Growing up in rural Alabama, it was Bishop Cedrick Bridgeforth’s grandparents who made sure he got to church – even on the days he didn’t want to be there.
But it was in the church, Lakeview United Methodist and Oakville Baptist churches that he found purpose – even on the hard days. After serving in the U.S. Air Force and earning a bachelor’s degree in religion from Samford University and a master of divinity degree from Claremont School of Theology, he has found the joy, purpose and calling that led him to become a newly-elected bishop in The United Methodist Church.
“Hopefully, people can see that the degrees, the titles, and the experiences are not where I began. That’s just where I’m on the journey right now,” Bridgeforth said. “I do that in a way to connect with people. My leadership style is about connecting with people.”
On Jan. 1, 2023, Bridgeforth will begin serving as bishop of the Greater Northwest Episcopal Area of The UMC. The GNW Area comprises the Alaska Conference, Oregon-Idaho Conference and Pacific Northwest Conference. He currently serves as the director of communication and innovation for the California-Pacific Conference.
When he was elected on the 18th ballot at the Western Jurisdictional Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Nov. 4, he became the first openly gay African American male to hold the title of bishop within The UMC. His husband, Christopher Hucks-Ortiz, stood by his side as he was welcomed. It’s history he’s proud to make, but it is only part of his story and ministry.
Raised on a farm in rural Alabama, Bridgeforth has served churches in the California-Pacific Conference since 1999. He became an ordained elder in full connection with the church in 2006. He has served at Bowen Memorial United Methodist Church and Crenshaw United Methodist Church, before supervising many churches as a district superintendent in Cal-Pac Conference. He also has been a clergy coach and nonprofit consultant, has served on the board of the Black Methodists for Church Renewal, worked as the director of academic programs and outreach at the University of LaVerne and is a published author, to name a few things.
“I want my story to be open and available to people. There are parts of it people will connect with immediately. There are parts that people will hear and say, ‘I don’t get it.’ And that’s fine. All of us have that in our lives,” he said. “My leadership style is very personal. I try to be accessible to people. I like to hear people’s story because it helps me connect with them.”
On Sept. 11, 2001, he met his good friend – who later became his colleague – Dr. Larry Hygh, Jr., when Hygh and others attending the Strengthening the Black Church conference were stranded in Los Angeles due to the terrorist attacks on this country. Hygh said then-District Superintendent (now Bishop) Grant Hagiya sent church leaders out to check on those who were grounded in Los Angeles. Bridgeforth was one of those pastors.
Hygh recalls a caring presence in that moment. The two became better acquainted when, less than a year later, Hygh became the communications director for the Cal-Pac Conference and got to see what Bridgeforth’s ministry was like up close.
“I think he brings a gift of strategic leadership. I also believe he’s a person who can work with folks from various theological perspectives,” Hygh said. “Even when he might not agree, he can find commonality for the sake of the gospel. Folks like him are what we need.”
Hygh said he’s always appreciated his friend’s ability to meet people – all people – wherever they’re at in life. Hygh watched Bridgeforth work, as a district superintendent in the Los Angeles area, with some of the most diverse churches, communities and neighborhoods in the country.
“He makes connections that sometimes other folks do not see,” Hygh said.
This past summer, Bridgeforth, an avid cyclist and supporter of HIV/AIDS research, encouraged Hygh to train for and participate in a 545-mile AIDS/LifeCycle bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles to raise money for the San Francisco Aids Foundation and the Los Angeles LGBT Center.
“He is a much faster cyclist than I am,” Hygh said. “I’m the caboose in the back.”
Nevertheless, Hygh said his friend rode with him in the back one day on the seven-day course and saw a different perspective.
“He’s a servant leader who walks the talk,” Hygh said.
Bridgeforth calls himself collaborative by nature and hopes to bring that work to his role as bishop. He describes it as “a necessity” at this time in the church’s life.
“For us to innovate at the rate we need to, we have to collaborate,” Bridgeforth said.
As he steps into the episcopal role in the Greater Northwest Area, he knows the church is at a critical point. Membership is in decline, and the church may be splintering as some churches seek to disaffiliate before the 2024 General Conference. He knows it’s something that the church will grapple with, and to do that, people must first maintain their hope in Jesus Christ.
“I’m not a person who believes divorce is a bad thing,” Bridgeforth said. “Sometimes divorce is necessary, and it is the only thing that will bring about healing.”
