Jack McKinney and Nancy E. Petty

Pullen Memorial Baptist Church

April 29, 2007 – Fourth Sunday of Easter

Celebrating 5 Years of Pullen’s Co-pastorate

Subversive Ministry

Jack McKinney

Text: 1 Corinthians 12:12-14

I have always loved these words from 1 Corinthians 12: “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many.” (verses 13-14) Such an egalitarian sentiment in those thoughts. Such a noble concept that categories and labels don’t matter in the church because we are all part of the same body. Such a democratic feel to the phrase “the body doesn’t consist of one member but of many.”

The only problem is that for centuries some people in the church have known it is a lie. There is nothing egalitarian about an institution that says only men can be in charge. There is nothing noble in saying categories and labels really don’t matter in the church when certain titles and privileges are reserved for one group only. Any democratic community that celebrates the equality of all its members is guilty of the worst kind of hypocrisy when it creates a steep hierarchy in its leadership that suppresses more than half those members. Yes, I love the image the Apostle Paul puts forth in 1 Corinthians of a church made up of all kinds of people equally important, equally valued, equally in power. I just wish it was true.

Five years ago our church voted to establish a new model of pastoral leadership. For the first time Pullen would have two pastors instead of one. For the first time one of those pastors would be a woman. And just to put the cherry on top, for the first time Pullen would have a gay pastor. If nothing else happened five years ago we at least took a small step towards living into the vision of a church where all people are valued equally.

In the immediate aftermath of Pullen’s vote on the co-pastorate there was a fair amount of media attention. Nancy ended up on the front page of the N&O and Newsweek sent a photographer down to shoot some pictures of the two of us. Well, it was more than some pictures. The photographer spent four hours taking shots of us, and in the end, the photo that ended up in Newsweek showed the two of us scowling. Which, after four hours of photo taking, is about the only facial expression one can expect. There was a time in those first couple of weeks after the vote that I feared we might have a carnival barker out front shouting: “Come see the amazing two-headed pastor: one male and one female; one gay and one straight.” Fortunately, we avoided that part of the circus.

But then something interesting happened. People quit calling and asking for interviews. The conversation inside Pullen largely turned to other important matters of our church life. Like a couple that went through the excitement of a wedding and honeymoon (forgive this analogy, Nancy), we came home to dirty dishes and a pile of bills. In other words, we got on with living and things returned to normal.

And if you want to know the biggest lesson, and maybe the biggest surprise I take away from the last five years, it is simply this: the greatest social, political, and theological statement that this co-pastorate has made has not come in the media accounts of it or the controversial discussions it has generated. No, the most important statement has been the simple, day-to-day shared leadership of two pastors and their church who supports them. There is nothing particularly remarkable about it. It’s just Nancy and Jack, and the rest of the staff, and all of you, trying to do church the best we know how. Trying to say something hopeful and true in a world gone mad. Trying to support each other as we live through the trials and tribulations of life. It’s not that revolutionary, really. Except for the fact it isn’t happening everywhere. In truth it isn’t happening hardly anywhere. And so the day-to-day life of this church, and its two-headed pastor, suddenly becomes a profound social, political, and theological statement. I can’t wait for the day when all of this seems very unexceptional because that will mean the doors to ministerial leadership will have flung open to everyone in every church.

Five years ago, as Pullen was preparing to vote on the co-pastorate, I told you a lie. I didn’t know it was a lie at the time, but I realize it now. I said to some of you back then that if we adopted this model of pastoral ministry not much would change. I wanted to relieve people’s anxiety by pointing out Nancy and I would be doing largely the same things we were already doing. What I know now that I didn’t know then is that many things would change with that vote. Not in terms of tasks or duties, for the work of the church stays largely the same no matter how many pastors you have. What I didn’t realize was how profoundly I would be shaped by sharing this role that I had always done by myself. There were painful losses for me and there were gratifying gains. I have grown more in these five years of my ministry than all the previous years combined. I have learned many lessons by watching Nancy, one of the most skilled ministers I have ever known. I have had to question and re-consider many things because I work with a partner who often sees things differently than I do. But in the end I believe I am a better person and minister because of this, and I believe Pullen is a better church because it hears two voices from its pulpit, and has two pastors to guide it spiritually. Yes, many things are different five years after the co-pastorate began, not the least of which is me.

