My First Year in Thanksgiving and Gratitude

With The Very Rev Gary Hall

As of today, I have served as Integrity's Executive Director for one full year. It has been a wondrous journey. It is an incredible blessing to be called to serve lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, the Episcopal Church, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

This year we have seen enormous progress-we have new members and new parishes, more volunteers at large and in the office, so many victories, along with a great sense of purpose. This year our victories have included marriage equality in Oregon, progress towards passing the Equal Housing and Employment Act in Ohio, the beginnings of a renewed push for inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in the American South, and the overturning of too many anti-LGBT ordinances to list.


Today I get to thank more people than I can count, for participating in this extraordinary work and helping me bring my best to Integrity.

To each of you whom I have met over the past year, thank you for your generosity, your kindness, and your energy. It is a phenomenal joy to be a part of your life, to get to know you, and to have the chance to earn your friendship. Thank you to all the people who invited me, a young transgender woman, to speak. Thank you to all the folks who listened. Your ideas, questions and interest are a light in my life, are a thrill and an education.

Thank you to all of our leaders from the Provincial Coordinators to the Diocesan Organizers to the local Chapter Leaders for their ongoing push for freedom and recognition. Thank you for working to put on Believe Out Loud trainings, for calling attention to important LGBT work in your own communities: thank you for being an LGBT-loving presence throughout our Church.

Thank you Charlene McCreight, David Soland, Andy McQuery and everyone else who has been the driving force behind all of Integrity's successes in our Oregon freedom to work and our Ohio Equal Housing and Employment Act work. Without folks like you, we simply would not have seen the successes and progress that have made this year such a joy.

To folks like the Rev. Valori Sherer and the Rev. Vic Mansfield who have welcomed Integrity's work in North Carolina, thank you for your energy, optimism, and faith for the future of the South.

To the Rev. Dr. Patrick Cheng and all those who attended Integrity's Campus Ministry retreat, thank you.

To the Rev. David Norgard, the Rev. Cameron Partridge, Mara Keisling, Alison Amyx and everyone else who had shared their wisdom with me over the past year, thank you.

To the Integrity staff, thank you for your dedication, creativity, and excellent work. I couldn't have done any of this without you.

To Integrity's Board of Directors, thank you for your guidance, your direction, and your engagement.

To all of the people who have generously supported Integrity financially, thank you for making it possible for us to do this work. Everything that Integrity does costs money. Thank you for not only recognizing the importance of Integrity's work, but also giving to ensure that our work can continue, that we can keep moving forward, ensuring that our beloved Church is open to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people everywhere.

Thank you God for the blessing of this work. Thank you God for these people and this Church and this world. Please lift us up to follow Your way for us.

The first year was incredible, but we are not done yet. We are not done when the Episcopal Church's inclusive policies are not yet fully instituted in all places and communities. We are not done yet when so many are still excluded from the sacrament of Holy Matrimony. We are not done yet when an entire generation of young LGBTQ have not yet found reconciliation with the Church. We are not yet done when many LGBTQ people in the American South do not even feel safe to be out in their own parishes. We are not done when gay and transgender people still do not have basic legal protections in many states. We are not done yet so long as the constant drum beat of violence and murder again transgender and gay people continues.

As Christ said in the Gospel of Luke, The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." Together let us move forward and bring in the great harvest of Love and Justice!

Let's keep going!

Vivian

Sarah Vivian Gathright Taylor is the Executive Director of Integrity USA

Andy McQuery, Diocesan Organizer for Oregon, Steps Down to Pursue Call to Priesthood

Integrity is proud to announce that Andy McQuery, Diocesan Organizer for Oregon and convener of the Integrity Portland chapter since September, 2009, has been accepted by the Right Rev.  Michael Hanley as a postulant for holy orders and plans to attend Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Conn., in the fall to study for the priesthood.  He has therefore stepped down from his roles with Integrity, although he will continue to serve on the chapter board of directors in an advisory capacity for the next few months. 