He said it’s a good thing for people to be clear about their values and to bless each other as they depart. But the faithful disciples who remain within the denomination need to be clear about why they have decided to stay – not just because some people they disagree with left.
“Did we remain United Methodists because we believe in the strength of Wesleyan grace? Do we believe in the strength of being connected? Do we believe that serving together is better than just serving on our own? Do we believe that there is truly hope in Jesus Christ? Do we believe we have a message of salvation and resurrection that can resonate in this season and in coming seasons? I’ll preach that; I’ll teach that,” Bridgeforth said. “I want to organize us so that we are delivering that message in every way possible. So that we examine our structures, we examine our policies, and our behaviors so that they align with this understanding of resurrection – of hope on the other side of division.”
As the Western Jurisdiction of The United Methodist Church continues its “Where Love Lives” campaign this month, the Greater Northwest Area of The UMC will explore our LGBTQ+ siblings’ call to ministry in a denomination where, by and large, they are still not welcome.
This is the unfiltered story of Rev. Katie Ladd, an ordained elder in the Pacific Northwest Conference who identifies herself as queer. Listen to her story of being called to ministry as an outsider, going through her ordination service without her beloved standing beside her, and her hopes for the denomination’s future.
Being Methodist is a core part of my personal identity. My family counts two circuit riders in it – Jeptha Hughes and Ashley Hewitt. While history does not indicate calling, the stories of circuit riding down the Natchez Trace and into Louisiana fueled my imagination as a child. I preached to my stuffed animals on the Sundays we did not go to church. This imagination would become part of my dreaming for a church rooted in the past, oriented to the context in which it is found, and nimble and responsive to a future yet to be charted.
The first real voice that invited me to think about ordained ministry was my associate pastor, a woman, who approached me after youth Sunday and remarked that I might give the idea some thought. I brushed it off with a laugh. After my first year in college (a United Methodist liberal arts college), I began the candidacy process; it languished for years. While working for an environmental chemistry firm in Houston, my spirit cried out for more. My college advisor from the religion department encouraged me to return to graduate school with eyes toward a master’s degree of divinity (MDiv). I wanted to enroll in a master’s degree in art program en route to a doctorate degree. This adviser persuaded me against the latter, seeing in me something I couldn’t see in myself. This has been true throughout my call.
Some are called from deep within; some of us have the call articulated by others and are guided toward a life that we otherwise would not have chosen – think Jonah or Moses. Even in divinity school, I did not see myself working in a church setting. Medical ethics was my focus. Yet, throughout a gradual but transformative time, the work of sowing community and participating in the healing of the world through community led me back to what my ancestors did so long ago – pastoral work in a rapidly changing social landscape.
Being Queer is as much a part of me as my gender, nationality, ethnicity, or Methodist roots, and it clearly has influenced my call to and work in ministry. Throughout my life, I have been an outsider. I have never fit in. Some of that is due to sexual orientation, but not all. This outsider status has opened me to empathy in a way that transcends the particularities of my own experience and in ways that bring me into deep spiritual community with people very unlike me. That said, when I began the long and circuitous route to ordination, sexual orientation was not part of the conscious discernment process – not until divinity school. It was there that the dean of Methodist studies discouraged me from taking Methodist classes. He deemed them a “waste of time” because I refused to live in a closet. I insisted on living out as God created me to be. Therefore, I would either never be ordained or would not remain ordained. He told me to save my money and spend it elsewhere in school.
In the 1990s there was no place for an out bisexual clergy person in any denomination, including ours. While I didn’t take his classes, that discouragement achieved the opposite of his goals; it made me more determined than ever to stake my claim in the church that had been my home – and my family’s home – for generations. I belonged here and no prejudice would drive me out. Most of my early ministry was centered on people living with addiction, as I have done. I worked with abused and neglected children. I worked with unhoused youth and young adults. While I have never experienced this kind of trauma, I did know what it felt like not to belong and to know what it means to have one’s core self-excluded, ignored, derided, and despised.
But the privilege of growing up loved and secure gave me a strength to stand in the breach with those not afforded the same. Knowing a God who always embraced me in times of duress put holy ground under my feet. I understood the experience of exile and the joy of homecoming. These have circumscribed my ministry – exile and homecoming. This is fueled by the slights and struggles I experienced as a young Queer person, but my ministry is with and to all who have experienced exile and who yearn for sacred homecoming.
