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[WW] All Are Welcome (Megan Brown Perspective) · The Wesley Word

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Wesley Word.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: If you have talked to me yet today, you know that I don't like speaking at church, and I'm not super excited to do this, but I know I need to, so we're gonna get through this together.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry in advance if I cry, because that happened every time I practiced.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um but first let's pray.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: God, thank you for this amazing group here today.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for the group that helped serve us our food.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: We really appreciate that.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Let us be with you and be able to go out into the world and share your grace and your love with everyone we come into contact with, and just be able to really know how much you care and you love for us, no matter what is going on.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Name we pray.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: So when I talked to Steve about doing my perspective, I went back and forth for this for a while.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Mine was going to be the week that we had trunk or treat.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, I was a skeleton that day, so we did not have it.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm gonna be talking about how all are welcome and what acceptance looks like through the church and through our faith.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: So a little bit about me.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, if you haven't met me, I'm Megan.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: I have lived in Clemson my entire life.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: I have both been going to Clemson United Methodist since I was in fifth grade, so about 12 years now.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: I am on leadership for like three or four different organizations at Clemson, and I have about five jobs, but yet I am not dead right now.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: So all of these pictures are from important people in my life, important events that happened with me, and just who I consider my family.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: So when I look at how we say all are welcome, it is the first thing you read on our mission statement for Wesley.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: It is on all of the shirts that we have, and sometimes I take that for granted.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: But when I was writing this, I was looking at what do I feel like when we say all are welcome?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think that means that no matter who you are, what your identity is, what you're going through, you are welcome in the house of the Lord.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: You are welcome here in Wesley.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: We love you, we want you to be here.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: And since I've been in Clemson since I was in fifth grade and going to this church, I have seen what that looks like.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: I have seen the different groups that we've had come here, and I know that we are not the most diverse group.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: So my focus tonight is gonna be on how we say all our welcome in the form of race relations in the church, as well as acceptance for the LGBTQ plus community.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: So when I was looking at this, I found a verse that I thought was a really good way to look at God's love.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: If you look at it, Romans 8, verses 37 through 39 say, No, and all of these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: For I'm convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: When I read that verse, the only thing I thought was God's love is stronger than anything else.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And again, sometimes I take that for granted.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I know that I get busy, I focus on other things, but every day when it comes down to it, I'm not able to do anything without God's love.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not able to be who I am without God's love.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: And a big thing with me is I am a person of color, and there are not many in here today.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: But um, Zach, can you use the next slide for me?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: So my race has been a little important for me in church, and this is things that happened to me when I was 14 years old versus when I was 19 years old.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: So when I was 14, I was in my reading strategies class, and my profess or my teacher at the time came up to me and she said, Hey, you know Michael Brown, who was killed in Ferguson?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: He has the same name as your little brother.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: How do you feel about that?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was in eighth grade, I was 14, and I was terrified.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: And when I talk about that, this is what's been getting me all day.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: I love my little brother if you've ever seen me with him.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: And to think that someone would come up to me and say that, I was not prepared for it that day.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: I still don't, I look back at it and I don't know what to say to it.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because the fact that we have this type of brutality and hatred in our world doesn't make sense to me because I grew up in a household that taught me to love everybody no matter what's going on or who they are.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: If you've seen my parents, they're an interracial couple.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: They got married in 1998, in April.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: In November of 1998, is when South Carolina actually legalized interracial marriage.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: So they got married before it was legal.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: We kind of joke with them about that, saying that we're gonna like turn them in for tax pride or something like that.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: Just whenever we're mad at them, it's a little joke Mikey and I will say sometimes.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um but they didn't care because they knew that they love each other and they knew that in God's eyes it was what was right to do.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: I know that at their wedding, a lot of our family wasn't there because they didn't think it was right, they thought it was immoral, they were just racist at the time, and that's what they grew up with.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: But my parents are amazing.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: I love them.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: They have been married now for I think about 25 plus years, something like that.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever that math is from 1998.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but they taught me to love each other.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: My home church is not Clintonine Methodist.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: My home church is a church in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: It is an AME church, which is African Methodist Episcopal Church.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: And our sister church is Mother Emmanuel in Charleston.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: So my family goes to the church that had the shooting where nine people lost their lives during a um study group.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember when I read about this, and I remember when my family all reached out to us about it because no one knew what to do.