This season we're sharing stories of life change at Forefront. We're calling it “Make A Joyful Noise”! Each story of life change is indeed joyful. These stories mark long journeys of leaving faith, dealing with pain, and living with doubt but finding beauty, community, and joy on the other side!

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Your investment creates more stories of life change, like this one from this from “Sheila’, an anonymous congregant.

Stories from our Congregation: An Anonymous Congregant, a voice to challenge your progressive-ness

I’ve had a version of this conversation many times with someone who considers themselves progressive and goes to church in New York City. 

“So,” I say, “Do you like your church? Out of curiosity, do you know its stance on women preaching, LGBTQ people, or #BlackLivesMatter?”

“Well,” they usually respond, “I like the people. I don’t know for sure what my church believes. I know my pastor has never preached judgment against anybody including LGBTQ people for that matter.”

“In fact,” they go on to say, “there are plenty of progressive people like me who go to my church, including queer folks.”

Sure,” I respond, “but have you ever seen a queer person preach? Lead worship?”

While New York City has a fairly progressive population, not many people know that its churches -- outside of the mainline landscape -- actually skew conservative especially on issues like women preaching, LGBTQ people in leadership, #BlackLivesMatter, and politics at large. What keeps many of these conservative churches going despite its more progressively-minded congregation is usually one of the following reasons (this is true of not just NYC but many urban cities):

• People are kept in the dark about its actual policies

• People know but don’t care enough

After some back and forth, the person to whom I’m talking with usually says, “To be honest, I’m there mostly for the community. It’s church, you know? What can you really expect?”

“It’s sad to see that people assume that because it’s church, they have to check their progressive values at the door. “

It’s sad to see that people assume that because it’s church, they have to check their progressive values at the door. Out of all places, wouldn’t you think that the place you go to for spiritual and moral formation should, at the very least, be on the same basic page about core values?

I’m not advocating that people leave churches whose values they don’t share en masse. But I do believe that nothing will change within those conservative churches unless its progressively-minded congregants stand up, organize and make collectively clear to the leadership that this is what they value and believe, and how they want their church to adapt. 

Here’s what is at stake. A few weeks ago, I spoke over the phone with a person whom I’m going to call “Sheila” and who just joined our church virtually. She started tearing up over the phone towards the end of our conversation because I mentioned to her that we would love for her to join our worship team. It was a simple statement, but a deeply meaningful one because she had just spent the previous hour detailing to me her journey. 

“Sheila was highly involved in her Latinx church in NYC. She was serving in leadership until she came out to her church about her sexuality as she did not want to hide anymore.“

Sheila was highly involved in her Latinx church in NYC. She was serving in leadership until she came out to her church about her sexuality as she did not want to hide anymore. They wanted her to stay, saying that “with time God would change you,” but she decided to leave.

 A handful of years ago, she gave church another shot, this time a hipster church: C3 church in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. (I’m going to name this church because I’ve spoken to so many people who have been misled and burned by it.) She was open about her sexuality from the get-go and was embraced by the congregation and leaders. The pastor always preached about grace and inclusion, and there were plenty of queer and progressively-minded folks volunteering so she was under the impression that LGBTQ people were fully welcomed. So she threw herself into the church, waking up every Sunday at 6am to commute to church as she lived farther away than most to set up for Sunday services, earlier than anyone else at church including most likely the pastor.

“The pastor always preached about grace and inclusion, and there were plenty of queer and progressively-minded folks volunteering so she was under the impression that LGBTQ people were fully welcomed. “

After almost a year, she found out that a leader who had been with the church for five of its six-year tenure had recently been told to step down because she was gay. Sheila was in process of joining the worship team, and decided, with a heavy heart, to walk away from a church she loved--yet again. It sunk her into a depression. Only a month or two ago did she start to research churches again, as she felt in her bones the need for a spiritual community. When she came upon our website, she wept when seeing queer people listed on our leadership page. And she cried again when I told her that our worship team would love to have her -- she didn’t think she would ever have the chance to sing again for God on stage. Sheila’s story is the 7th time I’ve encountered something like this during my time at Forefront NYC church. 

This is what’s at stake of perpetuating the existence of progressive-seeming but conservative-in-reality churches: People like her, whose stories are much more frequent than you might think. They might be there one Sunday, and then gone the next, without explanation, carrying with them indelible spiritual trauma and mental depression. 

“… they might be financially secure and thus unchallenged by their church’s (lack of) sermons on class and poverty. “

From my experience, those who can afford to “know” their church isn’t as progressive as they are but choose to “not do anything” about it for XYZ reason are, frankly, people who would be unaffected by their church’s policies. They might be cis and straight and thus unaffected by LGBTQ policies; they might be a man and thus indifferent to whether women can be elders in their church; they might be white or Asian and thus unaffected by their church’s silence on #BlackLivesMatter; they might be financially secure and thus unchallenged by their church’s (lack of) sermons on class and poverty. 

“So my challenge to all of you, all of us, who consider themselves more progressive than your churches: Is your presence helping or hurting those who are most marginalized in the church? “

I’m glad you consider yourself progressive, congrats, but is your presence actually and actively moving the needle on important values and issues in your church, or is it mostly providing “progressive cover” for your church’s conservative policies, leading to an inadvertent “duping” and “misleading” of congregants? 

Yes, I know, your friends. But you can bring them along to a church that is more in line with your values, and... you can also make new friends. Checking out a new church has never been easier now that many services are online: Just look up the NYC list on Church Clarity. And if you’re looking for a contemporary-style service with a diverse congregation, there are progressive churches that fit that description, just email me.

“I’m glad you consider yourself progressive, congrats, but is your presence actually and actively moving the needle?”

Anyhow, at the end of the day, this is between you and God. My plea is to think about Sheila and all whom she represents. You can start by asking your pastor these hard questions.

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