Signatures Needed by 4/27/21
April 22, 2021
Greetings RMN friends and allies,
Thank you for your consideration and efforts to send letters to the Board of Ministry, and Bishop Gregory V Palmer, several weeks ago, in support of Angie Cox’s repeated requests for Commissioning as a Provisional Elder in the West Ohio Conference.
It is time for the next step: one letter with many signatures.
Below you will find the West Ohio Reconciling Ministry Network’s community letter to The Board of Ministry and Bishop Gregory V Palmer. Please read the letter and consider attaching your name as a signatory. Clergy and laity can sign the letter.
At the close of the letter below, you will find a link where you may electronically sign this letter.
This letter will be delivered to the Board of Ministry and the Bishop in time for the Board’s April 27th meeting.
Read fast. Act quickly. Spread the word. Together we continue the work of reflecting a fuller, richer, more inclusive image of God’s love.
Thanks,
John Girard
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April 21, 2021
Rev. Dr. Suzanne Allen, Chair
Board of Ordained Ministry
7388 E Kemper Rd, Suite 1
Cincinnati, OH 45249
cc: Bishop Gregory V. Palmer
West Ohio Conference
United Methodist Church
32 Wesley Blvd
Worthington, OH 43085
Dear Faithful Ones:
Thank you for your faithful leadership of our beloved church. We the undersigned write to support another who seeks to be just as faithful in her own call to ordained ministry. For three consecutive years, Angie Cox’s request to the Board of Ministry for commissioning as a Provisional Elder in the West Ohio Conference has been denied. This appears to be a decision of biased preference rather than merit or piety. “We see evidence of your call and gifts for ministry. The only reason we are denying you is because of your sexual orientation,” said Scott Campbell, the chair of Angie’s 2021 commissioning interview team.
It is our understanding that the duties of a Board of Ordained Ministry, according to The General Board of Higher Education and Ministry’s website, are to 1) Examine the applicants’ potential, readiness, and effectiveness for licensed and ordained ministry. 2) Enlist and recruit ministerial leadership for church and other ministry settings, with regard to the inclusive nature of the church by working in consultation with the Cabinet and GBHEM. 3) Renew a culture of call in the church by giving strategic leadership to Annual Conferences, districts, congregations, collegiate ministries, camps, and other appropriate ministries, especially among youth and young adults.
Angie’s interview team has repeatedly affirmed a clear call to ordained ministry, and evidence of gifts and graces for that call. Angie’s interview team has consistently and repeatedly acknowledged and articulated that the only thing that prevents them from granting Angie’s request for commissioning is her sexual orientation.
Bishop Palmer has already granted Angie a License for Pastoral Ministry and she is currently serving a local congregation, where she continues to bear the fruit of faithfulness and exhibits the kind of grace that urges us to write you today.
Why have Angie’s requests for commissioning been denied when Bishop Palmer has appointed her to serve a congregation already, and her interview team has publicly acknowledged clear and confident belief in her call and clear evidence of gifts for ministry?
Isn’t the Board of Ordained Ministry called to work with, not in place of, the Bishop to nurture the inclusive nature of the church? Bishop Palmer has already appointed other self-avowed homosexuals to serve on the BOM in the endeavor to fan the flames of inclusivity within the church. Why were none of the self-avowed homosexuals on the Board included in any of Angie’s interview teams in the past three years of Angie’s interviewing for Provisional Elder status and membership?
For Angie’s interview Team to acknowledge her call to ministry in the presence of other self-avowed homosexual Board members, but then deny her request for commissioning, neither creates, renews, affirms, or nurtures a culture of call in the church. It confuses ‘renewing’ for ‘authorizing’ and knowingly keeps the hand of privilege in the face of faithfulness.
The Holy Spirit has continued to push the door of ministry open to Angie. Why is the Board continuing to slam it shut in the face of daring faithfulness?
We believe strongly in the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ. And we believe strongly in the United Methodist Church’s work to extend invitation rather than rejection. Do be so kind as to write us back to help us see more clearly how denying Angie’s request for Commissioning as a Provisional Elder is the very kind of inclusive nature of the church that Board members are elected to help create in consultation with the Bishop, the Cabinet and GBHEM.
Signed,
Click HERE to go to the Google Form where you can sign the letter.