The Rev. Patricia Gillespie knows she'll take some hits for starting a congregation for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
It's a price Gillespie, pastor of The Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan of Sauk Centre, is willing to pay.
"We're about seeking God," Gillespie said. "We're not about who you're sleeping with.
"What does Jesus say about homosexuality?" Gillespie asked. "Absolutely nothing."
Still, Gillespie is ready for criticism.
"I do expect a reaction" Gillespie added. "My role as pastor is to guard the borders of this community.... It's my job to keep the sheep from being eaten, and many of these sheep feel they have been eaten up by well-established churches."
Gillespie gained approval for her plan from James Jelinek, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota, about three weeks ago. Since then she's been contacting area ministers and informing possible members of plans for the new congregation.
The congregation, called The Living Waters, will begin regular Sunday evening services July 5. It will hold services in different churches throughout Central Minnesota. Both contemporary "seeker-style" liturgy and more traditional services are planned.
While some other St. Cloud area churches have welcomed gay, lesbian and bisexual members into their congregations, The Living Waters would be the first church created specifically with them in mind.
"People who have been hurt by the church ... feel they need a place set apart," Gillespie said. "In rural Minnesota there hasn't been a place where gay and lesbian people feel safe."
There are several "open and affirming" churches in St. Cloud in which members are not condemned for their sexual orientation, Gillespie said, including her parish in Sauk Centre.
"My faith tells me that God loves and cherishes all God's children equally," Gillespie added.
The new venture has the encouragement, blessing and support of the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota, Gillespie said.
Gillespie also will continue all of her pastoral duties for The Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan.
"At this point, everyone seems to be very excited about this," Gillespie said. "We wanted to make a safe place for people to worship God."
Linda Maloney, academic editor of The Liturgical Press, and a lay minister at St. John's Episcopal Church in St. Cloud, thinks most members of her congregation will not have a problem with The Living Waters.
"I have addressed the question with several people," Maloney said. "Nobody acted shocked or have been nonaccepting.
"Certainly there is an anti-gay element in the Episcopal Church" Maloney added. "Basically the same people who are anti-women's movement."
In the works are other pieces for the new congregation, including social justice ministries, Christian education, a developing mission in cyberspace for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) youth and other cyberspace ministries.
It's also "a faith community where questions are not only OK but expected. A place where gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender identity and Christian identity are not in contradiction," Gillespie wrote. "And a celebration of Holy Communion where those are who hunger for God are welcome at God's table."
Gillespie said The Living Waters will not perform same-sex unions.
"We will bless and recognize the love between two people, but it would not be the equivalent of marriage," Gillespie said.
Gillespie stressed that she doesn't want The Living Waters to be known solely as "the gay church.
"I'm concerned we're going to be labeled the gay church. We are a seeker's church," Gillespie said. "People are not required to be GLBT. What we're about is seeking God and celebrating diversity."
Gillespie is prepared to battle her detractors, matching Bible verse for Bible verse.
"Jesus was quite clear about loving and accepting people," Gillespie said. "We, as followers of Jesus, are giving people a place to seek God, without judging them first."
Gillespie has informed the members of her Sauk Centre congregation's vestry, a group of church members who manage the affairs of the church. But she hasn't shared plans for The Living Waters with all members of her own congregation.
"My church has not yet signed on the dotted line," she said. Gillespie isn't sure what size her new congregation will be. "I really don't know" she said. "It could be three or 300. My guess is that it will vary a lot."
The places The Living Waters congregation might meet also are still undecided, but could include churches in any number of Central Minnesota communities, including St. Cloud, Sauk Centre, Alexandria, Little Falls, Royalton, Wadena, Willmar, Litchfield and Hutchinson.
There are no plans to build a "gay church," Gillespie said.
"The long-range goal of The Living Waters community is to have everyone back in their own church," Gillespie said "not to have our own little church."
Sandy Dechert of St. Cloud was born and brought up in the Episcopal Church, but hasn't attended services for 20 years. She's eager to join The Living Waters.
"I feel like I belong very much to the group The Living Waters is seeking to gather and strengthen," said Dechert, 46 and a freelance writer.
"I was born and raised in the Episcopal Church, but as a teenager, I started feeling an irreconcilable gap between my sexuality and my spirituality, and I had to pick one," said Dechert, who said she has known she was a lesbian for about 20 years. "I'm afraid I picked my emerging sexual identity." Dechert said after moving to Minnesota three years ago, she started meeting others with similar experiences.
. "I starting meeting people who were gay or bisexual and were involved with the church," Dechert said.
She also had a good friend who found a church she was comfortable in.
'"I saw her joy in the church, and her contentment with her sexuality, that it was possible to have both."
The Living Waters was formed with people like Dechert in mind, said the Rev. Patricia Gillespie, who will be the pastor of the new congregation. "What we want, as followers of Jesus, is to give people a place to seek God, without judging them first," Gillespie said. "We are really putting them in God's hands. The attitude of people worshiping will be affirming. We will celebrate that love."
The Rev. . Bruce C. Henne, rector of St. John's Episcopal Church in St. Cloud, will welcome The Living Waters congregation to worship in his church.
"This is an issue I've preached about;" said Henne, pastor of the only Episcopal church in St. Cloud.
While The Living Waters congregation will "float" among several locations once services begin in July, one regular stop the congregation will make is at St. John's Episcopal Church.
Henne admits some of his parishioners may not share his enthusiasm for that congregation using their church.
"The church's official position is that gay and lesbian people are fully a part of God's people," Henne said. "The reality is there are wildly divergent regular points of view in the church."
So far, Henne said, there has been "no expressed opposition to" the Living Waters congregation conducting services at St. John's.
Henne said he finds no biblical reference or opposition to gays
or lesbians. "I don't think the Bible speaks at all to the issue of sexual
orientation," Henne said. "I think all the half-dozen references to the
issues, both in the Old and New Testaments, are really concerned about
abusive sexual relationships."
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