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't understand why someone would walk into a house of the Lord and take people's lives.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: I still don't.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm never gonna understand that.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember our pastor at the time here, Pastor Keith, he preached about it.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of churches were reaching out to each other, and everyone around us in the community was talking about how terrible it was and how much they were grieving and care for that family of all of the victims.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: And the entire time I was just thinking that could have been my family.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: It was people I probably was related to, and I just didn't know it.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: And when we went there in um high school for a youth group trip, and we went to that church, I remember sitting in the pew and crying while they talked and they sang songs because that type of church is what I grew up in.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: I went to black churches my entire time when I was little.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I was sitting there like, wow, this church has had so much tragedy, but they still are so connected through their love of the Lord and their faith in Jesus Christ and his grace that they are getting past this and they are growing together.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then in 2020, George Floyd was guilt.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: This wasn't a church, this was another act of brutality.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: I know all of y'all know about it.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: But it was over quarantine.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And when it happened, Steve texted me.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, How are you doing?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I'm fine.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Was I fine?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Probably not.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I was so used to hearing about this type of stuff that I was numb to it by that point.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Numb to the fact that people who looked like me and looked like my family were getting killed all the time.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: I went to the march that Clemson had with my brother and my mom.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: And my mom made us leave before the actual marching started because she was so scared that somebody in South Carolina, because we're southern, was going to come and shoot up the crowd or cause a disturbance or start a fight because she'd seen that.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: And she didn't want anything to happen to me or my brother.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: I remember I was so angry at her when I had to walk away before we could march, and I had to get back in the car and go home.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I understood.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: So we went home and I prayed about it a lot.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: I prayed for his family, I prayed for everyone who was affected, and I prayed that race relations would get better in the church.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because there is no reason that we cannot accept everyone for who they are or what they look like.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: I take Quintin Methodists, and it's my family.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: I love being here.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: I do not know what I'm gonna do when I graduate in May and move away.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna have to find another church.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna hope it's as amazing as this place has been to me.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm not prepared for it.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: But I will do my best to build these relationships, make a more diverse community, and use my perspective and what I've done and gone through in my life to help others.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: I've dealt with racism since I was in elementary school, specifically towards me since I was in elementary school.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: My brothers dealt with it since probably middle school.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think we should have to live in a world where that's normal.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: And still try not to cry.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: I usually just look at it and I will go home and I remember that God loves me.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: He made me this way, and he made me strong enough to get past this and get past this hatred.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because there is no way that when you look at Romans 8, 37 through 39, that you see neither present nor the future nor any powers will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ our Lord.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: So every time, I don't usually find I didn't I found this verse today.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'd never read it before, not gonna lie.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: But I knew this information in my heart.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: So coming into this today, I was like, this is perfect, this is what I need to say, and I'm happy that it's in the book somewhere because I was not gonna know what to do if I couldn't find it.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Another part of this all or welcome in the eyes of accepting is on my next slide, which is learning to accept myself for who I am.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that first picture is my friend Danny.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Danny went to Eclipse U9 Methodist with me and the youth group when we were, I think they started coming my sophomore year because I made them.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um but Danny came out to their family, our um my sophomore year, their junior year.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: When Danny came out, they went to the church.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't good, family didn't accept it, they turned towards God.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: They actually turned towards God so much and was at the church so often praying and learning from Pastor Keith and Jad that they spoke at the Reconciling Ministries Network breakfast, which is where they stood up there in front of a bunch of probably really old white men and talked about how we need to work on relationships between accepting LGBTQ and the church and how it was affecting our youth.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: They were like, we're going to you lose the youth and people who want to be in this faith if we cannot change and accept them now.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: I texted Danny when I was writing this to ask questions, and they were like, please send me a video of this.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: I really want to hear what you're gonna say.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: You've got this, you're amazing, and I love you.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Danny turned towards the church when they came out.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: When I came out, I turned away from the church.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: I stopped coming to church, I stopped going to youth, I came in here and I worked in the nursery, and then I went home.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: I did nothing else for about two years because I felt like I was a failure and I was a sinner and that God was mad at me.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: I know that I was wrong now, and I look back on that a lot.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: But this is about the first time I ever said to in church.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Never said to Steve, hi Steve.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I am happy in who I am.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: The first person I told in church people was actually Ellie and Catherine.