2019: The Year of God's Doors

Hi all, and welcome to Open’s Year in Review for 2019! We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s jump right in.

2019 started with a lot of hope. The Special General Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) on the “issue” of human sexuality was coming up in early February and we, like many who love Methodism, were hopeful that the larger church would follow in Open’s footsteps of loving and embracing all as children of God regardless of gender, orientation, or identity.

What actually happened completely blindsided a lot of people, myself included. Instead of passing the more liberal One Church Plan, which seemed like a shoo-in, the General Conference (the legislative body of the church) voted in favor of the Traditionalist Plan, which has been described by many as “draconian.” This plan reinforced the discriminatory language against LGBTQ individuals in the Book of Discipline (the governing documents of the Church), essentially barring the ordination of LGBTQIA+ individuals and threatening pastors who performed same-sex marriages with punishment. It hurt. It hurt a lot. Especially in our beloved community, which has made its name on embracing and empowering LGBTQ-identifying folks as beautifully and colorfully made, on purpose, by a God who loves us just as we are.

I will remember forever the Sunday which followed the St. Louis General Conference. It is seared in my mind as bright and hot as the hundred little candles we lit in solidarity with our LGBTQIA+ siblings the world over, especially those who did not have safe places to worship as we did. Everywhere you looked there were rainbow articles of clothing. Jonathan’s sermon was particularly well-timed; it was part of a series called “How to Survive a Shipwreck.” And boy, had our ship been wrecked. But that turned out to be a very important thing.

Because, in Jonathan’s words: “A shipwreck can wreck you, but it can also resurrect you.”

A few days after General Conference, a remarkable thing began to happen. Methodist churches all over the country began to put up art installations, simple but impossible to ignore: six doors, each painted a different color of the rainbow, emblazoned with the message “God’s doors are open to all.” It was a beautiful act of resistance and solidarity and naturally, Open jumped on the bandwagon right away. Our door-painting party in Flinn Hall was a bittersweet occasion, yet resolute. The pain in the room was palpable, but the painting was fun and the hope was fierce. It was nice to have something visible to do. A statement to make. A sign to put outside our own doors, telling anyone and everyone who passed that they were not alone.

As I painted our yellow door, Krystal approached me and asked if I was aware of my call to ministry; I said yes, I was. It was something I’d recognized in myself for a long time, but had always resisted or dismissed. But the General Conference ruling lit a fire in me that I could no longer ignore. I wrote post after post in anger and pain and defiance and hope and love. It was the writing I did on social media during this time that revealed my call to her and Jonathan. I promised God during worship on the Sunday after General Conference that I would follow Their call to work for the love and liberation of all people in the Church, especially my fellow LGBTQIA+ siblings in Christ.

A month or two later, with our rainbow doors semi-permanently installed out on the porch (complete with our own “We are Open” rainbow ombre doors on either end), Jonathan and Krystal proposed hiring me as Open’s first ever intern. I accepted immediately. We planned for me to start in the fall.

The doors took their first field trip for Pridenton, Denton’s annual Pride festival, on the square in June. The team simply leaned them up against the courthouse and set up our customary “Free water” table nearby, this time with free stickers to hand out. The reaction was overwhelmingly positive. Tons of revelers stopped to take pictures with the sweet message. It was clear the doors and the love and support they symbolized meant a lot to people, even if the God part wasn’t really their thing. The message was what mattered.

Music played. People danced. Smartphone cameras flashed. As the evening went on, Jonathan, Jenny, and Adrienne laid on the lawn, chatting and looking at the sky. My heart glowed with the peace of God, the warmth of summer, and the joy of the authenticity all around.

*Friends relax on the lawn at Pridenton.*

Another wonderful thing that came out of this summer was Pub Theology, led by our friends Jenny and Laura and hosted at the Bearded Monk. The fellowship, discussion, and beer that came out of those weekly gatherings were a special kind of gift.

Also around this time, Open hired Kake Nations as our spiritual director and began planning the project that would become Glow by Open. Kake and Krystal together secured a “Ministry-With” grant from the North Texas Annual Conference of the UMC and called together queer leaders from the Open community to plan an LGBTQIA-led ministry, which the grant would fund. The idea from the start was to form a spiritual community specifically by and for queer-identifying folks, with creativity at the heart of it all. Over dinner at Kake’s lovely home, we talked about how best to create a safe, queer space; how to connect creativity and spirituality; and what to call the thing. What came out of that was Glow, a queer Christian community focused around sharing our “gifts”—our creative inclinations—with each other.

This idea first took shape in a visioning workshop which I was blessed to be able to lead. We decked the studio at the Greater Denton Arts Council out in rainbow colors and passed out paper invitations to people we wanted to be a part of this ministry. I was blown away by how people came through; there were about fifteen people at that first gathering, and each had something beautiful to contribute to this new thing. (You can read more about that experience here).

*Vision boarding at Glow’s first gathering.*

With these new and exciting things happening, along with the beginning of my internship and the beautiful blossoming of our college and career group, we decided it was time for the doors to take a second field trip, to the University of North Texas main campus. On a gray, humid morning in early November, Jonathan and I hauled them to the library mall and set them up in a grassy area, along with our table, with handouts promoting Open, Glow, and the college and career group. As at Pridenton, God’s doors attracted a lot of attention. Even if they didn’t stop to talk, people took pictures or videos and smiled or thanked us for the message. Those who did stop to talk were, overall, pretty excited and interested in what we had to offer. Friends from Open came by to visit and show their support.

One girl approached to ask who we were and what the deal was. When I started to explain that we believed in the worth of all people, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation, her eyes filled up with tears. As I kept talking, she cried even more. She was totally overwhelmed by the love we had come to share. That interaction alone made the entire long, sticky day worth it.

*God’s doors on the UNT campus, featuring some friends from Glow and our College & Career group!*

The last couple months of 2019 saw many more blessings in our community. Our friend Jenny Bates was affirmed in her journey to become a certified candidate for ordination by FUMC Denton—an especially big deal considering the General Conference ruling. We baptized several folks and welcomed many more as official members of our community (many of whom identify as members of the LGBTQIA+ community). The new Open Choir (under the direction of Krystal and my partner, Max Mollenkamp) had its first rehearsals and its first performance, which was a piece called “When God is a Child”—a perfect choice for ushering in our third advent season together. And Glow by Open, after only four months, did our first mission together: decorating Christmas cookies for the residents and staff of Journey to Dream and Cumberland Presbyterian Children’s Home.

Friends, a shipwreck can wreck you, but it can also resurrect you.

2019 was a year of heartbreak and hope, revelation and resistance. To me, it will forever be the year of God’s doors. Tomorrow, a new year will begin, and with it, a new decade. And the Traditional Plan will officially go into effect across the UMC. But God’s doors will remain standing, rainbow and resolute, outside Flinn Hall, bearing a message of hope, truth, love, and perhaps most importantly, resistance. Know that Open is so needed in this world, now more than ever. And as an integral part of this community, you are needed, too.

I look forward to seeing how God’s dreams for us in 2020 are realized.

Happy New Year, sweet friends. See you in 2020!

-Hannah Phillips

Campus and Community Outreach Intern