Andy McQuery at the Integrity Portland
2014 St. Aelred's Day observance
PHOTO CREDIT: Charlene McCreight

"Just as we were beginning our chapter's renewal, Andy contacted me, asking to serve," said Integrity's Vice President for Local Affairs Matt Haines, who was at the time the Diocesan Organizer for Oregon.  "His humble, stalwart and faithful leadership has helped to create a culture of LGBTQ inclusion all over the diocese.  Well done!"

"Andy has played a role in Integrity events throughout the diocese of Oregon, participating in Portland, Eugene, Salem and Ashland Pride events and leading Believe Out Loud workshops in many churches," said chapter board member Charlene McCreight, who has been elected as the new Chapter Convener.  "His presence has been deeply felt and he will be greatly missed."

At his final Integrity event, Andy said, "Tonight has been grand and glorious, and I stand here with a heart bursting full of gratitude.  I look around this room and I see so many people who have become good, good friends; so many who have given abundantly of their time, talent and treasure in this shared work of justice and reconciliation. We have come so far and done so much, and I will carry you and many wonderful memories in my heart forever."

 Charlene McCreight is the Convener of Integrity Portland

Karen Stevens: Out Loud At Last!

Church of the Good Samaritan: Corvallis, OR

The Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan sits on a corner in Corvallis, a college town in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The big night is finally here. We have just finished a potluck that ended with lemon bars to die for. The room is pleasingly full. Tonight’s program features a panel discussion focusing on LGBT issues of inclusion and exclusion with an emphasis on how to be more welcoming.

At a long table up front, the panel members are ready. Our moderator, Andy McQuery, a gifted communicator and the Integrity USA Diocesan Organizer for Oregon, looks forward to hosting the evening’s talk show. Our youngest panel member is a twenty-three year old lesbian college student and judo champion who works with our youth group. Having come out only three years ago, she regales us with anecdotes, some humorous, some heart-wrenching of what it’s like to live out her authentic identity amidst tensions at home and on campus. Another parishioner sits next to her, a shy but articulate gay man of middle age, a psychotherapist. Finally we have a sister-brother team who serve as co-leaders of PFLAG Corvallis/Albany and are the mother and uncle of a young lesbian woman.

Diocesan Organizer Andy McQuery and
VP for Local Affairs Matt Haines

This panel discussion culminates a lengthy but rewarding process that began when Integrity offered a Believe Out Loud workshop led by (Integrity VP for Local Affairs) Matt Haines and Andy McQuery at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland during the summer of 2010. These two put together an inspirational and motivating program that equipped participants to be agents of change in their own parishes. With my spiral bound BOL Toolkit in the seat beside me, I drove back to Corvallis thinking that within six months we would work through the necessary steps. Before long, the BOL icon, the cross nestled in a rainbow, would grace our web page. It was not to be, at least not so soon.

Generally speaking, Good Samaritan parishioners show kindness and compassion. A few, even then, were already LGBT allies. Many, though well meaning and vaguely supportive, were unfamiliar with the need to be specifically welcoming, so we held forums, assembled a Task Force, and wrote a welcoming statement, as the Toolkit advised. The Vestry encouraged our efforts, and they wanted the Task Force to include the congregation in all the steps. Andy and Matt generously came when needed. Our bishop, the Right Rev. Michael Joseph Hanley, found time in his busy schedule to give the Vestry a pep talk. Our priest, the Rev. Simon Justice, made clear in sermons, newsletters, and comments the importance of LGBT inclusion. In November 2012, the Vestry voted to become a Believe Out Loud Episcopal Congregation. We shouted 'Hooray!' but it wasn’t real until the night of the panel discussion.

Karen Stevens

Members of the Good Samaritan parish family listened intently for more than an hour to challenges LGBT Christians face in the 21^st century. They heard real life stories of men and women they sit next to in church. When Andy presented our BOL certificate to Fr. Simon, the audience applauded with enthusiasm! Now our BOL certificate hangs proudly outside the office door in the foyer where everyone can see it. On the web page, we prominently display our specific welcoming statement and the BOL logo. There’s still more do, but now we intentionally believe OUT LOUD!

- KAREN STEVENS

Karen Stevens is a parishioner at the Church of the Good Samaritan in Corvallis, Diocese of Oregon.