for a just world. My first deep relationship with non Christians was with my neighbor, Grandma Haeja. She was poor, disabled, and forgotten by many. I learned how to develop friendship and care for others through Grandma Haeja, who was a Buddhist. She loved me dearly and taught me to care for my neighbors. She came to my house almost daily. Her daughter, who was also disabled, became a close friend of mine. This relationship instilled in me a vision for women in ministry, friendship or relationship, and solidarity. These have been helpful in fulfilling my call to be a clergywoman in the ecumenical and interfaith context. 09:37     This vision of friendship and solidarity was articulated by Lynn N. Rhodes. Friendship means the mutuality, nurture, trust, and accountability that we value. In friendship we find comfort and sustenance in times of pain and sorrow. Solidarity means being with those who are oppressed and with the disadvantaged. Solidarity is accompaniment. Rhodes says, "Solidarity comes out of our common experience of pain, an unequal distribution of power." Solidarity leads us into concrete action. Relationship and solidarity are indeed the two values that the ecumenical and interfaith community upholds. It has been my experience that interfaith work always starts with relationships. 10:23     The vision of solidarity is undergirded by the notion that many faiths speak of the same human needs and hopes and that we are all equal in the hunger for justice and peace. These two values keep me involved in ecumenical and interfaith ministries. Ecumenical and interfaith work has helped me, not only develop the ability to evaluate the reality with critical eyes and think and to act to eliminate injustice, but also to cultivate relationships and solidarity to do justice work. 10:54     I have been part of an inter religious organization called Religions for Peace USA. For the last decade, as a representative of the United Methodist Church, RFP USA is a good example of an interfaith organization that voices shared concern and commitment through statements, peaceful marches, and advocacy work. In March 2017, it issued a statement out of many, one. It was a joint statement from US religious leaders and communities on immigration in the wake of the government's anti-immigration policies. This statement asks that safety be provided to all vulnerable and marginalized migrants. Indeed, meaningful interfaith dialogue and action on immigration should include inter religious solidarity against further marginalization of all migrants. It should also include solidarity toward advocacy, for the comprehensive reform of the US immigration system and for legislation that will uphold the civil and human rights of all migrants in the United States, and will provide an opportunity to retain legal status for all undocumented migrants currently in the United States as well as for those arriving in the future. 12:08     I end in hope. We may often feel like the prophets, who sounded the warning against the violence and injustice of their time. Indeed, the prophets sounded critique and judgment. However, as Jim Wallis observed, "The prophets began with critique and judgment. But they always end in hope." It is that hope grounded in faith that will lead to action for change and bring the things that make for peace. Hear prophet Haggai's voice of hope from Haggai, Chapter two, verse 5B ... Take courage, for I am with you. My spirit abides among you. Do not fear. 12:44     So even in the midst of the current immigration crisis I express hope for good pathways for undocumented migrants. For God is a God of hope and God's mandate for humanity is to live in peace and hope. I strive to continue being a midwife bringing hope into the world, where the marginalized feel no more pain. I dream for a world where Araceli lives with her family without fear of deportation. I envision a world where we love sojourners in the land as ourselves and treat them as the natives among us. 13:17     Thank you for listening to the WellSprings Journal Podcast. Be sure to visit WellSpringsJournal.org to find more resources for the journey.

Carol Lakota Eastin, of the Illinois Great Rivers Area of the United Methodist Church, shares memories of the 2016 Peg-Leg Flamingo youth pilgrimage to the Standing Rock Reservation, where these young Native American students joined protestors of the Dakota Access Pipeline and gained a greater understanding of their proud heritage. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT 00:04     When women come together, there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings Journal Podcast, where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives that speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit await. Listen now. 00:40     Journey to Standing Rock. Carol Lakota Eastin, Illinois Great Rivers Annual Conference. The following are reflections on the fall 2016 Peg Leg Flamingo Youth Trip to North Dakota, a program of the Native American International Caucus, Northeast region. The decision was made by the leaders to change one full day of our curriculum so the youth could experience the water protection site where thousands of native people of many nations were gathered to pray and protect the water threatened by the Dakota Access Pipeline. It was a three-hour ride from Spirit Lake Ministry Center to visit the water protectors camp at Standing Rock. 01:17     Our bus was filled with Native American youth and leaders who had gathered to make life better. This trip was a deviation from our original plan but seemed to have been pre-ordained. We passed through the police blockade, which tested our intentions and through the Indian Warrior blockade, which tested our spirit. The road led us to the crest of a hill where we saw the camp spread out before us. A sight that would remind us of the former glory of the Dakota people and reveal to us the present glory of all who had gathered to protect the water. Tipis were scattered between tents and campers. Cars in the parking lot were near horses in their corals. Rows of nearly 200 travel flags lined the pathway and the Missouri River running clean made this life possible. 