A house of prayer for all people. A home for queer spirituality.
MCC San Francisco Calls Rev. Lea Brown
At a Special Congregational Meeting November 4, the members of MCCSF overwhelmingly voted in favor of the Reverend Lea D. Brown to be the next Senior Pastor of MCCSF.
In announcing the recommendation of Rev Brown, Pastoral Search Committee chair Rick Rosser said “Lea is a person of strength, faithfulness, and passion. She has a strong vision for MCCSF’s future and is a person with the foresight - and fortitude - to bring that vision to fruition.” In meetings with staff, individuals and groups during the past week, Lea’s leadership, strength and compassion were demonstrated over and over again.
The congregation is thrilled with the choice of Rev. Lea Brown and looks forward to welcoming her back to San Francisco and to MCCSF.
Rev. Lea Brown's Message to the Congregation
Dear Friends,
Words cannot express how profoundly honored and grateful I am to be the person you have chosen to serve as your senior pastor. Over the past week it has been such a joy to hear your dreams and hopes for our church, and I can hardly wait to begin working with you to transform our shared visions for MCCSF into reality.
Thank you for inviting me to travel the journey ahead with you. Thank you for the trust you have placed in me. Thank you for your unquenchable excitement and passion for our future. Thank you most of all for being the amazing, queerly delightful, courageous, and powerfully loving community that is uniquely MCC San Francisco. I am so overjoyed at the thought of all the possibilities that lie ahead, and at all we will do together in the name of the One who has called us to bring healing to our world.
Much love and many blessings,
Lea
For more information about Rev. Brown and to read about her vision, please see more information below.
Hear Rev. Brown's November 4th sermon, Crossing Over (mp3 audio file)
Pastoral Search Committee Unanimously Recommends
The Reverend Lea D. Brown
From the Pastoral Search Committee
October 7, 2007
In June, when we began the process of choosing a new Senior Pastor, one of the first things we did as a Committee was to write a prayer asking God to guide us in this endeavor. We began each of our meetings, and each candidate interview, with the words of this prayer:
Spirit, be present and guide us in the selection of the next Senior Pastor of MCCSF. Find us faithful in the spiritual discipline of confidentiality, and humble in the sacred task entrusted to us by our community. Keep us open and respectful in the discernment process, and mindful that we are here to serve current and future members of MCCSF.
Today, I am happy to say that God has heard and answered that prayer, and it is with great pleasure - and a whole lot of excitement - that I announce, on behalf of the entire Pastoral Search Committee, our unanimous recommendation of a candidate for Senior Pastor - the Rev Lea Brown.
All of us on the Committee [pictured at right] are certain that Lea is the person God has called to lead MCCSF into the future. As you hear this, some of you may be thinking, “but isn’t Lea, who spent several years on staff here, a step back instead of a step forward?” I’d like to take a few minutes to address that question.
This is a question that all of us on the Committee asked ourselves as well, and, when we narrowed our pool of well over a dozen candidates down to just a hand-full that we invited to apply, some of us put Lea at the bottom of that list because she had been on staff here before. We loved her, honored her past service, missed her faithful presence, but suspected that what was best for MCCSF was to find a new face to move us forward.
However, as we reviewed Lea’s application and then interviewed her, we began to be guided by the words of our prayer that Spirit keep us “open in the discernment process.” Through this openness, we began to see Lea in a different light - as a person of strength, faithfulness, passion, and – yes, a person with a vision for MCCSF’s future and a person with the foresight - and fortitude - to bring that vision to fruition. At the end of our interview with Lea - once we all stopped crying - we were clear that she was not the same person who left here just two years ago, and that her time at Wichita Falls MCC had been preparing her for a new ministry here. In the recent words of one of our Committee members, we truly found Lea to be “one of…the mightiest women [we had] ever known.” The decision to present Lea as our candidate – which, frankly, surprised many of us on the Committee by the ease and quickness with which we were able to arrive at it - unanimously – is clearly the answer to the prayer that we had been praying since the beginning of this process.
Rev. Lea Brown on a Church
That Won't Bury Gays
In August, 2007, the High Point Church of Arlington, TX renigged on an offer to host a funeral for the brother of one of its long-time employees when elders discovered that the deceased man was gay. (Dallas Morning News report).
