September 5, 2008
St. John's and its pastor are reborn
Church advocates acceptance, love -- starting with its transgender leader
The pastor of St. John's United Methodist Church wasn't worried about the congregation's reaction to his transition from Ann Gordon to Drew Phoenix.
A banner reading "Praising God, Seeking Justice," hangs outside the Charles Village church. Rainbow cloth is draped from poles inside the Sunday room where members worship. And decades ago, the congregation became an early advocate for full participation of people within the church regardless of sexual or gender identity.
Now Phoenix, who chose the reference to the mythological beast for his last name as a symbol of his rebirth as a man last year, is helping St. John's rise from its own ashes.
The church's sanctuary was destroyed by a fire in 1981, and the congregation had dwindled to about eight or 10 dedicated members when Phoenix -- then known as the Rev. Ann Gordon -- arrived five years ago.
Today as many as 50 adults and children regularly attend services there, and the congregation is beginning the first stages of renovating its building for more community use.
"Everyone can sort of walk in on Sunday, and everyone just sort of accepts them," says Kara Ker of Wyman Park, who joined in 1998. "He has definitely created a space where everyone's ideas are heard, where people have a chance to grow."
And St. John's became the nurturing environment that Phoenix needed to finally recognize and accept that the female gender he was born with did not match the male identity he says he believes God had given him.
"It made it much easier. To be supported by the congregation I'm serving is pretty remarkable," he says.
The 48-year-old grew up in a small farm town in southern Ohio and became a Methodist as an adult, while attending graduate school at American University.
Phoenix felt the call to ordination and entered Washington's Wesley Theological Seminary in 1986.
He was assigned to several congregations in Maryland before the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church placed him in charge of St. John's in 2002.
"I don't believe in coincidences. It had to be divine intervention," Phoenix says.
Founded in 1828, just five blocks north of the birthplace of Methodism in the United States, St. John's was an early base of Methodist Protestantism.
It emphasized justice and opposed the establishment of a hierarchy in favor of power to the laity, Phoenix says.
In the 1970s, it became the 13th congregation to join the Reconciling Ministries Network, which promotes full participation of gays and lesbians in ministry.
In addition to inviting in gay, lesbian and transgender members, the church operates an emergency shelter and has housed political refugees.
"It had a long history of being inclusive," Phoenix says. "I was elated to be appointed here."
When he decided to pursue surgery and hormone treatment last year, he told members individually and then in larger groups.
"I assumed it would not be a problem at St. John's, which it was not," Phoenix recalls.
The congregation's Web site bills St. John's as "worshipping a radically inclusive God." Last month, church members marched in the city's Pride Parade with a float expressing the theme "This ain't your daddy's church."
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