02:03     “Mni Wiconi,” which means water is life, was the rallying cry written on t-shirts and banners. The excitement among us was palpable – eyes big, expectation written on young faces. The hours of preparing prayer tithes had readied us to see our people, but even more to see the Creator among the least of them. One young woman expressed her joy saying, "These are my people. I belong here." Defying old messages of "You are nobody," and "You are different." Two young men proudly held up their tribe’s flag and others prepared prayer cloths to tie to the fences already full from pilgrims who came to pray before us. The smell of sage smoke and the sound of the drum drew us to the center circle where we carried our gifts, the Oneida nation flag, a letter from the chief of the Nanticoke people, greetings from the United Methodist Church, bundles of tobacco and our prayers. 02:59     We were brought to the center of the circle and honored. The elders touching each one of us with a blessing. A grandmother whispered to me, "Welcome home, granddaughter." I was reminded of the unconditional welcome Christ offers us. Time evaporated and it was as if I was my great-grandmother. It was as if the city was transformed to a village. We remembered the former glory of the Great Plains Indians whose villages dabbled this country like spots on horses. We walked a trail to the water's edge and gathered to pray. We tied blue ribbons on each other's wrist, ribbons that marked our promise to protect the water wherever our people live. “Water is life,” we said, and we were joined by some of the people who had been camping here for months. One rode up to the shore in a rowboat and joined us. 03:48     For that time of worship together we were one family. “Mitakuye Oyasin,” the people say. We are all relatives. Its meaning echoed in our hearts. Jesus’ prayer resounded in my mind, “Lord, let them be One.” “Your water is my water,” we remembered. Whatever happens to the water in one place happens to the water in every place because all the water is connected. The water we drink is the same water that was made at the creation of the world. 04:19     Later, we sat in a circle by the fire at the youth lodge. We heard songs and stories from the young adults there while their infant children played at our feet. There songs became our songs and their stories became our stories. We were welcomed there like family. We left them gifts of prayers. I felt my life changing in that one day at Standing Rock. Remembering what the People can do when they pray together. I saw young people's lives being changed. We all left stronger than before, knowing more about who we are and whose we are. We would go back to our various communities and we would stand to protect the water there and we did. Some have stood with signs in Washington, D.C., and others have helped organize at water summit in Minnesota. After all, it's all the same water and the People, we are all one People, and Our God is the giver of the gift of life. 05:15     Post note: The Dakota Access Pipeline is in place. It's like a black snake under the river at Standing Rock. When will it strike? We will see. 05:26     Thank you for listening to the WellSprings Journal Podcast. Be sure to visit wellspringsjournal.org to find more resources for the journey.  

The Rev. Mary Council-Austin, of the Wisconsin area of the United Methodist Church, is a second-generation clergywoman. Her mother turned 90 and has been an ordained minister for more than 60 years. The Rev. Council-Austin recounts the journey of women in ministry – and the triumphs and challenges over the years – while offering encouragement that God stands ready to bless us. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT 00:02     When women come together, there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the WellSprings Journal podcast, where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives that speak grace and compassion. They share pain and anger, and life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit await. Listen now. 00:34     Still claiming our identity in Christ by the Reverend Mary Council-Austin, Wisconsin Area of the United Methodist Church. 00:43     In the Old Testament, the phrase tent of meeting principally referred to a place where God would meet with his people, Israel. It was also used as another name for the Tabernacle in Exodus. As Moses went into the tent of meeting, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance while the Lord spoke with Moses. 01:01     Growing up, my nine siblings and I were very familiar with the phrase tent of meeting. We learned about it in Sunday school, youth gatherings, and worship services. We also learned of it in a special room at home my father called our tent of meeting. This weekly tradition was passed on by my grandparents. It was an intentional gathering place in our home. In our tent of meeting, our family prayed, read Scripture, and worked on educational goals and life lessons of service to God. My father would admonish us by saying, "Galvanize your best hopes and dreams, and hold on no matter what you face." 01:36     Growing up, we faced some pretty extreme prejudice and harsh realities of life in our segregated community. I was raised in the AME Zion Church, and followed both parents into ordained ministry. As a child, pictures of African Methodists like Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Richard Allen adorned our walls. There were also pictures of John Wesley, his mother Susanna, and Francis Asbury. 02:02     In the fall of 2017, we celebrated my mother's 90th birthday, marking Reverend Martha's journey of more than 60 years in ordained ministry. The beginning of her ministry was not easy. As a young girl attending church meetings, I witnessed the rejection of my mother's ministry and heard her call belittled. Her testimony was referred to as a vapor that would soon dissipate, but God had a plan for her life and ministry. 02:29     Our family moved three times before Dad and Mom built what is our Council family homestead in eastern North Carolina. In earlier years, we sharecropped and Dad worked at the mill. This provided us housing and some limited income. The women of the community canned and preserved food which was shared across families in the neighborhood. We dreamed under canopies of quilt creations and wore crocheted table coverings and modeled doilies on our heads. We were told that our hopes and dreams and prayers would guide us from Earth to Glory. 03:02     The first six children picked cotton and harvested other crops alongside our parents and other families. The remaining four grew up in integrated schools, able to experience a range of new opportunities. Among my siblings are a stay-at-home mom, an airport staffer, a social worker, an educator, a health care worker, military veterans, and ordained ministers. 