How and Why I Left My Vineyard Church—or was I kicked out?

In April of 2015 my wife at I met our pastor and his wife at a bar near the church. We had asked our friends and small group to pray for us and for the meeting because we anticipated that it might be tense. At that time, our relationship with the pastor and his wife would probably best be described as a strained friendship. We all (I think) still liked one another as individuals but had come to realize that we were leaning in different directions spiritually and theologically. At least that is the way I would have characterized the relationship. Those disagreements though, they were coming to a head.

A week or so earlier my wife Ashley, who was serving* as the church's worship leader had asked why the leadership team (at the time I think we were referring to it as the Pastoral Council) hadn't met in quite a while and the pastor had responded that he had chosen to disband/dissolve the council. As Ashley and I were both members of that council and had not found out about its dissolution in any formal way until that communication, we were alarmed enough to ask to meet with the pastor and his wife to discuss things.

Thinking about that meeting I had thrown together a list of items of concern that Ashley and I had developed over time. In preparation for writing this piece I went back and reviewed the list. My concerns at the time involved concerns over leadership structures, over Ashley's treatment as the worship leader, over my own administrative weaknesses as the children's ministry leader at the church, and over two theological differences, one having to do with LGBTQ+ folks and the other having to do with a growing acceptance of word-of-faith/name-it-and-claim-it** type ideas within our congregation which, in my view, reduce the Holy Spirit to a divine magic wand. At the end of my concerns I wrote these questions as entries into conversation for the evening:

• What is your vision for VCCCM [the name of our church at the time (Vinyeard Community Church of Central Maryland), it is now called The Well] for the near and long term future, where are you trying to take us?
• How do you envision loyal, critical, dissent at VCCCM?
• If you have been confused about “where I am [on LGBTQ theology]” why have you never asked me?
• How do you understand the leadership and authority structure in the Vineyard?
• [The Pastor's wife] has often repeated the phrase “we need to believe it” from the front. What, specifically, is the “it” that we need to believe?

We notified our small group*** about our upcoming meeting and asked them for prayers. We never did end up discussing most of those concerns though.

---I started this piece several years ago but found myself unable to complete it in a satisfactory way while I was still closeted. Everything prior to this (aside from some formatting) was pulled from drafts of versions I wrote before coming out.
The material from here forward I wrote after coming out as a trans woman---

The pastor (let's call him Mark) opened by telling us that he had indeed dissolved the leadership team unilaterally and without actually mentioning it to anyone on that team. He didn't give much of an explanation at first and to this day I don't know his full reasons, but what came next did clarify some of it. He went on to tell us that he had come to the conclusion that my presence, specifically as a vocally LGBTQ+ affirming person on our leadership team was preventing a significant move of the Holy Spirit in the church. He "reassured" me that I was still welcome to keep teaching Sunday school and that Ashley was still welcome to lead (he had resisted making her a worship pastor) worship but was clear that when he reconstituted a leadership team I would not be on it. 

That paragraph needs context. 

A perennial concern or desire among many Vineyard churches is the arrival of a significant revival movement marked by supernatural occurrences. Because those don't break out particularly often (the Vineyard was founded as part of one) many pastors and congregations can tend towards a preoccupation with figuring out why they aren't at the center of one of these revivals. A common framework for this (and one our pastor seems to have subscribed to) is the idea, derived from a particular passage in the book of Joshua, that certain people who are guilty of particular "unconfessed sins" will prevent said revival from taking place. Our pastor at the time was increasingly convinced that one of these revivals (commonly referred to as variously large "moves of the Holy Spirit") was right around the corner for our church if he could only identify what it was that was interfering. 

At the same time, I was engaged in a protracted formal online debate with a Vineyard pastor on the West Coast over the status of LGBTQ+ people before God (That debate eventually became my series on why God affirms same-sex marriage which you can find HERE) and the Vineyard USA had very recently published a denominational Position Paper, declaring same-sex marriage, and the ordination of people in same-sex marriages invalid before God. The Vineyard has since unpublished the paper (Position Paper 7 Pastoring LGBT Persons) and, from what I understand, has directed all Vineyard USA pastors to hedge when asked about the Vineyard USA's position on LGBTQ+ people and to redirect any/all media questions to the central offices, but as of this writing my understanding is that it is still in effect and that any Vineyard church which performs a same-sex marriage or ordains a same-sex married person will be kicked out of the denomination****

