Who's Counting?
It’s over two decades from the first time my call to exercise leadership and ministry was expressed by others, to reaching the next step on the journey. But hey, who’s counting…?
All the best drivers fail their first driving test, so the saying goes. Which is a pity for me, as whilst it did take me quite a while to get around to learning to drive, I did pass first time. A similar philosophy is often applied to the early days of the ministerial accreditation process within Great Britain. When, and on this occasion it does apply, I did not receive an endorsement for accredited ministry from the Ministerial Recognition Committee on my first attempt, I was met with these sage words just in a different context: “all the best ministers don’t make it through ‘Min Rec’ on the first go”.
Of course, I wasn’t out as a gay man then, I hadn’t married my now husband of almost 8 years, and I hadn’t spent 15 years challenging injustice and advocating for marginalised people. Had the dispenser of said sage wisdom had known what was to come, perhaps they wouldn’t have encouraged me to continue with my theological education and ministerial formation and try ‘Min Rec’ again in a few years’ time.
Ironically, I wasn’t really all that put-out by receiving the well-rehearsed “no, not yet – get some more experience” line from the committee. I was no more than 20 years old, of course I needed more experience in the world – and I was ready and hungry for that. I also felt a resistance to my call, feeling that the idea of ordained ministry had been set upon my shoulders by others, not knowing that my resistance was not to the call, but to the minister who my mentors expected me to be.
I continued my studies at Spurgeon’s and took all the same modules as the folks who were being formed for Baptist ministry. In fact, at the end of it all it was not the fabled return to ‘Min Rec’ that scuppered pursuing my call further, but the requirement for ministerial candidates to sign a statement regarding the practice and behaviour of Baptist ministers. Whilst I wasn’t out the time, I could not in good conscience sign a statement that had me denounce “same-sex genital relations” – it was a pastorally insensitive and clunky statement, one that obviously could personally impact me but that also dismissed the lives of LGBTQ+ people with a flick of a pen.
Perhaps more challenging was the rejection from the Baptist Missionary Society as I came towards the end of my ministerial formation. My heart and my own sense of call was set on overseas mission, and I had spent much of my ministerial formation at Spurgeon’s College in conversation with BMS discerning this, specifically in Albania. I was reflecting on this rejection only recently with some of my family, my parents remembering that I had called them in tears from Birmingham to say that this hope had, so I thought, been crushed[1]. I was turning 22 the next day, still so young to be asking these big questions alone, which I only remember as the day itself was my sister’s 18th Birthday, meaning a 5-hour journey back to Sussex awaited to put on a smile and celebrate with our family and her friends.
My senior minister at the time, who was also my line manager whilst I worked for a Baptist church on the south coast of the UK as Youth Pastor and completed my theological studies alongside, contacted BMS to ask why, after all these years of preparation towards the almost seemingly inevitable destination of my deployment as overseas mission personnel, did they now find a reason to bring it all to an end? The answer: I wasn’t Christ-oriented enough in how I would build relationships and work abroad, a response that my senior minister, having known me for quite some time then, dismissed as not substantiated enough. The real reason, I suspect? I had been asked about my relationship status and support network a lot, including some incredibly inappropriate questions about single-female missionaries who might be “looking for husbands”, as well as whether I felt a calling to being single. It is right and proper to appropriately address questions regarding support structures and relationships when someone is applying for a ministry position, particularly in a context outside of your home culture. However, these questions crossed a line, and it was clear to me then, although I could not share it, that I was being set up to confess my sexuality.
All things can work to the good though, as my Mum will tell you when I couldn’t return to New York City to take up a position with a ministry there due to a cut finger leading to a cancelled visa appointment… a story for another time!
The reason BMS turned me away may or may not have been true, but I can now look back and accept with grace that this was ultimately as things should be; that I likely would have led a deeply unhappy, closeted life, pretending that my life was fulfilled because I had Christ and my “mission”. I only wish that we all had been honest with another, and that these behaviours of nuanced deception were not nurtured in church contexts.
My coming out journey has been shared elsewhere, so I won’t repeat it here. In time I came to not just accept that it was OK to be this way, but to even love it. The journey away from shame, regret, and deception is fraught with peril and I have stumbled a fair few times along the way but as it continues, I have come to a greater and more holistic understanding of who and what I have been called to be.
In the years since there have been many ups and downs in the lives of LGBTQ+ people in the Baptist Union of Great Britain, and Baptist communities around the world, perhaps a few more downs than ups. It was necessary for me to spend some time away from regular worshipping communities, taking the chance to heal and the opportunity to learn and equip myself with skills, insight and knowledge out in the corporate world that I would never have learned had I gone from my A-Levels, to Spurgeon’s, to church-based ministry. Yet, in time, my orbit grew closer to Baptist life again and I’ve been honoured to support the ministry of Affirm: Baptists Together for LGBT+ Inclusion, first as Co-Director, now as Chair of Trustees, and serve as a Deacon for six years at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church – the church in which my husband and I were married. It seems right at this moment to offer a sincere thank you to everyone who has shared in this journey, both the ups and downs.
Of course, I have spent much of the last decade or more accepting that ordained and accredited Baptist ministry will be forever beyond my reach. That it is perhaps not my path to reach that destination, but to clear the rubble and wreckage from the way so that others may make it instead. It has come as quite a shock then, that in recent years a fruitful and mutual relationship has begun to develop with Baptists outside of the UK, that has ultimately led to my ministry being recognised and an invitation to “continue the dance” as a credentialed minister in the Canadian Association for Baptist Freedoms, ordained amongst the community of First Baptist Church Halifax, Nova Scotia. Since first meeting Revd Dr Rusty Edwards in 2019, we have shared and explored a vision for a network of Baptists around the world connected by shared values and views – a network that is active and growing today. Through this and the growth of a relationship with the broader CABF and FBCH communities, we have collectively discerned a path to this point. Delightfully, this is also true for Andrea King, whose story isn’t mine to share, but who has also faced a seemingly endless uphill struggle to live out her call. The invitation to credentialed Baptist ministry with the CABF and an ordination in the community of FBCH is to the both of us, and we are sharing in this together in October.
It is at this point that I struggle to find the words to type. I have goosebumps as I consider all that has been and all that will be, where there has been and will be hurt and pain but also deep joy and profound beauty. A significant part of my conscious self is still uncomfortable with the idea that, after all this time, I will be ordained and credentialed by a community of Baptists - and even with what ordained ministry means for Baptists at all. Since these conversations began and became less of a pipedream and more of a reality, I have wrestled with questions of worthiness or whether there’s any point in the whole thing at all, as well as considering how this step into accredited ministry changes both my sense of self, but also how others may view me too. I have spent a long time on the margins, which in many ways won’t change, but in a few significant other ways it will. The existential crisis that ordering a clerical shirt causes is far more powerful than you’d imagine it might be…
As I take the next step uncertain of where my feet will land but cautiously hopeful as to what could be, and as reminded by a dear friend and colleague, Fr Lee Taylor, I come back to the words of Mary in the Gospel of Luke:
“Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
If you would like to join Andrea and I online for our ordination service in October, please do send me a message and we’ll make sure you’re on the list to receive details on how to do so. In the meantime, please pray…!
Luke Dowding, CEO.
[1] I’m writing this piece in Tirana, Albania, where I now spend most of my time when not on the road. I appreciate that the Divine does indeed have a sense of humour, but also commitment to the desires that are placed on our hearts.