03:25     I began my ordained ministry in the United Methodist Church in 1978 as a pastor in Wisconsin. My parents and I were still Methodists together in a larger mission around the world. 03:36     The journey of women in ministry across the church and in society for the most part has been a road with celebrated achievements. The dreams and intentional laboring of our grandmothers, mothers, and sisters who carried the torch through the early work of missionary societies, powerful networks, and organizational structures provided more than stepping stones to help women attain full participation in life of the church and society. 04:03     On March 23, 1869, eight women gathered in a prayer meeting at Tremont Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston, Massachusetts, and organized the Women's Foreign Missionary Society, which would become United Methodist Women. Those women raised money to send a doctor, Clara Swain, and a teacher, Isabella Thoburn, to India as missionaries to serve the women of that nation. 04:27     The Methodist Church granted full clergy rights to women in 1956. Maud Keister Jensen was the first to receive such rights. We praise God that the 1968 merger of the Methodist Episcopal and the Evangelical United Brethren Churches, forming the United Methodist Church, affirmed full clergy rights for women. We praise God for clergy sisters who have become outstanding leaders across the church as bishops, district superintendents, agency leaders and staff, and pastors of local congregations and ministries. 05:02     A retired United Methodist colleague reminded me of a day on the journey when we were dreaming of the time when the church would begin to embrace outstanding clergywomen as Episcopal leaders for our church. The late Bishop Leontyne Kelly was standing on a table with a bullhorn directing traffic as excited clergywomen arrived for the bus ride to our meeting site at the Glorietta Baptist Conference Center in Glorietta, New Mexico. On the bus ride, one of our great clergywomen, who was also a distinguished teacher from one of our seminaries, walked the aisle of our bus as we traveled, encouraging and reminding us of the work ahead. Out of the prayer services and working groups in every geographic area of the church, the election of the sister bishops became a reality, Bishops Matthews, Morrison, Kelly, Brown Christopher, Sherer, Zimmerman Raider, Swenson, Kammerer, and Hassinger, just to name a few. They took their places among global leaders. Many others continued to follow. 06:05     Clergywomen gatherings in the United States and across the globe remind us that we must be ready to stand in the gap of leadership for which the world cries out continually. Faithful service demands constant prayer and vigilance while we build partnerships with other clergy and lay colleagues across the church and community. Clergy sisters have gathered in partnership with colleagues from across the connection in worship, study, and strategy sessions to continue the journey towards full inclusion in the ministries of the church. 06:38     Our gathering places were tents of meeting. Our call was to write the vision plainly so that even the person running could see it. We are working hard to do so. With every chapter, we are called to write the next. 06:52     All across the church, clergywomen are working to help shape a church that will continue to be relevant as we face extremely challenging times across the global community. The work can never just be about clergywomen succeeding. However, it reflects a burning desire to see the church realize the power of God at work through all of us. 07:13     The Babylonians had destroyed Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. The people felt removed from the sense of God's presence they once knew when the temple stood as a symbol of God's ever present power. Even after they began the process of rebuilding their temple, the work stopped after just a short time because of opposition from the Samaritans. Similarly, there is discouragement across the church today as people seek to experience the power of God in the face of economic distress, anxiety over health care concerns, racial tensions, and terrorist threats at home and abroad. 07:47     Disappointment and fear is the theme of the people in Israel doing the ministry of the Prophet Haggai. Haggai writes to them to challenge them and to encourage them to carry on God's work. In our current troubled world, the feeling is strong that the church has surrounded its leadership to political pundits and self-serving individuals playing in the marketplace of life. The church finds itself facing giants of disbelief, church members and leaders who are out of touch with the historical significance of the roles women have played in moving the church and the society forward for good. 08:22     God raised up the prophet Haggai to call the people back to their task of rebuilding the temple. That is a message I think we could all use today. Haggai reminds us that while some of the people and settings may not look the same, God will remain faithful. Clergywomen have known triumphs and we have faced disappointment. We have realized some of our hopes and dreams. Some churches have received women pastors, and the partnership was very positive. For some, both congregation and pastor experienced unexpected disappointments. Other clergywomen, despite hard work and positive impact in their ministry settings, face the continuing resistance towards women as pastors in local churches. 09:06     Are you discouraged at times? Are you disappointed in your work for the Lord? We may all feel this from time to time. Some of our best hopes and dreams for a ministry may not be realized in every setting. One friend called it facing the impassible mountain. Looking back at the rivers we have crossed and mountains we have climbed, occasional disappointment will not derail us or cause us to lose faith. My mom continues to remind me that this work is God's work. We are invited to share the load. God stands just as ready to bless us today as in years past. God will never leave us nor forsake us. God will meet us in every situation, and will dwell among us and bless us for God's glory. 09:52     Thank you for listening to the WellSprings Journal podcast. Be sure to visit Wellspringsjournal. org to find more resources for the journey.