I was acutely aware of the denomination's now official position on same-sex marriage (their position on trans folk remains undefined and I hope to write a good bit about that in the future) and had even spoken with Mark about my disagreement with it. He had assured me at the time (maybe 3 months before this meeting) that I was fine. I had been particularly worried after seeing the denomination force out (I think they called it "disfellowshipping") a long time movement elder and a lesbian pastor after the two of them (prior to the adoption of PP7) had publicly embraced a the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ people in their church—you can read that pastor's reflection on those events HERE. After some encouraging conversations with Vineyard associated scholars from around the country I had started to think of myself as occupying a "loyal opposition" sort of role in the Vineyard. I loved the movement, I wanted it to improve, I knew they were wrong about same-sex marriage, and I would be part of a nascent movement pushing them towards full inclusion. 

And I thought that was sustainable. In fact only a few months earlier Mark had laughingly recounted that several people from around the country had emailed him after reading my debate pieces just to make sure he knew what his congregant was doing. We both shook our heads at how ridiculous that was. I knew he disagreed with my position but I thought he had my back.

That is the context.

So there we were sitting across the table from a pastor—our pastor—and his wife, telling me that my position in leadership was, or had been, the reason they believed that God had not sent a big revival and miracles to our church. The offer of teaching Sunday School felt like an insult. They were willing to use me and my labor but trusting me with any leadership role—that was a bridge too far. Ashley jumped in at that point and informed them that if they weren't willing to have me in leadership, she wasn't interested in continuing as their worship leader. They accepted this with some grace and we fell into the nuts and bolts of what our separation from the church was going to look like. I wasn't any more interested in attending a church whose leader believed I was stopping God from healing people than I expected anyone else to be and I told them so. I was struck by how my situation—I wasn't even out to myself at the time, in trans parlance my "egg hadn't cracked"—paralleled that of LGBTQ+ folk in the denomination as a whole: "serve: yes; lead: no; and oh by the way we think you are a contaminant in our church". I had already started warning queer people that the Vineyard was not a place where they would be fully included; now that was true for me too*****.

To this day I don't know whether we handled the next step well. Oh I know we were right to leave; I just feel odd about the "how". Ash and I talked about it and decided to give them a month or so so that they would have time to find a new worship leader. I think that was fair, though we certainly weren't under any obligation to do it. The part I feel "some kind of way" about is the reason we gave. We told a half truth. We discussed it with Mark (I honestly can't remember how much of this was our idea, how much of it we just sort of let happen, and how much was a surprise the day the announcement was made) and on the last Sunday we attended, he announced that we would be shifting to attend a church in Baltimore, "closer to where they live and where they have felt more and more of a calling of late". That wasn't strictly untrue—Ash and I had talked about finding a church in the city a number of times before all of this went down but had always decided against it—but we knew, and Mark knew, that that was also not reason we were leaving. I remember feeling conflicted that day. The congregation prayed for us (that was the weekend of the Baltimore Uprising and one or two lines in their prayers for us as we "ministered in the city" was as much attention as the Vineyard Community Church of Central Maryland paid to those events) and it was over. I chose not to "make a scene" or challenge the narrative and we left. 

Given that I am writing this now I don't think I made the right choice there. I should have said something. I should have been public about what had happened. I know that we shared our story with some of our friends before and after we left but I don't know who ended up hurt by that church who might have avoided some pain if they had heard the story earlier.

I don't have a lot to add to that. It is in the past and we are in a very good place at a very good church. We are OK but I want the story out there. 

Footnotes:

*Ashley was unpaid and her hints and questions about being ordained as a worship pastor had been largely ignored.
**This is a simplification as this particular theological debate is not the focus of the post. More specifically I was concerned that the pastor was embracing a over-inaugurated form of Charismatic theology mostly informed by the Bethel folks in lieu of a more classically Vineyard-esque now-and-not-yet theology and practice. As I understand it this has continued to be a significant discussion within Vineyard USA circles.
*** A close knit spiritual community which met several times a week for shared meals and once a week for prayer and bible study.
**** The Vineyard USA (and International) does not consider itself a denomination but a "movement" but for our purposes "denomination" gives a better understanding of what they are and how they are organized and operate.
*****If you have been following my story recently, yes the parallel was deeply uncomfortable for me because even recognizing it felt like appropriating a queerness I felt I had no right to. "Blessed are you when they persecute you for My sake unless you have been so scarred that accepting that blessing makes you feel shame".