My name is Karen Garcia Prudente (ako/ikaw/tayo), a queer lay member of Christ Church United Methodist (NYC) where one thrives as a beloved child of God. I served as Chair of Methodist in New Directions (MIND) and stood on the GC2019 floor, as a member of the NYAC delegation, to affirm The Simple Plan which would have removed the harmful LGBTQ language from the Book of Discipline. I am an alternate GC2020 delegate and a NE Jurisdictional 2020 delegate. I am a UMC-NEXT Convening member and Love Your Neighbor Coalition (LYNC). Labelled a Progressive Left, I consider myself a bridge for all people whom I intently listen to their cares and beliefs. I faithfully share my professional skills as a member of The Connectional Table on behalf of the NE Jurisdiction. On January 1, 2020, when the Traditional Plan starts in the USA, I wonder if I will be removed as an openly gay person.
I am a third generation Methodist born in the USA, grew up in the Philippines and am a global citizen thru mission ministries with women, children and youth. My grandfather Dr. Gumersindo Garcia and my mother Ruth G. Prudente are stalwart leaders of the United Methodist Church in the Philippines and the USA. I followed their footsteps serving with The Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Ministries — my way of thanking the UMC in protecting the family despite great political and physical strife under the Marcos dictatorship. Together with church and society partners, we turned the tide back to a just Filipino democracy!
The Garcia-Prudente family lives with grounded Biblical knowledge that God = Love and that Jesus Christ is proof of God’s unconditional love. I am called to #ResistHarm declaring God’s honor of the sacred worth of every LGBTQ clergy and sibling in the United Methodist Church as well as Allies who have taken social holiness stands to erase all forms of discrimination.
To continue living into my baptismal vows, I must:
- Reject the Traditional Plan
- Raze evil plots to destroy the wholeness of our denomination
- Resist decades of negating LGBTQ clergy called to serve and have loving partnerships.
- Resist greed and power impairing mission ministry relationships.
- Resist fear.
- Resist oppression.
- Resist shaming ethical Christian justice seekers.
You and I are change agents of this global village created with God’s wisdom. Like Esther, we are born into such a time as this. We each need to recover bravado Spirit to:
Awaken. Act. Be Bold. Learn. Rally. Pray. Worship.
Understand and live our Wesleyan Quadrilateral inheritance.
Go to https://resistharm.com. Resources abound. Submit your own ideas. Upload a profile and your events. Encourage church groups and individuals to participate. We are stronger united.
We are millions resisting exclusion. Be fearless and courageous. Persist with determination. Enter this new decade of favored faith undergirded by God’s sacred deliverance. Together, we can:
- Refresh a 21st century church;
- Revive Wesleyan Methodism anchored in scripture and informed by tradition, reason and experience;
- Re-energize passionate discipleship and transformative mission ministries; and
- Restore equity in God’s kin-dom.
- We are the hope of witnesses emboldened to seek justice and walk humbly with our God!
