‘Out’ lesbian set to be ordained at Westminster United

From the time she was nine years old, Marjorie Johnston felt a calling to serve.

She wanted to help people, she told the adults at church. She wanted to be a pastor. But no one encouraged her to follow that dream. “Boys go to seminary and girls go to Bible school,” was the message Johnston often heard as a child.

Johnston encountered other roadblocks on her way to the pulpit. As a lesbian, she discovered that she wasn’t always welcome at church.

“I’ve been in this pew since I was seven and God has never had a problem with me,” Johnston often tells herself whenever other Christians discriminate against her.

“I am unapologetically Christian and unabashedly gay. … It is who I am, but it’s not all I am.”

Now 47, Johnston will finally realize her dream today when she becomes ordained at Westminster Congregational United Church of Christ. Her ordination to Christian ministry will be a milestone for the entire community: Although the UCC has allowed the ordination of gays and lesbians since the 1970s, this is believed to be the first time for an “out” lesbian to be ordained by a mainline Protestant church in Spokane.

“This is an exciting time for our whole congregation,” said Alan Mackay, a member of Westminster since 1974. “Marj is a very community-minded person who cares for people. … We’ve always tried to be as inclusive as we can and this is just another way to express that.”

While the ordination of gays and lesbians has been a point of controversy among Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians and other denominations, the leadership of the 1.3 million-member United Church of Christ has long sought the full inclusion of lesbians and gays. In addition to their ordination, the UCC in 2005 endorsed civil unions for same-sex couples.

While she is deeply humbled by her calling to ministry, Johnston said she also is profoundly touched by the fact that Westminster – a downtown congregation of about 200 members – has embraced her and wants her as their associate pastor.

“She has a love of the Lord and is a woman of deep faith,” said the Rev. Andy CastroLang, Westminster’s pastor. “She is devoted to Jesus Christ, to God the creator and the Holy Spirit.”

Raised in Raymond, Wash., a town of about 2,600 in southwest Washington, Johnston grew up in an American Baptist church that she still attends whenever she visits her parents. Although the people there didn’t encourage her to go to seminary as a child, they certainly bolstered her faith life. Her mother, who stayed at home to take care of the kids, also set an example to Johnston through her volunteer work at the church and in the community.

After high school, Johnston worked in the mission field by spending 30 months as a volunteer with the Christian Service Corps in Washington D.C.

“I wanted to serve God in everything I do,” said Johnston, “to keep at the forefront the teachings of Jesus, to love my neighbor and to help anyone who has a need.”

Because she grew up in a more conservative church environment, Johnston struggled with her sexual orientation. Although she didn’t know what “lesbian” meant, she was aware from the time she was 12 that there was something different about her. In her late teens and early 20s, as she grew in awareness, she tried to ignore that part of herself by immersing her entire life into the work of the church.

It was a struggle to live a lie and deny a part of herself, she recalled. After reading “The Normal Christian Life,” by Watchman Nee, Johnston was moved by the preacher’s teachings about the connection between body, mind and soul.

“How can we set aside a part of us when all of us belongs to God?” she asked herself. “How can we exclude other people and separate ourselves from them if we are all people of God?”

After reading and praying and talking to the pastor of her church in Washington D.C., Johnston came to the conclusion: “I am a created child of God. I can grow and ask questions. At the same time, I can serve the world.”

During those years of struggle to reconcile her sexual orientation with her faith life, not once did she ever feel as though she didn’t belong at church. “God never left me during those times of questioning,” she said.

Although she came “out” to herself when she was 25, it wasn’t until a few years later that she “fell out of the closet” as a student studying human services at Western Washington University. She also was able to talk about her sexual orientation with her family, who didn’t judge her and even told her that they had figured it out long ago.

“By coming out, my faith life grew more intense,” Johnston said. “It was wildly affirming to realize that God loved me exactly for who I was.”

When Johnston first moved to Spokane in 1994, she attended Emmanuel Metropolitan Community Church, a congregation for the GLBTQ – gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and questioning – community. It was a place where she felt at home, she said, but it didn’t quite fit her desire for ministry.

In 2001, when she went to Chicago Theological Seminary, she realized that in addition to the gay community, “my call is to be there for all the people of God.”

Her seminary studies led her to the United Church of Christ, a denomination that she describes as “on the cutting edge” of the Protestant church. When she returned to Spokane, she was immediately drawn to Westminster – not just because it’s a UCC church, but also for the people who immediately took her into their fold.

“This is the table of Jesus Christ and all are welcome – the young and old, the gay and straight, the rich and the poor, the sick and the healthy,” CastroLang often says when inviting the congregation to communion. “This table is for all.”

During the ordination this afternoon, clergy members from the Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Church of Christ and others will wear black and white robes adorned with red stoles during a processional into Westminster. After affirming her vows to the church, Johnston, too, will receive a stole – a beautiful piece in swirls of blue, green and purple depicting mountains, the wilderness and a moonlit-sky, a stole commissioned by her partner of six years, Cindi Abbott.

After the prayers and affirmations, members of Westminster and others attending the ordination will bless Johnston with these words: “By the grace of God, she is worthy. Let us ordain her. Come, Holy Spirit.”