Paul told the Corinthians: “The body (church) does not consist of one member but of many.” This church is about much more than who stands in this pulpit. Pullen is about all of us working together to serve a church we love. It’s just that five years ago, when we made Nancy our pastor, we decided Paul’s noble, egalitarian vision of the church had to be more than rhetoric. I’m privileged to pastor a congregation that gets that. And I’m honored to call Nancy Petty my pastor.

Subversive Ministry

Nancy E. Petty

Text: Exodus 1:15-20

The story of the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, is one of my favorite biblical stories. I love the fact that it is a story about the courage and passion of women who do justice in the face of injustice. I love that it is a story about women taking on the power and privilege of a male dominated system. But most of all I love this story because it is a story of subversive ministry—a ministry that found ways to challenge the establishment; a ministry that focused on life and hope not power and dominance; a ministry that faced the injustices of an entire social system; a ministry that declared, “things don’t have to stay the same simply because they have always been this way or any other—and especially when those ways are harmful, destructive and even life-threatening to others.”

Like the midwives of ancient history, there have been many people in more recent times to engage in acts of faith that represent subversive ministry. You know their names: Sojourner Truth, Harriett Tubman, Mother Teresa, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Eleanor Roosevelt just to name a few. All of these people lived their lives with one common purpose—to overthrow systems of injustice, inequality, oppression, and dominance. And because of them and countless others our world is different and better.

Five years ago this church entered into a subversive ministry of sorts: a model of leadership we affectionately call “the co-pastorate.” Internally, that is for us Pullenites, as we considered a model of co-pastoring, it probably didn’t feel like a subversive act. It wasn’t done quietly or in secret—we talked about it a lot before doing it. We weren’t risking our lives to do it—although to some I know it felt like we were risking a hell of a lot. Unlike the midwives, we didn’t even have to lie to do it—we tried to share honestly and openly how it made us feel. But the truth is Pullen’s decision to call both me and Jack as equal pastors was a subversive act of ministry. In doing so, you dared to challenge, even overthrow, a well-established system of power, privilege, dominance, and inequality. You took the risk to say that there might be a better way for the church, specifically Pullen Church, to share leadership. You took the risk and said that pastoral leadership is not just for men—a new step even for this church. You challenged a powerful institution (the church) and said that homosexual persons can be pastors. It was not an easy decision, I know because I lived through it. It was a decision wrought with emotion, strongly held theological beliefs, more strongly held personal beliefs, and unanswerable questions of leadership and change. Like the midwives, your call to justice and equality; your willingness to say “no” to power, privilege, and dominance and “yes” to equality through shared leadership; your resistance to maintaining the status quo; and your courage to risk failure (none of us knew how this would turn out) have for the past five years engaged this church in a subversive act of ministry.

So what has it been like for me to be a part of this subversive ministry called co-pastoring? What have I learned—about myself, about shared leadership, about the person I co-pastor with, and about who we are as a church?

My first word is that on many levels it hasn’t been easy. Most often I have felt like Jacob wrestling the stranger in the night not knowing if that stranger was myself, God, the church, or someone else. I have struggled to find my voice so that I could speak to you honestly and authentically. I have wrestled with my expectations as well as your expectations of what it means to be your pastor. I have had to face my limits and insecurities as a leader. I have had to acknowledge to myself and others that in some aspects of my being I am not who I thought I was and in others ways I am more than who I thought I was. I have had to dig deeper to know more fully what I believe about God, Jesus, salvation, grace, redemption and my faith as a whole. I have experienced the embarrassment and blessing of failure. And I have experienced the incredible, humbling moments of grace and forgiveness.

