Biography
Kelly Durbin

My name is Kelly Durbin. I am 47 years old and have been attending MCC of Greater St. Louis since April of 1999.

My partner Gina and I have been together a little over 7 years. We went to Iowa City, IA in October of 2009 and were legally married. Together, we are raising two wonderful children. Well, they aren’t really children anymore; Jonah (age 15) and Grace (age 13).

I am the daughter of a retired Baptist minister so I have been “in church” from the day I was born. When I was 9 years old, my mother had a serious car accident leaving her with a traumatic brain injury. After that, I grew up very quickly learning to care for her, and the household. I knew as an adolescent that I was called to some kind of ministry, but choices for women in a conservative Baptist church were limited to being a foreign missionary or a preacher’s wife. Women did not enter professional ministry and neither of the choices available to me seemed particularly appealing. I figured I would end up being a preacher’s wife, but then I discovered a problem with that. I realized in high school (although I spoke it to no one), that what I really wanted was a wife.

I think that realization is probably what prompted me to seek a career as a professional social worker. I knew heterosexual marriage was not going to be an option, so my dream of professional ministry even as the subordinate “wife” would not be happening. As a young person in her late teens and early 20’s, I still had no experience outside of my Baptist church that women could be in professional ministry so it never occurred to me that I could pursue being clergy myself in another denomination. I was a bit sheltered. So social work it was.

I loved being a social worker and spent nearly the first 14 years of my career working with children, adolescents and their families. I have done and seen a lot. I walked into homes unarmed and unsure of what I would find when I got there. I have stood in foster care offices and had parents of abused and neglected children scream and threaten me. I have sat at the hospital and held the hand of a 14 year old lesbian foster child following a suicide attempt by overdose. I have counseled families while roaches fell from the ceiling as we talked. This was ministry, not as I had imagined as an adolescent, but ministry none-the-less.

I spent several years “un-churched” while I sorted through and resolved that I could indeed be lesbian and Christian. I met with an MCC pastor and obtained a resource list of books I could study on the topic. I attended MCCGSL a few times but wasn’t ready yet to engage in a radically inclusive, radically different church than I had grown up in. During those years I also came out to my parents who did not take the news well. My father has still not spoken to me in over 20 years and refuses to allow me to see my disabled mother.

In the late 90’s, my former partner and I created a family of our own with a close friend as the father who is also gay. With small children it was much more difficult for me to work flexible hours, to carry pagers, and be on call. It was getting harder and harder to put myself in risky situations, thinking of my little ones at home who needed me. In 2002, I transitioned to working in the for profit insurance world. I found a good company that tries most of the time to “do the right thing”, and I settled for the safety of an office where I now do most of my helping over the phone.

I finally returned to church attending a United Methodist Church that was “reconciling” on the issue of homosexuality. Both of my children were born and baptized in that church. However, I could not remain there as the Methodist church could not, as a denomination fully embrace the LGBT community refusing to marry or ordain.

Since 1999, I have been an active member of MCC of Greater St. Louis where a great deal of my own spiritual healing has occurred. My participation started out slowly for a short time, with regular church attendance. Then I joined the choir and participated in the first “Recovering from Homophobic Religion” class that the church offered. Both of these opportunities opened the door for me to have a rich life of involvement, including spiritual growth and development. I have worked in the Children’s Church ministry when my kids were small, participated in choir, became part of the praise and worship team, participated in Leadership Development sessions, wrote devotionals, and for a year prior to enrolling in seminary, with Gina, co-lead a Covenant Family (an in home small group).

It was while we were leading the Covenant Family that I had an experience at work one day, sitting at my desk it occurred to me that I didn’t want to do what I was doing professionally for the rest of my life. I needed to do something different. I was being called to do more. It wasn’t simply a matter of finding a new social work job either. I love being a clinical social worker, but there are limitations to how I can help as a social worker. In most positions, you aren’t free to talk about faith, religion, or any of those “spiritual” aspects that are significant to being a whole person. Working with people around their spirituality was the piece that had been missing in my professional life. I was finding that piece in the Covenant Family but something, the prompting of the Holy Spirit perhaps, said I needed to do more.

It was during that year 2008-2009 that I explored the possibility of entering seminary. Gina also feels a similar call on her life (which she received as a young person as well). We talked endlessly about the possibilities. Could we both attend seminary? What would that mean for ministry? Would we minister as a team, or in separate settings? We had been co-leading the Covenant Family so we knew being in ministry together was definitely a possibility, besides the fact that we love to sing and worship together. We took a leap of faith and entered Eden Theological Seminary in September of 2009. I am currently in the MDIV program with an anticipated graduation date of May 2014.

Since then, I have completed a little over half of my required courses, and all required units (5 total) of contextual or field education (2 units have been waived, including CPE, due to my clinical social work experience). The first two units I completed were as a chaplain at a nursing home. I had spent so much of my social work career working with children and families, I decided to stretch myself and work with seniors. You do not have to look very far to find despair in a nursing home. This was a difficult placement but I found peace and grace to complete that work. I developed wonderful relationships with many of the residents and my time there culminated in being able to lead their Easter worship service, including preaching my first sermon.

I then completed 3 additional units of contextual education at MCCGSL where I have participated in all aspects of worship including preaching, singing, liturgy, communion, and choosing music for worship. I participated in pastor and staff meetings, development and implementation of the new member class, and participated in designing a new congregational care program. I represented MCCGSL by participating in community events such as the mass commitment ceremony at PRIDE. I also had the privilege of utilizing my social work experience to assist the MCC church in Joplin following the tornado. I did a presentation on post trauma stress reactions, self care, and did one on one mental health assessments to identify members who might benefit from referrals for ongoing counseling and support following the tornado. I also did a follow up visit to provide additional pastoral care and support, and was able to preach for them in worship.

Finally, I am on the road to seeking ordination with UFMCC. I have applied and been accepted as an “in care clergy candidate”. Basically this means I have completed psychological testing and been found “fit” to serve, I have attended the Readiness for Entering Vocational Ministry (REVM) retreat, and I am working the Ministry Action Plan (MAP) that was developed with me by leaders of the denomination through the Office of Formation and Leadership Development. I must complete my MDIV degree, complete an internship at an MCC that is not my home church, complete 3 MCC required courses, participate in spiritual direction, participate in quarterly MCC cohort calls, and continue my spiritual formation by completing a variety of spiritual practices and assignments. My seminary progress is identified above; I have completed the required MCC Queer History course, have been in spiritual direction for almost a year, and attend cohort calls regularly. 

This has been an amazing 2.5 years. I am blessed to be able to attend seminary, to pursue ordination and serve in ministry with UFMCC. I am doubly blessed to be on this journey with my spouse. It has been nothing short of miraculous, watching her grow as a pastoral care giver, and experiencing the transformation in my own life. I am excited about prospects for the future, waiting and watching to see what God would have us do next.