February 22, 2010

CHICAGO – For nearly 10 years members of Abiding Peace Lutheran Church in North Kansas City, Mo., have been worshiping under public censure and admonition, placed on the congregation for hiring a pastor in a committed same-sex relationship. Today the public censure has been lifted, and members of Abiding Peace have been welcomed back to the fold.

"It is an amazing feeling," said Donna Simon, who has been serving as pastor of Abiding Peace since August 2000. "Now there's reconciliation, and we're part of the (church) that we've loved for so long. The lifting of the censure touched us emotionally," she told the News Service of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

When Simon interviewed and accepted the call to serve the congregation, "we entered into uncharted territory." There were not many ELCA congregations in the synod calling clergy candidates in committed same-sex relationships, she said.

"We knew we were sticking our hands into the alligator's mouth," said Simon.

In a final step to becoming ordained, Simon appeared before an ELCA candidacy committee in 1999. She informed the committee that she could not be in compliance with the ELCA's Vision and Expectations document, because she was in a committed same-sex relationship. Vision and Expectations requires ELCA professional leaders to abstain from "homosexual sexual relationships."

"There's no other way to answer the call with integrity than to tell the truth," said Simon. "And when you tell the truth, you get into trouble."

Simon said the candidacy panel recommended her approval for ordination, but the full committee postponed the approval pending change in denominational policy. That change came nearly 10 years later, when the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly approved a series of proposals that created the possibility for Lutherans in committed, publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships to serve as ELCA clergy and professional lay leaders.

Simon said she was given permission by the synod bishop to preside in Sunday worship when she began her work with Abiding Peace. "I was not yet ordained," she said. Simon had sought an alternative route to becoming ordained though Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM) – an organization that credentials qualified candidates of "all sexual orientations and gender identities" for ordained ministry.

Through the years "Simon has been a good steady voice, a good partner in the struggle, and she has the respect of a lot of people with different views," said the Rev. Gerald L. Mansholt, bishop, ELCA Central States Synod, Kansas City, Kan. "She is a generous soul with a kind heart who speaks the truth out of her own faith-life experiences," he said.

In a Jan. 25, 2010, letter to the president of Abiding Peace, Mansholt formally lifted the public censure and admonition against the congregation, placed by a previous synod bishop.

"I am deeply grateful for your patience and continuing partnership in the Gospel over the past nine years," wrote Mansholt. "You have steadfastly participated in the life of the synod, supported the ministries of the church and been a constant presence in our life together. You have done all this without having the privilege of serving as elected members of synod committees."

With the decisions of the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly, Mansholt wrote that he looks "forward to the day when (Simon) may be received onto the roster of ministries of the ELCA."

"(Simon) has spoken the truth in love and shared her witness and struggle as a baptized child of God, even as she prayed for a day of wider understanding and acceptance of the church. All this she has done while engaged in secular employment to sustain her pastoral ministry" with members of Abiding Peace, Mansholt wrote.

For Simon, some of her journey in the past 10 years had been hard. "It was difficult being separated from colleagues. But the hardest thing for me was sitting in the visitor section at synod assemblies and not being part of the work of the church," she said.

The lifting of the censure "feels amazing," said Simon, who said that she will seek to become a member of the ELCA clergy roster. "That's been the goal all along."

Information about Abiding Peace Lutheran Church is at http://www.abidingpeacekc.org/ and the ELCA Central States Synod at http://www.css-ELCA.org/, on the Web.

ELCA News Service