My ordination process began in what was once called the North Arkansas Annual Conference. I grew up around Memphis, TN, just south in Mississippi and just north in Arkansas. My family is from the Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana corner of our nation. I’m deeply Southern. It won’t surprise anyone that neither my theology nor my person found home in the church that formed me. The church that baptized me ultimately did not want me to serve any of its congregations. My process was largely unremarkable until I went before the Board of Ordained Ministry where things went decidedly and horribly wrong. Evidently my psychological evaluation was returned with a handwritten note that said that I “don’t conform to traditional female roles,” which was, evidently, code for suspicion that I might be “gay.” Not wanting to deal with this in a direct manner in the mid-90s, another tack was taken – to tear apart answers to theological questions. At first the conversation with the board was confusing, then heated, and eventually it turned acrimonious. During a break, the same pastor who had first approached me regarding ministry filled me on the assumptions. I simply challenged them to ask if I was gay and I left. That ended the process in Arkansas. Much like being dissuaded from taking Methodist classes in divinity school, this did not stop the pursuit of ministry. Rather, I searched for a place where my exile could become homecoming. That led to the Pacific Northwest Conference. One might think the challenges ended here.
While my time here has been much different from Arkansas, there were challenges in my process and there remain challenges in ministry. Leading up to annual conference where I was to be ordained an elder, I was cautioned not to bring my partner up with me during the laying on of hands as is the tradition. I couldn’t in good conscience leave my spouse sitting with my church and bring my parents. I was ordained alone. That is a more dramatic moment, but life is filled with such moments. For years, or so I’ve been told, there were people who asked for me not to receive an appointment. That exile experience made its way into my heart, too. For years I needed a new robe or alb, but I wouldn’t buy one because I was certain that I wouldn’t make it through the next year as a pastor of a church. I have lived with that for 23 years of ordained ministry. That low level anxiety continues to be part of me even though I am unaware of it most of the time: I still don’t have business cards….
Even here in the PNW Conference, and the Western Jurisdiction, we have work to do today.
Even in congregations that become part of the Reconciling Ministries Network movement, much work is needed to re-sculpt them into places of homecoming for LGBTQIA+ people, including clergy. Beyond that, even in those congregations that have created strong ecosystems of welcome for and leadership from LGBTQIA+ people, much is needed to align this work for justice and dream for homecoming with other struggles, such as dismantling white supremacy.
Struggles do not exist in a vacuum. Injustice does not exist in a silo. Each is related to the other. As part of our Gospel call, there is much to do, and it cannot, or should not, be left to individual clergy and congregations to sort out alone. For example, I was going to be appointed to a congregation that was not yet reconciling. In conversation with the then bishop about my concerns, I was told that no preparation would be done because sexual orientation shouldn’t be an issue. There was a distinct “if we don’t talk about it, it’s not a problem” naïveté with this attitude. This kind of naiveté creates harm, and, as Wesleyans, our first rule is to “do no harm.” Harm ensued. Over the years there have been acts of vandalism, protests, and even threats of violence directed toward the churches I’ve served and to me. Largely I have been left to sort through these on my own using pre-existing relationships to seek wisdom and to my own devices to find the resources required. This is not connectionism at work. We can, and must, do better.
As we look to what Methodism might be in the future, I hope that our new incarnation will not simply be the same old church but one that will fully embrace LGBTQIA+ people. I hope we let the Holy Spirit blow through this institution with holy life that ties us each to another – struggle to struggle, hope to hope, congregation to congregation such that no person feels abandonment, despair, injustice or oppression. The Gospel is a proclamation of life in the midst of death. To affirm Queer folks is to break open the staid and dead systems that hold us down so that life erupts in unexpected ways. This requires truth telling, life sharing, discomfort, and hard and courageous conversations – absolutely about sexual orientation and gender identity, but also about so much more – sexual ethics, white supremacy, wealth and money, missional priorities, colonialism, prophetic nerve, bold action, empowered laity, willingness to fail, nimble systems, accountability for the privileged, and courageous leadership.
God is at work in our world and in our people. The prophets tell us that God calls from the margins and demands that we center the widow, the orphan, and the stranger – those who are most despised and vulnerable. The community that does this is on the side of God’s Gospel of life. We need to center the voices of those who have been pushed aside, dismissed, and discounted. Then we will find ourselves moving toward the beloved community – God’s holy reign.