Bishop LaTrelle Easterling, who is the resident bishop of the Baltimore-Washington area of the United Methodist Church, shares insight on leadership styles of faith-filled women. Get to know the "great cloud of witnesses" who have helped form her identity and continue to inspire her walk. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT 00:02     When women come together, there’s nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the Wellsprings Journal Podcast, where you’ll hear from women who’ve been called by God into lives that speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life’s joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit awaits. Listen now. 00:35     Claiming my identity, walking my truth by Bishop LaTrelle Easterling, resident Bishop Baltimore Washington annual conference. The leader I am reflects the women who gave me life literally and figuratively. I am honored to contribute to the 2018 Wellsprings Journal focusing on the leadership style of women. As I engage this topic, I do so from the perspective of a womanist hermaneutic. A woman is terministic values the lived experiences of one's community and expect leadership to embrace that ethos. This approach understands that everyone is nurtured within the womb of community and it's formed an informed, thereby. As I recall the name of the women who are giants in my life. I give thanks for them and their indelible mark. 01:34     I pay homage to these remarkable leaders. I am the daughter of Mary Lawton Miller, the granddaughter of Clara stringer Lawton, and the great granddaughter of Hattie B stringer. These were strong spiritual praying women whose gifts made room for them and who refused to be relegated to relative obscurity. The women who contributed to my voice spoke up on matters of importance, took their seat at decision making tables and climbed secular and sacred ladders. As I reflect upon my own leadership style, I must acknowledge and affirm the women who modeled excellent, confident, and spirit failed leadership in my life. 02:22     Mary Miller was a woman who led with a confidence born of fierce academic achievement, wisdom, and a deep relationship with God. She lived her life steeped in prayer. She rose in the morning with prayer, knelt at night to pray and bathed every decision in between in prayer. As a daughter of the south, she could have been filled with rage and resentment resulting from the racism in Jim crow environment she experienced. Instead, her life was infused with forgiveness and a commitment to equality which she in her leadership. Whether in her professional Lord Church responsibilities, she arrived prepared, ready to work with whomever she encountered and worked until the task was done. Although my mother never sought leadership, it was often bestowed upon her because she was so committed to excellence and collaboration. 03:21     As I watched her preside over church council meetings, teach disciple Bible study, or captain our softball team. She listened before she spoke, encouraged and empowered others to become involved and always tried to resolve issues through consensus and collaboration. My mother was raised to believe that the ground at the foot of the cross is level. At a time and the black church when homosexuality was still taboo she believed that everyone was created in the image and likeness of God. She did not privilege one over another and spoke up for those who were ostracized or simply ignored. 04:03     Although she did not see herself as an advocate for justice. Her life and leadership demonstrated that characteristic. Emily Buckner Babysat me from the age of six weeks to age 13, although Emily or aunt Emily is I affectionately called her, wasn't an elected leader or person of rank in a traditional sense, she was well known and respected as a leader in the African American enclave of Irvington, a neighborhood on the east side of Indianapolis, Indiana. Aunt Emily was respected and revered because she led through loving. She cared for the latchkey children of the neighborhood as a surrogate parent or guardian. She Fed them, corrected them, bandaged their wounds, and broke up their fights. Aunt Emily encouraged us to be our best, overcome obstacles and be proud of who and whose we were. 05:01     She asked to see our report cards and proceeded to reward us when we excelled and chastises when we failed to live up to our potential. Emily Buckner was barely five feet tall, but she cowered before no one and stood her ground against male and female alike. Aunt Emily had a deep and abiding faith in God that put feet to her beliefs. She prayed with those who were experiencing life's challenges, wept with those who were in pain, and provided tangible support whenever a family needed assistance. She demonstrated an ax faith by sharing all she had with everyone so that all things were held in common. From aunt Emily, I learned that leadership is not reserved for those