Wesley Student Journal May 2024

WESLEY STUDENT JOURNAL

FROM THE EDITOR

This January I was at the Queer Christian Fellowship conference at which speaker Brit Barron said, "Our queer identities, if we can understand and embrace them, they don't only break down walls of our gender and sexuality, they start to break down every wall in every area of our life." She goes on to quote Octavia Butler who said “All justice work is fiction writing.” When Dr. King said he had a dream where little black kids and white kids would play together, he was fiction writing a world that did not yet exist. What if we imagined a world where people are free? Where black women are seen and heard? Where disabled folks are valued as fully human? Where violence isn’t the answer to every inconvenience? Where queer people have access to life-saving medical care? We have to imagine and write these stories from scratch when we live in a world where these things are not yet true. God has absolutely called us into her higher ways and thoughts by means of our holy imagination. The foolishness of holy dreamers will shame the wise who said it wa sn’t possible for women to preach or drag queens to lead worship but we are brought into the presence of God through their faithful following of God's call. It is inspiration and imagination that connects us to something higher than ourselves.

Keep the faith, Kiry Murray

MEET THE TEAM

Editorial Director

Kiry Murray

They/them

Abby Butler-Cefalo She/her Associate Editor

Associate Editor/

Student Body President

Allison Schwartz She / Her

Writen by Rev. Kipp Nelson

St. John's on the Lake in Florida

Imagine if the rules didn’t affect us. Imagine if tradition didn’t hinder or hurt us. Imagine if the sky was the limit and queerness was the norm. Imagine a blank slate, a new start, and a fully inclusive and affirming church where everyone could be themselves with no expectations attached. This is how it all began for the Big Gay Brunch Church.

As an openly gay pastor living and serving in the South, advocating for LGBTQ+ justice and inclusion has continued to be my greatest sense of calling. Throughout my adolescence and into early adulthood, I struggled to find

people like me leading in the church. Openly gay pastors were not easily visible or accessible. And yet, in 2015 while in seminary at Wesley that very call landed on my heart to remain in the South and work to cultivate spaces of healing and liberation for queer people.

When I moved to Florida in 2017, this became the steady, underlying vision driving my life and ministry. While my first few years down here were dedicated to other ministries within the church, the desire and imagination for so mething new and different never escaped me. It swirled around in my heart and head for years until 2021 when I was eventually appointed as the pastor of St. John’s on the Lake UMC in Miami Beach where this work became possible.

Within my first year, our leadership began a discernment and visioning process to determine what our future might look like. Out of that process came the resounding commitment to double down on our efforts as a Reconciling Church to fight for LGBTQ+ people within our denomination and in the state of Florida. Sitting back and allowing more harm to happen in our church and state was no longer an op tion. We knew it was time to do something bold and courageous.

In the matter of a few short months, we put together a leadership team to dream and scheme a new type of ministry focused in and for the LGBTQ+ community. Through months of prayer, coaching, research, discussion, and discernment, our team landed on the idea of a Fresh Expression ministry centered around a brunc h table: the Big Gay Brunch Church! Our mission is to create a safe space for LGBTQ+ people and allies to connect with God and one another so that all may experience a sense of hope, love, and belonging through the embrace of this community.

To get here, we had to let our imaginations leads us. We had to allow our imaginations to take us beyond the traditions, expectations, and heteronormativity of the church to eventually discover the power of creativity, queerness, and fun. We have discovered that being bold and courageous is crucial and key to building anything that has never been done before. And together we are witnessing the power of imagination coming to life. We are witnessing lives being changed, community being shaped, and God’s love being multiplied.

So, imagine if…

"EVEN THOUGH I CANNOT PREDICT

WHAT LEGISLATION WILL COME OUT OF THIS 2024 GENERAL CONFERENCE, WHAT I CAN SAY IS THAT OUR WORK REMAINS THE SAME REGARDLESS. OUR CALLING CONTINUES TO BE IN THE WORK OF JUSTICE, CULTIVATING INCLUSIVE SPACES WHERE LGBTQ+ PEOPLE AND ALL MARGINALIZED GROUPS MIGHT EXPERIENCE THE TRANSFORMATIVE AND HEALING POWER OF GOD’S LOVE IN COMMUNITY."

REV. KIPP NELSON IN QUEER CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP INTERVIEW

NEW EXECUTIVE

Hello, my name is Austin McNeil, and I am a third-year student from Zebulon, North Carolina. I am excited to be serving you as your student council president this academic year!

Vice-President Grace Rogers She/ Her

Hello! My name is Grace Rogers, and I am a rising second year student here at Wesley. I am originally from Arkansas, and I plan to return after seminary to serve as an Elder in the UMC. Wesley has such an amazing and talented community of students, and I am so excited for all that this year will bring!

Treasurer

Jill Meadors She/ Her

I have had the honor to serve as treasurer for 2 years now. The student council finance committee has made great strides this year and I am prayerful that in the next year we can continue to support the student council and the organizations of Wesley.

