Melany Burrill

16 years church leadership in local church and beyond

MELANY BURRILL
United Methodist Christian Educator
Virginia Conference

This stole represents my 16 years of full-time educational ministry in one UM congregation in Northern Virginia (metropolitan Washington,D.C.)  As a seminary-trained lay person and certified Director of Christian Education, I recruited and trained teachers and youth leaders, resourced the Sunday school and did tons of youth ministry -- including leadership at district and conference levels and representing Virginia at jurisdictional and national youth ministry events.  I directed children's and youth handbell choirs along with the scores of tasks needed to sustain a vibrant educational ministry in an 1100 member suburban congregation.

At the end of my 16th year, while on a 3-month sabbatical, I received a letter thanking me for my service, inviting my resignation, and telling me I needn't return to my position following my sabbatical.  The stated reason for this being "the church sees the need to go another direction with its educational ministries."

It soon unfolded that the underlying reason for this was the "discovery" of my participation in the Reconciling Congregation movement-- which was interpreted by the senior minister as being "against the Discipline of the UMC."  Although my sexual orientation was not openly at issue, because I have been very private about my personal life, it was certainly an unspoken concern.

The UMC's policies and practices around issues of homosexuality contributed to an atmosphere of fear and secrecy where my long and successful ministry of people of many ages could be summarily dismissed with a letter.  The most painful part to me was not the differences of opinion that were eventually expressed, but the ways in which both congregation members and myself were treated -- assumptions made, reasons not given, direct conversations avoided.

The "rest of the story" is -- after several congregational meetings to air issues and a face-to-face meeting with  the personnel committee -- I resigned, was given a touching farewell party, and a severance package.  I am now happily a member of Dumbarton United Methodist Church, a reconciling congregation in Washington, D.C.

The circumstances surrounding Melany Burrill's forced resignation are outrageous.  Unfortunately, Melany is one of many church professionals represented in the Shower of Stoles collection that have strikingly similar stories. 

When the church forces LGBT people to serve in silence, these church professionals are not the only ones driven underground.  Colleagues and congregants become a part of this conspiracy of silence.  Careers are ended on the basis of suspicion, rumor and innuendo.  Lifetimes of service are dismissed with a letter.  Congregations are split by the inability of leadership to face their own homophobia, their fear of confrontation and their reticence to debate tough issues openly and fairly.  Grief lingers as talented, beloved staff are forced to leave, and the painful issues are driven back into the closet.  Too often, the one forced out is remembered as "the problem," rather than the church's own bigotry and dysfunction.

These are the stories that underscore the great importance of Reconciling Congregations like Dumbarton, where people can heal and where their gifts for service are celebrated.

Melany's stole is one of thirteen stoles donated by LGBT members at Dumbarton in advance of the 2000 General Conference of the United Methodist Church in Cleveland, OH.  In 1999, the Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN) inquired about the possibility of having a display of the Shower of Stoles at the General Conference the following April.  At the time, there were only around twenty United Methodist stoles in the collection.  We decided to introduce the Shower of Stoles to the Reconciling community by bringing the twenty UM stoles and about a hundred others to RMN’s Convocation in Denton, TX over the Labor Day weekend.  Stoles started to trickle in during the fall, and by February they began coming in droves.  In all, we received 220 United Methodist stoles – the vast majority of them arriving within eight weeks of the Conference.  Thanks to a monumental effort by a number of volunteers who pitched in to help record, inventory, sew labels and make last-minute repairs, all of the new stoles were present in Cleveland.  Twenty more people brought stoles directly to Cleveland, bringing the total number on display to 240.

Towards the end of the General Conference, twenty eight lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender United Methodists and allies stood on the Conference floor in silent protest over the Conference’s failure to overturn the ban on LGBT ordination – a profound witness and act of defiance for which they were later arrested.  As these twenty eight moved to the front of the room, another 200 supporters stood up around the balcony railing, each wearing one of the new United Methodist stoles.  Hundreds more stood in solidarity as well, in the balcony and on the plenary floor, wearing symbolic “stoles” made from colorful bands of cloth.  A group of young people from Minneapolis, members of a Communicant’s Class, had purchased bolts of cloth the preceding evening and stayed up all night cutting out close to a thousand of these “stoles.”  In less than eight months, a handful of stoles had grown to become a powerful, visible witness to the steadfast faith of LGBT United Methodists nationwide.

Martha Juillerat
Founder, Shower of Stoles Project
2006