who are elected or appointed, rather leadership is bestowed upon who live a life of generosity, compassion, and unconditional love. 06:03     The Reverend Dr. Teresa Fry Brown, the bandy professor of preaching at Candler School of Theology helped me forge my homiletical acumen in style. I met Theresa in Denver, Colorado and she was pursuing her PhD at [inaudible 00:06:18] School of theology. For the first time, I witnessed the woman unafraid to preach with passion, precision and pedagogical brilliance. Teresa offered preaching classes to those on the pastoral team where she encouraged us to embrace our call, find our voice, and walk in our true identity. She modeled and taught us that the most effective leaders lead from within the community, not absent from it. She also offered an expected leadership grounded in authenticity. Teresa often shared with us that you cannot lead where you have not been, preach what you have not experienced or teach what you do not know. Likewise, she taught us it is unwise to attempt to copy another style or voice. She could pinpoint with precision when someone was attempting to preach in an assumed persona, even calling the one they were imitating by name. 07:20     Teresa empowered us to claim our own gifts by stating God called you trust God. My leadership gifts and graces have been influenced, formed, and refined by the cloud of witnesses in my life. The aforementioned women were instrumental in shaping my leadership because they were inspired, admired, and fruitful leaders in their own right. Each possessed a unique ability to lead through connection, empowerment, and love. I am because they are. In addition, my style has been honed in the crucible of my corporate experience and pastoral ministry. It is my belief that within the context of ministry, effective leadership requires a deep and abiding relationship with Jesus the Christ. It also requires a firm commitment to the spiritual disciplines of prayer, Bible study, meditation, generosity through tithing, and service. Unless one is committed to a life of discipleship, I do not believe she or he can lead with integrity. Spiritual leadership is enhanced by intellect, but it does not bear fruit that will last unless the Holy Spirit guides it. 08:44     My womanist grounding leads me to first build relationships with my partners in ministry. Without first establishing a foundation gestated in the womb of relationship, it is difficult to form a partnership born of trust. Once that trust hasn't been established, my leadership style continues to be collaborative and inclusive. I seek input from a wide range of stakeholders, inviting everyone to speak from their experience and understanding. I believe in open and honest dialogue that leverages our strengths and privileges every voice at the table equally. Then we are able to build consensus that will effectively meet the needs of the mission and purpose of those we serve. While I do not believe effective leadership requires leaders to be the smartest persons in the room, good leaders arrive prepared. My ability to be prepared is fueled by my intellectual curiosity, commitment to pedagogical excellence, humility, and a desire to listen before I speak. 09:51     These elements enable me to facilitate meaningful discussion, maintain focus, offer helpful insights, and empower others to excel. One of the critical elements missing in the toolbox of many leaders is establishing clear expectations. I am amazed by how many leaders within the church are afraid to make their expectations known for fear of losing their constituents and yet our ministries flounder or stagnate because we do not set expectations. Hold one another accountable in love and evaluate our outcomes. In most other professions that would be grounds for termination. I do not shy away from setting clear, concise expectations and offering the necessary resources to ensure they can be achieved. After those expectations are shared, I make it clear that the only real failure is a failure to try. 10:49     I believe we learn as much from our failures as our achievements, perhaps even more so. Therefore, risks should be encouraged and any failure capitalized upon as a source of learning and development. Perhaps most important, as a leader, I have learned to embrace who I am and claim who I am in Christ. I am passionate, demonstrative, sometimes given to shedding tears and that possess a wicked sense of humor. Also, I'm not afraid to wait on the spirit before making a decision. Some would counsel me to hide those aspects of myself in favor of a more normative, traditional leadership style. However, the voices of Mary, Emily, and Teresa whisper into my spirit to remember that God formed me. God knows me and God called me. I can trust God in claiming who I am. 11:58     Thank you for listening to the Wellspring Journal Podcast. Be sure to visit WellspringsJournal.org to find more resources for the journey.  

