When I started seminary I found myself studying alongside people who were not so fortunate. Some of my classmates had converted from denominations that did not ordain women or LGBTQ people. Some of my classmates had chosen to remain in those denominations in order to continue to advocate for inclusiveness and equality. Because the PC(USA) had voted to allow LGBTQ people to be ordained only 3 years before I entered seminary, some of my classmates were among those who had spent years fighting for their call to be affirmed by the church, and who were finally allowed to begin the ordination process. I encountered people who had never heard a woman or LGBTQ person preach before. I encountered others who were still grappling with their sense of call because of the discrimination they had faced in the churches where they were raised.
I’ve long believed in the importance of representation. Seeing other women in the pulpit made it clear to me that I could be there too. Despite the people who claimed women had to be silent in church, I knew that I belonged there because God was calling me. The same is true for LGBTQ people, who are even less likely to meet a pastor who is like them. It is hard to believe that God is truly calling you to ministry, if you’ve never met someone in ministry that looks like you. But today I found an article that brought up a different side to why representation matters (read it here). The author of the article is not a pastor, she never mentions feeling called to ministry, but it was just as important for her to meet a female pastor as it was for me. After so many years of sitting in churches that told women that patriarchy is God’s will, her encounter with a female pastor made her feel fully part of the Body of Christ. She says that while in that woman-affirming community “my gifts were welcomed. I was never given any reason to doubt that I was just as worthy, just as chosen, just as created in the image of God, as the man sitting next to me.”
Representation in ministry matters, not just for the kid who thinks they might want to be a pastor someday, but also for the person who never will be. The church has spent a long time telling women to be silent and telling LGBTQ people they must change in order to be welcomed. Those misinterpretations of scripture lead people to question whether or not they are truly beloved children of God. Hearing a woman preach from the pulpit tells the little girls (and all women), you are just as much made in the image of God as the men are. Seeing an LGBTQ person presiding over communion tells the people grappling with their sexuality or gender identity, God made you as you are and you don’t have to change a thing about yourself to have a place in God’s kin-dom. Representation matters, so we can all see the image of God in ourselves, as well as in every person we encounter.