I tell you all of that to say that at the heart of this experience—this relationship with you and Jack—I have been stretched and challenged spiritually. These past five years have been some of the most spiritually forming and transforming years of my ministry. I also believe this model of ministry, in subtle and not so subtle ways, has stretched and challenged us as a church family. You have had to struggle with what it means to have two pastors. You have been challenged by two distinct voices coming from this pulpit that has traditionally claimed one voice. You, too, have been stretched to find your voice in the midst of two leaders leading out of their very different stories. As a church we have had to face that we are not always who we thought we were and in other ways we are more than who we thought we were. All of us have had to face our prejudices, our perceived notions of what a pastor is and is not, whose voice we will listen to, who we will allow to minister to us, and even how sometimes we participate in the oppression of others. We still have work to do—our work is not finished. We have had to learn that our experience and truth is not everyone’s experience and truth—that truth has many dimensions. Yes, I believe that these have been some of the most spiritually forming and transforming years of this church’s life. It’s hard to see it now, but I imagine ten, fifteen, twenty years from now we will look back and see more clearly how this model changed or transformed our understanding of who we are and how we live and work together as God’s faithful community.

In my fifteen years of ministry with you I have witnessed, that as church together, we are a healthier and more vital community when we are challenging ourselves spiritually and theologically, taking risks for justice and equality, agreeing to disagree on matters of substance and meaning, and engaging each other in honest and authentic conversation and relationship. In the midst of all the other important and significant ministries of our church, the shift from single pastor to co-pastor has given us opportunity to learn, stretch, grow and take risks together in ways that I believe have made us a healthier and wiser community. Has it been easy? No, absolutely not! And those of you who spoke words of caution and concern about this model were right in doing so. It is harder to make decisions when there are two leaders. It does require more communication. It takes longer. It is sometimes unsettling and frustrating. We know this from our family structures. But I believe one of the most significant blessings of struggling with all that comes with this model of co-pastoring—of shared leadership—is going deeper spiritually as individuals and as a community. We have had to go deeper spiritually in discerning our theology, finding our truth, facing our prejudices, and doing justice. I hope you will ponder if and how having two pastors has spiritually enriched your life. And as Jack has suggested, look not in the dramatic events but in the subtle, everyday happenings.

My last word to you for now on the co-pastor model is expressed in a parable Jesus told his disciples. He told them this story.

“No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.”

Our world is desperate not just for new wine but new wine in new wineskins. When our church, because we are Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, risked putting new wine in new wineskins it had a ripple effect in church life beyond ours. More and more Jack and I receive calls from other churches asking us to share our experience. For many, it is becoming more obvious that putting new wine in old wineskins is not working. And they, too, are looking for new wineskins. By risking the co-pastor model of leadership Pullen has once again placed itself in a position to help other churches have a conversation about what it means to do justice. For sure we don’t have the answers but we do have an experience that we can share and we can give witness to a new understanding of how to be God’s faithful people in this world.

God’s people must be willing to continue to challenge our systems and institutions of power, privilege and male dominance. We must continue to be that counter-cultural voice in our world. We must see ourselves as midwives—helping birth life where others bring death and destruction. To be midwives means to risk engaging in subversive acts of faith. Pullen has a tradition of midwife activity. As I see it and as I have experienced it, our decision five years ago continues that tradition. And not only Pullen Church but the larger church is different and better for it. Is it easy being a midwife? No, absolutely not! But it is life-giving and world-changing.

Shiphrah and Puah—two Hebrew midwives stood for an ideal. They acted to improve the lot of others. They faced the injustices of an entire social system and in so doing they sent forth a tiny ripple of hope. That ripple built a current that swept down one of the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

The next time you wonder, the next time we wonder as a church, if what we are doing is making a difference think of this: if Shiphrah and Puah had submitted to Pharaoh’s orders, there would have been no narrative of liberation, no Passover imagination, no gospel.

Oh, and what have I learned about the person with whom I co-pastor. I have learned that like in any significant relationship, sometimes he frustrates the heck out of me AND that he is a man of justice and hope; of integrity and compassion; of grace and forgiveness. And I am honored to serve alongside him.