Lisa Dellinger, of the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Area of the United Methodist Church, draws parallels between the children of Israel, who lived in forced exile under the Babylonian Empire, and Native Christians, whose ancestors who endured a forced, genocidal removal in the Trail of Tears. Both groups learned how hard it is to “sing the Lord’s song in a strange land” (Psalm 137:4). Native Christians are rebuilding their own Temple today by claiming their Indigenous cultures and identities in light of Christ Jesus. (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT 00:02     When women come together, there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the Well Springs Journey podcast, where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives that speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit awaits. Listen now. 00:35     Reflections on Native Christian identity and the longing for coming home, written by Lisa A. Dellinger, Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference. Haggai speaks to a generation of people who returned to Jerusalem after a forced removal. Many of these returning citizen's live their whole lives in exile under the Babylonian empire. These are the descendants of those who had to learn how to sing YHWH’s song, while in a foreign land. Most returning Judeans were not alive during the height of the temple's glory. The exiles were raised with stories from their elders of a time when they had their own lands, culture, and self-determination. 01:13     This returning group, the descendants of the once elite of their society, had to learn to live immersed in the socio-religious milieu of their oppressors, and not lose their identity as the children of God. When they arrived home, the temple was in ruins, and here was politician tension with those who were not forced out of Jerusalem. The Judeans that were allowed to stay and the Persian kings loyalist. The people put their energies into rebuilding a life for themselves. This rebuilding did not begin with the temple, the center of traditional life and community wholeness. 01:48     Decades passed with the house of God remaining a tent and the people struggling to find the abundance that the elders had told them they would find back in the homeland. As a Chickasaw woman, and a Christian, there is much for me to related to in this story. My own family began its life in Oklahoma after a forced removal. I am a descendant of Ibbahmehatubby, who was born in 1740, in what is now known as Pontotoc County, Mississippi. This is our homeland given to us by Ababinili, the one dwelling above. 02:22     For the Chickasaw Nation, the genocidal removal, often called the Trail of Tears, began in 1837 and continued through 1850. My great, great-grandfather, Colbert Ahshalatubby Burris, left Mississippi as a child with his mother. My grandfather was named after Colbert Ahshalatubby Burris and he told me stories of the hardships that my families faced, as they tried to survive the trek. They also shared with me how his grandfather became an attorney, and a Chickasaw representative during the 1887 International Council, called by the five civilized tribes, to oppose the federal government's attempts to organize a unified government for Indian territory. 03:06     Many Chickasaw families retain their cultural stories and native religious practices, despite pressures to assimilate, both before and after the United States governments removal. Prior to removal, a significant number of my family, also practiced Christianity for decades, even becoming pastors. Despite prejudice and racism, navigated western attempts at indoctrination without completely abandoning their unique Chickasaw identity. It is not easy to learn to sing God's song in a new land, especially after being moved out from prosperity, and thriving community, by death march. 03:45     Many United Methodist's are not aware that the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference was an established before the Oklahoma Conference. It began with Native Christians ministering to one another. Native clergy pastored the peoples, but in true colonial fashion, the supervising bishops of the conference remained white, Ameri-European. Even today, the bishop of the Oklahoma conference oversees the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference. And the United Methodist Church has yet to elect a Native American bishop in any conference. 04:20     Native pastors continue to minister with passion and devotion, despite the obstacles faced by US settler colonialism. Settler colonialism is the displacement and destruction of indigenous populations, and histories, in order to establish a nation that would make the settler the unquestioned native citizen. This violence is often cloaked in the language of being divinely inspired and providentially destined to combat the atheistically and diabolical savages that are in league with the biblical forces of evil. Settler colonialism is specific, in that it requires the indigenous peoples to live in a state of occupation, controlled by the invaders. 05:04     Settler colonialism seeks to make the original occupants invisible, powerless, and unable to practice individual or corporate cultural, and political self-determination. Like the Judean's longing to return home, Native Christians have not forgotten all that was taken from them by the subjugating force. Somehow, despite the racist nationalism that clocked itself in the language of Christianity, Native Christians interpret the gospel in the spirit of God's liberation. There is a living memory of American Indian Native religious traditions that endures, despite the criminalization of ceremonies and the abduction of Native American Indian children sent to abusive Christian boarding schools. 05:50     The land is holy for all Native peoples. Whether practicing Christianity, or traditional Native religions, each original ancestral site, is sacred, and the source of all life for Native America peoples, just as the temple was the heart of communal life, spiritual, and cultural wellbeing, and the foundation of all meaning, making for the Israelites. In the scripture selection from Haggai, there is a sense of nostalgia for a home laced with a trauma that lingers from exile. We see a people struggling with the impact of colonialism, and the memory of a former glory they have only heard of in stories. 06:29     There is a profound sense of struggling for survival in a disorienting experience of the continual alien nation or being a stranger in your own home. The Judean's are living with the memories of a former grandeur, and wholeness, along with the overwhelming task of reclaiming, and naming that wholeness in the midst of the ruins. Native American peoples continue to experience the chaos of trying to maintain their spiritual practices in a new millennium, complicated by the destruction of that, which you need for your ceremonial practice. 