"Whew. I don't know about you, but I sure sleep better at night knowing the Christian churches in Texas are standing by their principles," wrote Rev. Lea Brown in response.
"Sure, the grieving family was left scrambling to find an appropriate venue in which to say goodbye to their loved one, and then contact 100 expected guests about the change of location in their time of sorrow," Rev. Brown explained.
"But hey, principles are principles."
So, the Pastoral Search Committee, mindful “that we are here to serve current and future members of MCCSF” are thrilled, humbled, and honored to put forth the Rev Lea Brown as our choice for the next Senior Pastor of MCCSF.
Just a few words about what’s next: Lea will be coming to San Francisco the week of October 29 for a week-long visit as our Senior Pastor candidate. During that time she will be meeting with the staff, the Boards of MCCSF and MCF, and various individuals and leadership groups from within the church. We will also be planning a couple of events during that week which will be open to the entire congregation, so that everyone will have an opportunity to spend some time with Lea. The week will culminate in a service at 11 AM on Sunday November 4 (there will not be a 7 PM service that night) where the entire congregation led by Lea, will worship together. A congregational meeting will be held immediately following the service on November 4, culminating in a vote by the membership to call Lea to San Francisco as our next Senior Pastor.
I invite all of you, in the next day or so, to visit our website where we will be posting a picture of Lea,her biography, the link to an editorial she wrote denouncing the homophobic act of a Dallas mega-church,and, most importantly, portions of her application. I encourage all of you to read those materials, particularly the application, so that you can begin getting to know the person of strength, love and compassion that we believe has been called by God to lead this “house of prayer for all people” into a future full of joy, hope and God’s radical, all-inclusive love.
Rick Rosser, Chair
| Troy Brunet | Barbara Buckley | Beth Downey | Paula Fraser, Co-Chair |
| Steve Jirgl | Adrienne Krug | Bill Lowell | |
| Steve Marlowe | Kelly Mazzei | Chris Wagner | Dawnne Woodie |
About Rev. Lea D. Brown
Rev. Lea D. Brown began her current ministry serving as the senior pastor of Wichita Falls MCC in November of 2005.
During her tenure there the church purchased a new building in April of 2006, and has grown from 50 to 83 members.
Before that time she served as the acting executive director of the Metropolitan Community Foundation in San Francisco, a non-profit organization founded by the congregation of MCC San Francisco to provide for the needs of the most vulnerable in the city.
In addition to leading the foundation, Rev. Brown served as a volunteer clergy on staff at MCCSF since her ordination there in 1996. During that time she preached, led retreats, served as the pastor of spiritual development, and taught many classes and programs on spiritual growth, and on the intersections of gender, sexuality and spirituality, and social justice.
Throughout the 1990s Rev. Brown was a staff member at Spectrum, Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. As the program director there, she developed and coordinated an extensive Speakers Bureau and numerous community programs for GLBT youth, young adults, seniors and families.
During her years in seminary, Brown served as a Chaplain Candidate (2nd Lt.) in the U.S. Army from 1988 - 1989. Rev. Brown received her education from Oklahoma Baptist University, Shawnee, Oklahoma; Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, Mill Valley, California; and Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, California.
Statements excepted from the application of The Rev. Lea Brown
At my core I am most passionate about bringing spiritual healing to queer people...
As a young lesbian raised in a Christian fundamentalist environment, I was taught that my very being was an abomination to God. This teaching created massive amounts of shame within me, while cutting me off completely from the deepest sources of my power: my relationship with God and my sexuality.
Even though not every queer person is raised in such a hostile environment, I do believe that in most of the world queer people struggle to live fully in cultures saturated with religion-based oppression. I find this to be particularly tragic because I firmly believe that our people are spiritually gifted, often most strongly through their very expressions of gender and sexuality.
I am deeply passionate about spreading the good news all over our planet that queer people are a beautiful part of God’s good creation, that God takes great delight in us just as we are, and that a spirituality of vibrant wholeness and love is a birthright for each one of us.
I am just as passionate about building strong, compassionate, exciting communities of faith dedicated to creating social justice for queer people and all those who suffer due to hatred, poverty and discrimination.
I believe MCCSF and our denomination have a message of spirituality and healing unlike any other church, denomination, or religious group. I am deeply committed to that message, and fully committed as well to doing all I can to reach as many people as possible with what we have to offer.