NEW EXECUTIVE

Jett served on student council this past year was thankful to be given a glimpse of what it means to serve at Wesley. He looks forward to continuing those actions of service as the secretary for student council.

Chair of Hospitality Committee

Abby Butler-Cefalo She/ Her

Abby looks forward to brining her extensive planning experience to Wesley's student body as she creates a space for spiritual and relational support.

In her new position she seeks to build communitcation between students outside the DMV and the on-campus Wesley community.

시편과 일상의 조화

HARMONY OF PSALMS

By 김예원 Yewon Kim

감리교신학대학교에서 공부하던

, 저는 일상의 경험을 통해 시편을 재해석하는 것을 목표로 하는 가스펠 음악 팀,

My name is Yewon Kim, and I am an M.Div. student at Wesley Theological Seminary. Engaging deeply with "Theology of imagination," I explore how faith can transcend traditional boundaries through creative expression. This theological approach not only connects us with divine possibilities but also rejuvenates our spiritual practices. During my time at Methodist Theological University in Korea, I co-founded Monthly Psalms, a gospel music team dedicated to reinterpreting Psalms through the lens of our daily experiences.

"By interweaving traditional scriptures with modern music, we invite both the young and old to experience the divine in new, meaningful ways."

- Yewon Kim

We strive to make the ancient texts speak in the modern context, creating over 120 original compositions that blend biblical narratives with contemporary life. Each piece serves as a vibrant canvas, where old scriptures are not just read but experienced and lived. As Korean churches today face the challenge of remaining relevant to younger generations, initiatives like Monthly Psalms illustrate the power of innovative theological engagement. By interweaving traditional scriptures with modern music, we invite both the young and old to experience the divine in new, meaningful ways.

Seminary comes with a unique boquet of challenges. Many of us work in the messiness of ministry while juggling papers and classes and meetings and relationships. It is hard and it is holy. This seminary journey is also one worth celebrating. Richard Foster explains the celebration is a collective, communal discipline. A handful of students decided to celebrate all our hard work by pulling together a winter ball. They connected with other students and alumni to make the night one to remember. Staff, faculty, students, alumni gathered together to eat, dance, and simply enjoy the community we have all built together here at Wesley. The hope is that this would be the first of many, the biggining of a tradition of celebrating what God has done, is doing, and will do in our midst.

Wesley celebrated the faculty and staff who have recently published their work. Our community is made up of bright minds and brilliant people. We love taking time to celebrate accomplishments and look forward to seeing the impact their hard work will have on generations to come.

Our very own Stephanie Thomas-Gordon preached a good word as the wesley representative during the consortiums annual sermon slam.

During the innovation hub chapel service we invited worshippers to dream of the kind of world they wanted.

CLOSING REFLECTION

Elliott Branch (he/him)

As we come to the end of the academic year, our natural tendency is to summon, with God’s help, the strength to make it to the end of the semester. We ask God for the clarity to craft the last paper, for the insight to write a good final exam, or for the energy to finish our internship strong. These are imp ortant prayers, but amid our push to the end of the semester, I want to take a beat and reflect on why we are at Wesley. We are all called to share our gifts first in our respective communities of faith but perhaps more significantly in the world. Paul tells us, “And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues.” (1 Cor 12:28).

We are here because we believe in a culture of love of God and neighbor that is countercultural to the world. Something we see tragically missing in places like Ukraine, Palestine, Sudan, Ecuador, Haiti, and those who are the “disinherited,” as Howard Thurman would call them.

What we learn in the classroom and the worksite is important, but it is in our community that we learn so much more. In our tight-knit community of students, faculty, and staff, we learn to recognize God’s grace in our care and concern for each other. That care and concern manifests itself in the grace our professors extend to us with an extension for an assignment when our workload is heavy, the help we receive from a classmate in understanding a difficult point in a lecture, or just a smile offered in fellowship just when we need it. Here, we learn wisdom. Wisdom is more than knowing the answer. It is knowing how to apply that answer in the work of kin-dom building; and it is knowing when asking the right question is better than knowing the right answer. Here, we learn humility. We learn to become comfortable not knowing all the answers, and we open our selves to a prophetic word, sometimes from an unexpected source. In this community, we are reminded that we are not God, and we remember to be grateful for that.

Finally, we learn how to summon the strength and stamina to endure. Endurance is more than finishing the academic year strong. It is about building the resilience to wrestle with the questions that occur to us in our collective journey of learning, questions that rearrange our mental models and sometimes cause us to question our beliefs, if not our faith.

a prayer

Almighty God, you have called us to leadership, just as Jesus called his apostles. As we prepare to take responsibility for doing the work of the kin-dom, give us the grace to love, the wisdom to lead, the humility to follow, and the strength and stamina to endure. We ask these things in the name of your well-loved son, Jesus, the good shepherd. Amen.

THANK YOU TO OUR CONTRIBUTORS

WRITERS

Kipp nelson

Yewon Kim

Elliott branch

PHOTOGRAPHY

Lisa Helfert

jessie houff

Allison Schwarz