Clergy

No One Should Stand Alone

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It was a Sunday morning and I had just preached my heart out in front of the congregation. They were good people, just on the reserved side. If they had been moved in anyway at all I just wish that they would have informed their faces. But they were good people and just because their faces were impassive I knew that at least some of them on the inside were responsive.  At any rate I had laid it all on the line that morning and even gave an invitation.

As we sang the invitational hymn I stepped out from behind the pulpit to the center of the chancel, exposed, as absolutely no one came forward. Midway through the hymn I saw a teen age boy in the balcony bolt for the door. No sooner had he left the balcony than the door onto the sanctuary floor burst open and he charged up on the chancel, but instead of coming to stand in front of me, to confess his sin, this young man, stood beside me. He put one arm around me, held up his hymnal and began to sing. Surprised, I asked him – “Devon, why did you to come forward?”  He turned and looked at me and said, “Pastor Brockett, I didn’t come forward, I just looked at you standing down here by yourself and you looked so lonely, I didn’t want you to have to stand alone.” Tears came to my eyes – this boy had sensed my loneliness and had come to stand with me.

Family, LGBT

Benj Sullivan-Knoff: “Paradox”

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(Benj is the son of Eva Sullivan-Knoff and John Knoff.  His contribution brings to completion his and his family’s story of coming out. Please, be sure to read the two previous posts by his mom and dad. Benj is a student and a poet. One of his poems was featured on NPR. Thank you Benj for sharing with us.)

Paradox: What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

I grew up in the church: baptized at birth; confirmed in eighth grade; sang in the children’s and youth choirs; attended Sunday school before services, services, youth group on Wednesday nights, and every weekend or summer retreat I could. My dedication might have initially been bred of obligation, but it matured into genuine devotion. So when an attraction to men emerged, I turned to the God I loved, praying frequently, asking Him to dissipate my inclinations, or at least to allow me to be one way or the other, not trapped in eternal uncertainty. Doubt is a terrible weight; it pressed into my thoughts constantly, unsettling the identity I had prided myself in.

Family

John Knoff’s Poem: “To My Church”

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This is a poem by John Knoff. It is a follow up to his wife Eva Sullivan-Knoff’s story which is found immediately below. Thank you John!

To My Church

Once a month on Friday evenings
he asked us
to drop him off at church
so he could go with the youth group
to the soup kitchen.

Then there were the monthly
Saturday mornings
when we brought him back to church
to help stock the food pantry.
I know he enjoyed the donuts,
but he would have gone
regardless.

His favorite time of year? Going
to church camp,
cooking over the fire,
climbing the high ropes course,
knowing God better.

Last summer youth
from churches
around the country gathered,
and as the speaker
encouraged them to live out
their faith
in truth,
with no masks
(she by the way took off
her mask—her make-up—on stage),
he went forward:
committed to God,
to living in truth,
no masks.

He has been busier
lately—getting straight A’s,
performing in plays and musical groups.
And being with friends.
How he cares for his friends!
I know he would do anything
for them.

In our society it isn’t deemed
manly for a son
to say “I love you” to his dad very often,
let alone almost every time he heads
out the door!
But how I treasure that he doesn’t
care what society thinks.

He is my son,
oh and I almost forgot to tell
you (not that it really matters)
—   he’s gay.

 

Clergy, Family

Our Story: Eva Sullivan-Knoff

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Eva Sullivan-Knoff and Family

With my family’s permission, I would like to share our story. It is one that changed my and our family’s life. A couple of years ago our younger son came to my husband, John and I, and told us he was gay.  We have always intentionally sought to love and support our sons, and we told him we did still, but we still didn’t want what he told us to be true. We wondered if he really knew yet. Maybe he will change his mind in a few years, and realize he really wasn’t gay, that it was just part of his developmental confusion. I spoke with a therapist who told me, she’d known a few teens that discovered later they really weren’t gay. So I told my son, you know, why don’t you pray and live with it for awhile, and see if you still feel that it rings true.  I genuinely meant that, but we were also afraid. We didn’t want this to be his reality. We didn’t want it to be ours either. We had had different dreams. It had felt like the rug had been pulled out from under us. I think as human beings we don’t deal with things unless we have to. Unless an issue affects us, we’d just as soon ignore it, especially if it is controversial. Though a few friends had told me before they were gay, I didn’t really deal with it on a deeper level, until my son told us.

I didn’t want to deal with this. What I heard growing up in the church was that it was a sin. Since those few friends told me they were gay, and they are people I love and respect, and whose faith journey and faith in God I trust, I have been confused. What do I do with this? And though I listened and supported my friends on one level, I am sure I failed them on another because I didn’t understand on the level they needed me to. I wasn’t sure how to understand it, beyond friendship.

I knew with our son telling us I had to deal with this now on a deeper level, though I didn’t want to. What do I do with this? What do I do with what I had previously understood? I talked with people I loved and respected and I prayed much.  I began to read, but I was also afraid. I am a Covenant minister. I knew the stand the denomination, in which I grew up, took on this issue, and which I have supported. What will they say to me, if they hear I have a son who is gay? This is the church I love. This is the denomination that has been a part of my life in deeply significant ways. This is the church I serve. I am not pleased to say that I was filled with fear. However, this was also my son who I love dearly.  This was personal, and not just another theological issue to discuss and debate.

Clergy, LGBT

Finding Place in this Church [UPDATED]

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Andrew Freeman

Several months ago, I received the latest issue of The Covenant Companion, which contained the cover story, “Our Place in the Covenant.” In anticipation of the denomination’s 125th Annual Meeting, the Companion featured several short stories and testimonies from Covenanters of varying backgrounds on how they have come to find a place in this church. In that same issue was a letter to the editor by my friend and fellow blogger, Ralph Sturdy. Ralph pointed out what he referred to as a “sad commentary”: that support for parents and friends of gay and lesbian children in Covenant churches has been relegated to a back-page classified ad for a confidential email. “Are they being asked to hide behind a veil of secrecy and shame?” Ralph asked. “Are we saying to our gay and lesbian children, many baptized in Covenant churches, that there is no place in the Covenant for them?” (emphasis mine)

Here, in the same issue about finding place in this church, an issue that celebrates belonging and Covenant identity, was a letter about quiet marginalization. Here was a letter raising a voice for those whose place in the church has, ever so subtly, been moved to the borders, to the fringes. The sad irony wasn’t lost on me, because it was and remains a dichotomy I have been forced to wrestle with every day of my life. And so, I felt compelled to write and submit to the Companion the following response:

Clergy

How did I Get Here?

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Rev. Philip K. Brockett

Ever wake up in the morning and for that first instant of wakefulness wonder where you are? That is a little how I feel writing this blog. I feel like I just woke up and I am wondering how I got here. One moment I was “party line” Covenant pastor who had the appropriate evangelical view of homosexuality and then it was like I woke up to a different way of seeing.

In reality I think the process of “changing my mind” was happening slowly under the surface and I didn’t know it was happening until one day it popped out and surprised me. What changed my mind? A number of things. First of all I think it was years of pastoring people. It started with a young man 35 years ago who asked if he could come and speak to me but when he arrived in my office he could not speak a word of what was on his mind. We sat in silence for an hour – when our time was up I asked him if he wanted to come back again and he shook his head yes. Two more times we sat in silence for an hour before he was finally able to say to me that the had come to realize that he was gay. But saying it out loud was all he could do. He never came back to see me again, but his struggle left an indelible mark on me and gave seed to the conviction that homosexuality was certainly not something that he was choosing, instead it was something that he could not avoid. His self loathing and fear was palpable and my heart went out to him.