Pastor Phyllis' Story

I spent nearly two decades separated from the church because I was unable to reconcile my sexual orientation and my gender with the theology and doctrine that I had been taught as a child.  For me, being anything other than a lesbian was simply not an option and being anything other than a woman of integrity was also not an option.  I stayed away from the church because I believed there was no place for me there.  I had been tricked and brainwashed into believing that God did not and could not love me as a lesbian and that there was no place for me in the family of God.  I had been told, through everything that I heard and saw in church, that I was an abomination and destined to hell.  In those years that I spent separated from the church it felt as though something was missing.  At one point in my life I began to truly lament and long for the ability to be involved in church in some of the ways I had been as a child and in my youth.  But that seemed impossible because I was a proud, out, feminist, womanist, bi-racial living as black, lesbian, and I was not willing to deny or compromise who I was and what I had come to believe.  I wanted to be in relationship with God but I didn't think it was possible and there were no models that I knew of, that mirrored back to me all the pieces of myself.  I had attempted to be in relationship with God "by myself," but there was something that was lacking and missing.  I felt a tremendous yearning to be in relationship with God and with a community of other people of faith.

While training a group of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) students at Trinity Hospital, I was invited to attend a revival being held at Trinity United Church of Christ.  It was through this event and the people who had been sent into my life during that time that I became exposed to the fact that there were African-American people of faith who did not condemn me to hell and did not think it impossible for me to have a relationship with God because of my sexual orientation.  

After some leading and prompting by the Holy Spirit, I reconciled my relationship with God and chose to be reunited in Christian fellowship in 1994 under the pastoral leadership of Rev. Dr. Frank A. Thomas of New Faith Baptist Church.  During this time I was, and had been for some years, working in the field of violence against women in the arena of sexual assault and domestic violence.  With this work as a vehicle, I began to hear the voice of God connect my life's work to ministry.   While discerning God's call, I initially faced some opposition in my attempt to enter into the Deacon Ministry at New Faith.  Accepting my call to ministry, as well as my sexual orientation, which I fully disclosed, proved difficult for some to embrace.   However, it was during that time of challenge and through that opposition that I heard God calling me to ordained Pastoral Ministry.  With the encouragement and support of Pastor Frank, I began to wholeheartedly embrace my call and to pursue ministerial training.

In 1998, God had brought me full circle as I completed a CPE Chaplain Internship at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.  I had no idea when I was training CPE students that I would one day be a CPE student!!   It was an incredible ministry experience that pointed me in the direction of further pastoral training which led me to completing a one year CPE Chaplain Residency at Advocate Christ Hospital.  At Christ Hospital, I was assigned to the Surgical & Neurological ICU and the Cardiac Care Floor.  As a result of my experiences via my CPE training, I began to intensely deal with issues of death and dying and providing pastoral care.  In fact, during one pastoral call for an African-American woman in her early fifties whose family was facing the decision of disconnecting her life support, I heard God calling me to "feed God's sheep."

While completing my CPE chaplain residency at Christ Hospital, I applied and was accepted into Chicago Theological Seminary (CTS) where I studied until completing my

Master of Divinity in May of 2004.  I chose CTS for many reasons but there were three things that primarily sealed my decision.  CTS promised to not "teach me what to think theologically but how to think theologically,"  Also, CTS was acutely aware and voiced to me that "who one studied with was as important as what one studied" and lastly, CTS encouraged students to ask the question, "who made the rules and how do I change them?"  With these philosophies, CTS seemed like a perfect fit and it was!!   In 2002 I was the recipient of the Carlos Castenada Scholarship for the LGBT seminarian who shows the most promise for ministry.  And in 2003 I was the inaugural recipient of Chicago Theological Seminary's G. Campbell Morgan Award for Preaching. 

