MY CALL

Avery: About that time, cause I've been arguing and I've been arguing for about a year before this with God. That - you can't be calling me in the ministry. The Methodist Church is never going to ordain me because it had only been one transgender person who had been ordained and was forced to give up her credentials after her surgery and transition. So I said, “the Methodist Church isn't going to accept me. God, this is a stupid thing you're asking me to do. Well, that lasted until that meeting and then as clear as you and I are sitting here talking, this voice said, “I'm not calling you to be a Methodist pastor. I'm calling you to be a pastor for my people.” That's a way totally different call. It doesn't include Methodist. It doesn't include solely anybody else. It means being out on the streets with folks. It means greeting folks in a grocery store line sometimes and hearing what their problems are. And so if it happens to be in the church, great. And so that was my call, and it was, like I said, it was like a four-by-four across the face.