Linda M. Kaufman

SERVING THE HOMELESS
WASHINGTON, D.C.

THE REV. LINDA M. KAUFMAN

FOUNDRY  UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

Ordained in 1987 as an Episcopal priest, Linda Kaufman has served the  Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C.  In many ways that have strengthened the congregation and the community.  Linda served as Minister of Missions at Foundry from 1996-97, and has also led several spiritual retreats for Foundry women.  Linda wore this stole during the Sunday service at the Foundry women's retreat in February 2000.

Linda's calling has been very specific and very powerful: to help the homeless, particularly the urban homeless.  As Homeless Services Coordinator for the Downtown D.C. Business Improvement District, she has established new systems for providing valuable services to the homeless -- from shelter and daily care, to housing and employment opportunities.

Linda serves on the ministry of St. Stephen and the Incarnation in downtown Washington.  She came out within her conservative Virginia diocese several years ago when she realized the importance of demonstrating that issues of homosexuality in the Church are not abstract and rare, but real in the everyday life of the Church.  "We are an incarnational faith," she says, "where knowing someone in the flesh - as we knew Jesus in the flesh - changes us."  Knowing each other as we truly are -- "in the flesh" -- is how we grow in faith.

Linda and her partner Liane have an adopted son, Ryan, now 12, who began his life as an inner-city child facing the challenges that Linda sees in the people she works with each day.

Established in 1815, Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, DC has been the home to Presidents, members of Congress, and many other public servants.  In 1995, Foundry became one of the largest Reconciling congregations in the country, working for the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people into the life and leadership of the United Methodist Church.

This is one of six stoles (#587-591, 846) donated by Foundry 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