I believe I’ll Run On: A Reflection on this Powerful Work

This year has been a ride! Like every organization, WomanPreach! has learned the gift and grief of Zoom work and continued to build our community, which we gladly call #WomanPreachNation. This “nation” consists of people (all genders) who come alongside us by participating in a program, giving to our work, and sharing our work with other people. Some of our siblings have been co-conspirators from the very beginning of this work; others are just now discovering us 11 years later. I’m glad for everyone who knows that this work of honing and strengthening the prophetic preaching voice is important. For years I have said, and continue to believe, that as an organization we do one thing, and we work hard to do that one thing very well: we train public speakers and preachers to find the sound of God in their own throat by preaching and speaking prophetically. 

We don’t assume that people know what “prophetic” preaching is. What it is not is just making the proverbial list of all the wrongs of the society. Those lists often aren’t even diagnoses, but merely a list of the obvious “isms” that people assent to or tune out. Prophetic preaching uses the best and most graphic imagery to bring attention to the harms to the most vulnerable, find the word that God has for those who suffer and against those who cause or are complicit in the suffering. It’s a complex reality in which one acknowledges that at any given moment we could be along the spectrum of harmed and harmer. Another way of saying that is that we are sinners. Prophetic preaching doesn’t leave us with the “we are sinners,” though. It calls us to see the world as it ought to be and join our heart, our energy, and our resources to that God-vision. WomanPreach! is glad to be a part of that work.

Over the month of October, we dove into our values in two ways. First, my conversation with the Presiding Prelate for The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, Rev. Dr. Yvette Flunder, was a reflection on the power of what it means to speak from the margins, not as if the margin is a place of powerlessness, but rather from the margins as a people freed by God to dance and explore “outside the camp,” if you will. I’ve been ruminating over one thing Bishop said in our conversation that will continue to be a part of my own prophetic commitments. She said, paraphrased, when we live and love on the margins without longing for the center of corrupt power, eventually people will follow the noise of freedom, dance, and joy that characterizes our freedom. She said it more eloquently than that, but it speaks loudly to me. What will happen when leaders who speak to and for the church and behalf of God choose the margin as a site of revolutionary joy and freedom?

The second event in October was our first “closed event,” a collaboration with the West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church. As an organization we do nothing without collaborating, so after working with Bishop Gregory Palmer, we provided our Sophie’s Table offering, which includes all genders and asks participants to be especially concerned for justice and social ills as they have an impact on the most vulnerable, especially women and children. The gathering produced powerful reflections and our artist-in-residence, Jaha Zainabu, provided us with her provocative poetry, which led to introspection and broke open the scriptural texts. Then the chair of our Board of Directors, Rev. Dionne Boissiere, led the plenary on “finding voice,” and I was inspired to continue in this work of seeking to find out “what God sounds like in [my] throat.” 

We've had a good year, including the closing conversation with Bishop Flunder on December 2, where we talked about preaching to support people living with HIV/AIDS in honor of World AIDS Day, which had happened the day before. Another lively and enlightening conversation, Bishop reminded us that viruses are not "sin;" they are pathogens that need treating and the preacher's role is to help be the presence of God to those suffering, and to encourage those who are not to embrace all communities.