Tag Archives: non-traditional family

Single in the Sanctuary: Blue Easter

22 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by in Church Life, Holidays, Life, Pop, Single in the Sanctuary

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easter lily2In 2008, I attended Easter morning worship with my mom and dad at a progressive United Church of Christ congregation in the greater St. Louis area.  The sermon was engaging.  The music was magnificent.  Everything about this Easter morning worship was spiritually meaningful.

But I was distracted… and distraught.

Family three rows up.  Family six rows up.  Family in the second from the front row on the other side of the sanctuary and two rows behind me too.  People of approximately my age sitting throughout the church with their spouse and their two or three small children.

And here I was… nearly 35 years old and sitting with my parents on Easter morning sans husband or children.  Even though I was with my lovely parents, I had never felt more alone.  At no point that morning did I feel anyone made me feel bad about being single or childless.  While some people at some congregations may stereotype people in my situation, I absolutely didn’t feel as if people were looking down upon me.

But I was looking down upon myself.  What’s wrong with me?  I would wonder over and over again to myself. Of course, when we are emotionally raw for any reason, it’s easy to place blame upon ourselves.  Life and love hadn’t happened in the way I wanted it to by the age of 35.  It was as simple as that.

Nonetheless, my feelings were very real that morning.  And they threw me for a loop.

Between 2008 and the time I met my boyfriend, I began to make some peace with this singleness in the sanctuary.  But it never became 100% easy, and Easter morning just happens to be one of those times I wonder if I missed out a little by not having children.  Bubbling youth bring about a certain energy into families and congregations, and even those of us who are 85% sure we are fine with not having children get a little emotional when surrounded by what we once wanted.

Which makes me wonder: How can we truly experience the resurrection if we are so distracted by what we don’t have, what we haven’t accomplished and in what ways we don’t fit with our congregations?

Easter morning may be a time when we hope that God will lead us to new life, new possibilities and fresh beginnings.  But there could be people in our congregations that feel like an odd person because they believe their marital status or family structure stands out from the crowd.  They may feel alone even though people surround them in the sanctuary.

Bless them with a greeting, with the peace of Christ, if you see them sitting alone.  Bless them with an request to sit with you as they may feel just a little less alone.  Bless them with an invitation to lunch or coffee hour.

The sealed tomb in which they find themselves in may start to crack open as beams of light begin to find their way beyond the shadows.

Single in the Sanctuary – Marital Status Marginalization

20 Tuesday Oct 2015

Posted by in Life, Pop, Single in the Sanctuary

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By E. W. Russell, Photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Starting today, I will be posting a new weekly feature called “Single in the Sanctuary.” The recurring topic will focus on what it means to be a non-married progressive Christian in the twenty-first century.

I doubt I’m the only one who has felt a bit left out of the church based on the fact that I’m over 40 and still not married.  Even when I was in my late 20’s and early 30’s, I felt out of place because I don’t have the traditional family structure.

We look around our churches and, most of the time, only see certain demographics, namely

  • Married with children
  • Married, retired with grown children
  • Widowed

Only on occasions like the Christmas and Easter holidays or weddings, baptisms and funerals do I see my demographic: the never-married person.  I don’t see many divorced individuals, single parents, co-habitating couples, LGBT individuals and couples either.

In reality, people are getting married later.  Many marriages do not last.  Couples are choosing to live together for a while before deciding to marry.  So why don’t they feel comfortable being themselves in our sanctuaries?  Are we welcoming enough for these demographics?

Could it be that our sanctuaries become a sanctuary for those with an “ideal lifestyle” as set by the Christian right – a life which promotes purity, a nearly-desperate desire to get married and a postcard image of a husband, wife and two or three children?

Let’s start this conversation here and now.  How have churches made you feel comfortable?  How have they made you feel extremely uncomfortable based on your marital status?  And would the church you currently attend make you feel welcome if they knew you were single, cohabitating or divorced?

Is there a topic you would like to see covered in Single in the Sanctuary?  Let me know your interest below.