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: I remember we were sitting in a Duncan, and I we were talking about something, I don't know what it was, but I just like I'm by.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I talked about my experiences in high school and this um instructor who made me hate my life for who I was.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: And they told me how much they loved me, and they were accepted me, and I remember crying.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then this past October, this beautiful group of Wesley people all went to the Take Back Pride March.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: I literally yelled at Casey off the side of the road as he was trying to walk home, and I made him come with me.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: I told him he got free apple juice, and he said, okay.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that was the first time I've done any public pride events since I've been out.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like I came out freshman year, but I just never say it.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: I just let people find out on their own.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think it just makes me laugh that way.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I know that God would not make me this way and not like make me love the people that I love if it wasn't his plan.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: I know that he accepts me for me, and I try to spread that acceptance to other people.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: I know a lot of people in the LGBTQ community that do not feel accepted to come to church.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: They are scared to walk into church, they make the jokes that they're gonna like catch on fire when they walk in here, but they actually believe that.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not okay.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: We have a great community here at Clemson Wesley.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: We have a lot of people who are out and who are proud of themselves, but we can help others feel that way as well.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: God does not want us to hide his grace or hog it for ourselves, he wants us to spread it to others.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: These people all help me spread that.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still spreading it today.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: All of you people have mostly helped me spread it because most of y'all know already.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I think about this and I think about the people who have gone against me and my feelings and who I am.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: And this next verse is also something I felt in my heart, but I finally found it in words.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: It is Psalms 37, 7 through 9.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: It says, Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Refrain from anger and turn from wrath.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Do not fret, it leads only to evil.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: For those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Whenever I have to deal with racism or sexism or homophobia, because I've had to, it just happens, um, which it shouldn't.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: But I always think back that God loves me.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: God sent his only son for me.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I should not hate those people.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it's hard.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: There are some people that I still cannot be in a room with because of how they treated me for who I was.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I've taken that and I've turned it into ways to help others.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: I found ways that I can get into groups that help me spread faith with Leslie, with my other groups.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: I have never turned anyone down who's come to me for help.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Lord knows I volunteer a lot for random things, and I never say no.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I'm tired, but I know that I'm spreading God's will and his grace.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I want y'all to do the same.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: I want y'all to feel comfortable.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: I want y'all to know who you are.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to feel accepted in the world and in the house of the Lord, and I want you to give that to other people.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Martin Luther King Jr.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: said, We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: If you look at how the world is going now, it's changing.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing's gonna be the same.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: All those old white men, which my dad is an old white man, so I don't feel bad saying this all the time.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: I tell him it's to his face.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: All of the old white men are retiring, stepping down, or they're just finding out they need to change.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: I spoke to a general in the Air Force the other day who was talking about how we need to work against sexual assault, sexism, and generation gaps and just any type of problems that we have in the world.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: He said in the Air Force, and he's now like in his 70s and he's going to seminary because he wants to find another way to help people and make them feel better about themselves.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: This man was amazing.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: He was the oldest guy in the Air Force ever when he left.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, I'm gonna go help other people another way that works with me.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: I go out into the world and I find a friend, and I'm like, hey, you want food?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: My friends know if they're having a bad day, if they have an exam that's not going well, I will just bend with them for get to go get a coffee.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because I just want them to be happy and have a good day.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I know they do the same for me.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: And even if they wouldn't, spreading God's grace and his will and his love makes me feel better, even if I don't get in return, because I know that I'm doing the right thing, and I'm gonna make someone else a lot better off in the future.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: So please go out into the world and spread his grace and make others know how loved they are by the Lord, by you, and just how welcome they are, because no one should feel bad for who they are, and we should accept everyone because all are welcome.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: Let us pray.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: God, thank you for giving us the courage and confidence to come here every day and worship with you and be vulnerable with you and cry with our friends if we have to.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: Please let this group go out into the world and spread your grace and know that no matter what, nothing is greater than your power and your love for us.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: We can't do anything without you and the strength that you give us.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that all of these people will go out and make the world a better place.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: In your name we pray.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: The Wesley Word is a production of the Clemson Wesley Foundation.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: For more information about Clemson Wesley, check out our website or follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, get out there and love your neighbor.