As we continue our “Where Love Lives: Fair and Equal Ordination for All” storytelling project as part of the Western Jurisdiction campaign for a fully inclusive church, we hear from Rev. Karen Dammann, who this week 17 years ago was put on trial for “practices incompatible with Christian teaching” three years after disclosing to then-Pacific Northwest Conference Bishop Elias Galvan that she was a lesbian.
Her trial drew national media attention to a Sunday school classroom at Bothell UMC. She was acquitted by a 13-member board of her peers. But as you’ll read in her first-person account, Dammann still wonders if the scrutiny, the fear, the isolation and more were all worth it.
It was 17 years ago this week that my family and a team of supporters arrived at a church north of Seattle for the trial that was to determine whether I was guilty of “practices incompatible with Christian teaching”.
This trial came at the end of a three-year legal process that began in 2001 when I came out to my Bishop. Our child was two-and-a-half years old at that time and had just started to call me “Mama.” This normally exciting development was the point that required me to face the fact that the closet was no place to raise a child. We would not teach this innocent being – our child – to lie, and we could not expect our child to keep his family a secret.
I thought about surrendering my credentials when we decided to leave the closet, but the person who had become our pastor, Rev. John Auer, asked me if I was still called to the ministry. The answer was “yes.” With John’s support, and the help of his congregation, I was able to come out to my Bishop.
I knew there would be consequences for my choice, the main one being the loss of my vocation. We hoped that coming out of the closet, rather than quietly quitting, might help our denomination move toward full inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons. What we were not prepared for was the media scrutiny, estrangement from colleagues, and threats to our safety.
The Rev. Bob Ward and our legal team built a defense that included a broad slate of church experts who offered to testify for full inclusion in our denominational polity. For three days, we heard testimony that shined a light on our denomination’s unjust exclusive stance. This testimony made possible a “not guilty” verdict.
Bishop William Boyd Grove, presiding bishop, ended the trial by sealing the trial record, which effectively ended the possibility of sharing the expert testimony with the rest of the denomination.
In the years since I have asked several times to have the transcript released, not just for the Church, but for our child, who was the catalyst for being us being truthful about who his family is.
In 2018 I met Stephen Drachler (formerly of UM Communications, now a consultant) at a Reconciling Ministry Gathering. We spoke about the trial and he offered to approach Bishop Grove about releasing the transcript.
As a result of Stephen’s action, I received a letter from Bishop Grove in January of 2019 telling me that he and Bishop Elaine JW Stanovsky had agreed to release the transcript to me and to the public. (Thank you, Stephen!) Thank you also to Bishop Grove on behalf of the two-and-a-half year old, the 5-year-old and the now 22-year-old person I had hoped would have the transcript to read one day.
Last February (2020) Bishop Elaine told me the transcript had not been found in the PNW Office, even though, according to the provisions of the Book of Discipline, the transcript and all records of a trial shall be held in a special secure file by the Secretary of the Annual Conference.
That brings us to the present moment. I have been asked if it was worth it.
In many ways it was not worth it. When the transcript and the information that it contained was sealed, the hope that the cost of my coming out would help our denomination to see a way to include everyone slipped away. The danger and threats that our family experienced was never worth it. Sadly, our denomination continues to officially exclude from full participation LBGTQIA+ people. We are now in limbo waiting for the church to split over the issue. What difference did it make after all?
On the other hand, was it worth it? In some ways it was. The Greater Northwest has become a place of full inclusion for LGBTQIA+ persons. Maybe the trial did make a difference, even just a little bit, in the GNW becoming safer than many other places in the denomination.
A not-guilty verdict, and remaining in good standing, was an unexpected outcome for me. It was worth it personally for that determination.
Even though the threats we received convinced us to disappear for a while to keep our family safe after the trial, I longed for the day I could come back to work. In 2012 I was appointed by Bishop Grant Hagiya to serve a church in Alaska. I am in my ninth year of ministry here.
Seventeen years later some things have changed for the better. Many things have not. I still want to be able to hand a copy of the trial transcript to my son. Maybe someone reading this knows where it is.
This week, I will do what I always do on the anniversary of my trial. I will light a candle in prayer for the full inclusion of my LGBTQIA+ siblings in our church. I have hope that whatever emerges in the year ahead, there will be a denomination that is fully inclusive of everyone.
Rev. Karen Dammann is an ordained elder in the PNW Conference, currently serving United Methodist churches in the Alaska Conference.