For several years while at CTS, friends and others asked me if I knew Rev. Flunder from San Francisco.  On several occasions I attempted to seek out this woman of God who many said I had much in common with, not the least being our Pentecostal backgrounds.  Finally, in 2000 I met Rev. Yvette A. Flunder at her church, City of Refuge United Church of Christ in San Francisco, CA.  Rev. Flunder went on to become Dr. Flunder and eventually, Presiding Bishop of The Fellowship.  Meeting Bishop Flunder and seeing City of Refuge was truly an epiphany-like experience for me and I cried the entire time as I heard God speak to me saying, "I have shown you the vision of your heart, now, go back to Chicago and replicate it."   For me, meeting Bishop Flunder was like looking into that mirror, that I longed for, for the first time and seeing all of myself.  Bishop Flunder invited me to attend the upcoming "Fellowship 2000" conference to be held later that year in Philadelphia.  It was there that I met a cadre of like minded people of God from all over the country who had found their way back to God and who were starting ministries that were open and affirming to LGBTQ people.  Soon after our meeting, I asked Bishop Flunder to mentor me, which she agreed to do.  I am incredibly blessed to be one of her children, that she is my beloved Bishop and that over the years we have developed a deep and loving relationship. 

After several Jonah-esque moments on this journey, including a short term as Associate Pastor at Church of the Open Door, I joined Trinity United Church of Christ under the pastoral leadership of Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.  In January of 2003, while on spiritual retreat with Bishop Flunder, God spoke Pillar of Love into my spirit and Pillar of Love was conceived.  In June of 2003, Bishop Flunder's first official action, after being consecrated Bishop, was to ordain me at The Fellowship's annual conference in California and to receive Pillar of Love Fellowship Church into The Fellowship as the first Fellowship affiliated church.  Since that time, I have been appointed by Bishop Flunder to the office of Ministerial Protocol for The Fellowship and was consecrated in June of 2005 as one of four Regional Administrators for The Fellowship.

I am further blessed ministerially in that as my pastor, Pastor Wright consented to be my "covering" in Chicago and has also provided me with pastoral guidance and mentoring support.  Additionally, although there are so many who have participated in my spiritual and pastoral growth and development, I credit my former Spiritual Mother, Bernice Parham with being a God sent parental figure and spiritual guide who helped nurture me into my destiny.

And though God has indeed been good to me in many ways, one of the greatest gifts and blessings of all is the covenanted relationship of 11 years with my partner,

Vickie R. Sides and that we are a family with her biological nephew, Brandon that we raise as our son.  Vickie is the love of my life and God has blessed our relationship to grow sweeter over the years.  I believe God has helped us learn to navigate being in relationship so that we can model to our congregation what a healthy, loving, spirit led and God ordained relationship looks like so that we can help our congregation to pursue and realize healthy, loving, spirit led and God ordained relationships as well.

About Pillar of Love: 

Pillar of Love Fellowship United Church of Christ, was started just over six years ago in a suburb that is a "stones throw" from the southwest border of the city of Chicago.  I started Pillar of Love Fellowship Church (POLFC) while completing my Master of Divinity at Chicago Theological Seminary.  Although I have been an out lesbian for over 30 years and POLFC was specifically organized and targeted to meet the spiritual needs of the LGBTQ community in general and the African American LGBTQ community specifically, I could not ignore the incredible needs of the hungry, homeless and addicted of my native community.  So, in 2003, I "set up shop" in this small, suburban community to which I was born and raised.  Though we maintain an outreach ministry in that community and feed the community each week, now, in an attempt to have Pillar of Love become more accessible to the African American LGBTQ community and others of the LGBTQ community who seek a powerful, spirit filled, radically inclusive, social justice minded worship experience, Pillar of Love utilizes the Center on Halsted for their weekly worship services.  October 2007 marked the beginning of Pillar of Love's move to the Center on Halsted where we hold weekly worship services on Sundays at 1p.m. 

The whole of the LGBTQ community is invited to come and share in my vision of a radically diverse and powerfully loving community of LGBTQ people of faith and for Pillar of Love Fellowship United Church of Christ to be a vehicle for all LGBTQ people of faith to answer their calls to ministry and to have a place to bring and develop their spiritual gifts.

Pillar of Love Fellowship United Church of Christ was officially received and granted standing by the Chicago Metropolitan Association of the Illinois Conference of the United Church of Christ in May of 2009.  Pillar of Love Fellowship United Church of Christ remains an affiliate of Refuge Ministries and The Fellowship of San Francisco, California under the leadership of Bishop Yvette A. Flunder.