07:04     One indigenous interpretation of this particular biblical text is not to see the failure to quickly finish the temple, as misplaced priorities, but the result of historical trauma. Nostalgia, a longing for what once was, may complicate the ability to move past simply surviving, to living fully, without the ongoing burden of literal, and cultural genocide. Coming home to rebuild the sacred is a concept fraught with longing and apprehension for Native American Indians. Our temple is not a structure in one location. Our temple is creation itself, with literally thousands of sites consecrated and given by God. 07:47     These sites are exploited by ecological degradation for profit or overrun after Indian removal by settler-colonist. An Ameri-European Christian reading of this text might see this lack of progress and the rebuilding of the temple, ask motivated by a lack of faith in God to provide all that is needed for individuals in the community. Restoration for the people is a condition tied to providing a home for God. God blesses those who glorify and magnify YHWH's name. The command to look at the ruins of the temple can be read as an admonishment for not putting God's house first. 08:26     In this understanding, the Judean's have the entire agency in this situation but behave selfishly. God's spirit is with them and will continue to be with them as they correct this egocentric transgression. Then, there will be nothing to fear and the flourishing of the people can begin. The conquered Judean's are not fazed by the decades of exile but are using their free will to dishonor YHWH. Native Christians, as a result of settler colonialism, know what it is to have limited choices and fewer resources to practice the kind of agency that many US Euro-American's take for granted. 09:08     One has only to look at the treatment of Native Water Protectors, who peacefully protested the Dakota access pipelines abuse of land and water, to see how free will and agency are assaulted with water cannons in sub-zero temperatures, tear gas, and sound weapons by an accompanying force. While the will to restore both traditional, and Christian Native communities is strong, the repercussions of settler colonial violence are hundreds of years in the making. The return home to rebuild our own temple is not a homecoming easily accomplished. Native Christians in their own way, have resisted assimilation but made steps to practice as self-determined acculturation. 09:52     The restoration that Native Christians seek, is not for individual personal gain, or even just for the sake of human beings alone, but for all of creation. These interconnections make the restoration of the world to wholeness are mizpah, or our understanding of the divine commandment. This is accomplished for Native Christians by claiming our indigenous cultures and identities in light of Christ Jesus. Alongside Jesus, indigenous Christians seek the promise spirit to bring justice, peace, and love into an imbalanced creation that bears the scars of brokenness. 10:32     Thank you for listening to the Well Spring Journal podcast. Be sure to visit wellspringsjournal.org to find more resources for the journey.  

We call ourselves “Christians,” but what’s in a name? In this powerful message, Jacqueline Rose-Tucker, of the North Georgia Area of the United Methodist Church, uses the words of Haggai the prophet, the Apostle Paul, and the book of Hebrews to show how when we claim the name of Christ, we must remain obedient to Him as we move from fear to faith.  (VOICED BY PROFESSIONAL TALENT) FULL TRANSCRIPT 00:04     When women come together, there's nothing we cannot do. Welcome to the Wellspring's Journal podcast, where you will hear from women who have been called by God into lives that speak grace and compassion, that share pain and anger, and that dance life's joys and laughter. Inspiration to call forth your creative spirit await. Listen now. 00:40     What's In A Name by Dr. Jacqueline Rose Tucker. Our theme points us to the urgency of claiming who we are in Christ as others have cried out over the centuries. We too are living in critical times. The world has been hit by natural disaster after disaster. How are we, as clergy in general, clergy women in particular, to respond to world conflicts and threats, increase in poverty and suffering worldwide, shootings, violence, mistrust of authority, and lack of moral leadership at every level of those who are charged with our care and safety? 01:22     Perhaps it is a matter of identity. So I ask this question, what's in a name? HAGGAI It might be helpful to look at the time of Haggai, the prophet, to help us make a positive impact in our communities. The Prophet Haggai's name is derived from a word that means a festival. Other scripture tells us more about him. Haggai is mentioned twice in Ezra, where he is called the prophet, and is connected with Zachariah helping to motivate the people to rebuild the temple. 01:59     Just to be clear, we start with Haggai chapter one, verse one. In the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the Prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. The economic conditions were so horrible that the task of rebuilding was dropped and not taken up again for a number of years. Around 522 B.C., when Darius, who was the king of Persia, ascended the throne, war broke out in many sections of the empire. 02:41     After two years of strenuous fighting, peace again reigned. It was at this time that Haggai encouraged the people, under the dual leadership of the governor Zerubbabel and the high priest Joshua, to begin rebuilding. Haggai spoke at a time when the identity of the [inaudible 00:03:02] community was in jeopardy. The people were a part of a vast empire and could have followed the path of others who had lost their distinctiveness and drifted into the forgotten pages of history. 03:14     However, God had something better for the Israelites. The way out of the crushing poverty that sapped their communal life was not the neglect of their religious duties, but the performance of them. The people who had placed economic security and wellbeing ahead of their obligations to Yahweh way had to reassess and change their values. Haggai speaks during the Feast of Tabernacles, which recalled the wilderness wanderings of Israel when God continuously provided for the people. The feast also celebrated the gourd and vineyard harvest in remembrance of the fruits of the land for which the conquest under Joshua's leadership was carried out. 03:57     Haggai aptly addresses the complaints of the people with three rhetorical questions. Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? Some people were grumbling that the community was not economically able to finish the temple in the same decadent style as Solomon who had used fine woods and gold to decorate it. In verse four, Haggai three times encourages the leaders and people to be strong. This dialogue is similar to that found in the Lord's command to Joshua on the eve of the conquest. 04:38     This is found in Joshua chapter one, verses six through nine. Haggai intentionally reminds the people of lessons from the Feast of Tabernacles. Israel would have perished in the wilderness or failed in the invasion if God had not been with her. What guaranteed success was not the people's ability, but God's presence. Similarly, he was now present with them to complete their task. They possessed adequate resources for God was among them. The temple would be rebuilt if only they did not lose the inner drive to complete the task. The question was not one of resources, but one of faith. 05:23     Haggai concludes his message with an appeal to the future by reminding the people of the previous acts of God, that once again, the Lord of hosts will shake the heavens and the earth. The metaphor of an earthquake is extended to describe another political upheaval similar to when Darius took the throne. In a future shaking of the nations, God will cause the wealth of the nations to flow into the temple so that it might be decorated in a manner more splendid than Solomon's. The desire of all nations means the precious things or silver and gold of the nations. 06:03     The Kerygma of this prophetic book falls in the presence of the Lord Almighty or Yahweh Sabaoth, which is Haggai's favorite name for God, so much so he uses it five times in chapter two. In the epistle to the Hebrews, we find these words. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, disregarding it shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. HEBREWS 06:52     The book of Hebrews is one of the least used texts in the church today. However, it is the most highly stylized Greek text in the New Testament which formulates for the church at Rome an inspirational exhortation to the passionate faith. The original hearers were probably Hellenistic Jews, meaning they were influenced by the Greek culture of their day and very knowledgeable of the Hebrew text. This book quotes more Old Testament passages then does any other New Testament text. 07:25     Although we are not sure of the writer, he or she is writing to a church that has grown lax in worship, attendance, and apathetic to the Christian message. They have forgotten the true experience of worship and what it is to come into the presence of God with awe and gratitude. They sound a lot like the church today. PAUL Is what the writer of Hebrews and the Apostle Paul said some 2,000 years ago relevant to us today? Indeed. First, we have to decide within ourselves that God truly knows more than we do and trust God completely with our lives. 08:06     When we accept Christ as Messiah, we become part of what Paul speaks as a justified community that lives its life on the basis of its shared belief in Jesus as Lord. Until the fellowship of faith matches and embodies the religiousness of faith, we must claim the name of Christian. How do we accomplish this? In the words of Stanley [Howiss 00:08:30], " The cross is not a sign of the church's quiet suffering, submission to the powers that be, but rather the church's revolutionary participation in the victory of Christ over those powers." 08:45     The Cross is not a symbol for general human suffering and oppression. Rather, the cross is a sign of what happens when one takes God's account of reality more seriously than Caesar's. The cross stands as gods and our eternal no to the powers of death as well as God's eternal yes to humanity, God's remarkable determination not to leave us to our own devices. What's in a name? In claiming the name Christian, we must first be authentic in our belief that the Lord Almighty, Yahweh Sabaoth is with us. 09:24     From the book, Not Safe For Church, comes these pointed words. We want all of the benefits, but none of the responsibility of being a part of the body of Christ. Christ demands signs of authenticity in our sanctuaries and on our subways, in our Sunday school classrooms and in our church council boardrooms, at home and at work, with the people we love and with the people we hate. To be one called Christian and one called a member of a community of faith demands tangible evidence of the presence of God in the whole of our lives. It's not enough to say you believed the gospel of Christ. You must live it. 10:09     This is what people of the current age demand and need in the sea of fake news, fake churches, and faith leaders. People are watching us not only because of the Prophet Haggai's message, but because we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. What's in a name? When we claim the name, we move from fear to faith, not basing our giving or our living on economics, but understanding that God will cause blessings to flow to us and we will have more than we need. 10:45     The earth is shaking. The world is quaking. Terrorist about, political ground is moving. We live by faith, not fear. The Lord Almighty is with us, Yahweh Sabaoth. In this, we are encouraged. WHAT'S IN A NAME? What's in a name? When we claim the name, we must be obedient, worship the Lord our God, and continue to build God's body of faith. The Lord Almighty is with us. Yahweh Sabaoth, become obedient to God. Not our will, but thy will be done. The foundation of all Christian obedience is that those in Christ indwelt by the spirit are to offer ourselves to God. In true sacrificial worship, the whole self is presented to God. 11:38     Finally, what's in a name? We must claim the name. As we read in Acts chapter 17, verse 28, in Christ we live and move and have our being as even some of your own poets have said, for we too are his offspring. We trust that Christ will bring the harvest. I implore you to listen to the words of Paul and accept the promises of God. From Second Thessalonians chapter two, verses 13 through 17, but we must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits for salvation, through sanctification, by the spirit and through belief in the truth. For this purpose, he called you through our proclamation of the good news so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord, Jesus Christ. 12:35     So then brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word. 13:01     Thank you for listening to the Wellsprings Journal podcast. Be sure to visit wellspringsjournal.org to find more resources for the journey.