Marriage Equality – The Constantly Expanding Love of God

28 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by in Church Life, Life, Pop, Pop Culture, Religion

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This post was written in conjunction with the July 2015 Synchroblog on the topic “Gay Marriage.”

Years ago, I expressed my views supporting marriage equality.

My pastor at the time was not supportive of my perspective.  “I could help you change your mind,” he said to me.  I prayed.  I read Scripture.  I listened and read stories of the ever expanding love of God in gay and lesbian relationships.

And then I realized I couldn’t go back.  I couldn’t minimize my view of love.  Or family.  Or marriage.  There were no holy scissors big enough to eliminate the love which abides in lesbian and gay relationships.

I then chose to become a member of a United Church of Christ congregation.  It was a small congregation where everyone knew one another’s name.  When I joined, they hadn’t yet officially taken a vote to become Open and Affirming, but while I was a member, we voted in the affirmative.  The denomination had voted to affirm marriage equality in 2005.

I currently serve a congregation that is not Open and Affirming.  Without their approval, I will not perform a same-gender ceremony in the church’s sanctuary.

However, I will perform a same-gender wedding ceremony anywhere else.  Now that marriage is legal for heterosexual as well as lesbian and gay relationships all over our country, I feel it is in my theology of justice and equality that I offer this blessing to all people.

In fact, I’ve already done one.

In November 2014, I presided over the wedding and was blessed to sign a marriage certificate in Illinois for a wonderful couple, Debbie and Jessica.  I’ve known Debbie since elementary school, and I was honored to be asked to preside over their wedding.  My entire immediate family was on hand to watch me officiate the wedding for these two wonderful women.  Through Debbie and Jessica, just like the other couples whose weddings I’ve also officiated, I see how God is the God of expanding and just-filled love.

Photo of me presiding over Debbie and Jessica's wedding in November 2014.

Photo of me presiding over Debbie and Jessica’s wedding in November 2014.

They’re able to be their most truest selves – loving honestly, living authentically.  Isn’t that what God would want for each of us?

Marriage equality isn’t only a justice issue but also a pastoral issue.  When two people want to combine their lives together and form a covenant with one another in the presence of God and all of creation, the pastoral need calls for us pastors to tend to those whose hearts need care.

There will be many who believe that the Bible abhors same-gender relationships.  Yet relationships during the time when the Bible was written were ones where the men had most of the power, women were secondary human beings, and marriages were not exactly consensual for both parties.

I look at Michal, Saul’s daughter whom David won as a war prize.  Even after he deserted her and she was given in marriage to another man, David reclaimed Michal as property.  Most likely, Bathsheba didn’t have a choice except to marry David after he impregnated her (probably without her consent).  Both Leah and Rachel had to be “earned” by Jacob.  Vashti was banished because she wouldn’t provocatively dance for her husband and his friends.

From these examples we see that mutuality in today’s heterosexual relationships is much different than what we read in Scriptures.  Relationships have changed greatly even since mid-nineteenth or twentieth century Western Civilization.  This can only lead us to the conclusion that relationships continue to evolve and will continue to transform.  As long as two people can make the covenant they desire and both can agree upon, and both people can demonstrate respect for one another, then we, as church leaders, should support their love wherever it stands.

And maybe that’s the way God wants it to be.

From couples of all genders and colors and economic groups and religions and everything else, I continue to see a Divine love that’s always expanding.  I often wonder how relationships will look in fifty years.  Yet if God is the God of constant motion and the architect of love, then God will lead us to welcome love in all forms – even if it’s unfamiliar.

How will we open ourselves to new forms of family, relationships, and love?  How can we embrace what is said in Scriptures but also listen to the still-speaking God in our midst?

*****

The following are other bloggers writing on this topic for the July Synchroblog.  Many of these writers provide views very different than mine.  In a spirit of love and dialogue as covenantal members of the Body of Christ, I still encourage you to read each of these.  May God’s love transcend the differences we hold.  Amen.