The Ordination of Addie Jo Schonewolf (Full service)
Hi everyone! I was ordained as clergy in the Church Within A Church Movement on Saturday, August 2, 2025, in a service at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina. We recorded the service on Zoom, but part of the recording was cut off and the audio wasn’t ideal, so I’m sharing as much of the service as I can here.
Gathering
Introduction
written and led by Jo Schonewolf
There are so many people who helped make today happen and while I can’t thank all of them, I’ve listed some on the back of the bulletin. It’s a joy— it reminds me that I’m never really traveling alone. I do have friends everywhere. But I want to say a lot of thanks in particular to my parents , who are here today, and my partner, Ian. I wouldn’t be here without them.
As we gather, I want to prepare us with a quick word about love. Paul says in 1st Corinthians that faith, hope, and love are the ones that remain. And it’s easy to think of these three as weak or pie in the sky, but I don’t believe that’s true. You’ve probably seen that quote on the internet that says that hope isn’t fragile. Hope is getting up out of the mud, spitting out a tooth, and getting ready for another go. Faith, I think, is the same. It’s not silly or naive. It’s choosing to believe, in the face of all the facts to the contrary, that there’s something worth fighting for in this world. And love isn’t sentimental or a fleeting passion: it’s a commitment to choose one another, to never abandon each other, and to stand side by side with each other. That’s why these three remain.
So keep that kind of love in mind as we go through the service today.
Thank you.
Welcome and Land Acknowledgement
written by Jo Schonewolf and led by Revs. DeLyn Celec and Shirley Dunn
DeLyn: Good morning and thank you for being here. My name is DeLyn Celec and I’m one of the clergy ordained by the Church Within A Church Movement. We are glad to welcome you to the ordination service of Addie Jo Schonewolf.
Shirley: Good morning. I’m Shirley Dunn and I’m also one of the Movement’s clergy. We are grateful that you are here. We’re also grateful to celebrate with other members of the Movement who are here with us, both clergy and laity, including our most recently ordained clergy person, Rev. Dr. Dorothee Benz, who will be preaching today, and Adam Marshall, Benz and Jo’s fellow candidate for ministry.
As we begin this service, we acknowledge that each of us brings sorrows and pain amongst the joy we share today. This is the way of life in this world, where injustice still abides.
We begin our time together by naming an injustice that we cannot set aside. We are gathered today on land stolen from the Cherokee people by colonizers from the United Kingdom and Europe. Many people from across this region who made this land their home and tended to it were removed by the United States government under the genocidal Indian Removal Policy.
DeLyn: We mourn the lives lost. We mourn the way of life that was disrupted, uprooted, and threatened. We mourn the children who were taken from their families to residential schools. We mourn the betrayal of treaties, lives, and the land, all for profit and white supremacy. We mourn these choices, actions, and policies of our government and their on-going impact across the centuries, and the choices that are still made to this day.
Shirley: Take a moment to imagine this land before colonization. Imagine the bird song, the rustling of creatures, and the wind in the trees. Imagine the lake, gone, because it was made in the 20th century. What might have grown here? What might have flourished here? Who might have flourished here?
DeLyn: We cannot undo what has been done. In this tragedy, as in every tragedy, each life lost is an unthinkable tragedy, a destructive quake that rattles family, friends, and community with aftershocks that never completely end. One life lost is too many. What we face is a heritage of unfathomable loss.
Shirley: No matter how much our hearts break, we cannot heal all the harm in the world. Not in our history, not in our present, not even for the future.
DeLyn: And yet.
Shirley: And yet.
DeLyn: And yet, there is hope. In this service, we have come together from across the United States to celebrate, ordain, and commission Jo. We have gathered in community. We will remember and mourn. We will remember and celebrate. We will commit to living lives that heal where we can and bring justice where we must. These actions and commitments bring hope.
Shirley: As you participate in the service today, consider how you can bring healing and justice, knowing what you know about this land and its people. It is not within our power to heal everything and bring justice everywhere. But there is still much we can do.
DeLyn: We can learn.
Shirley: We can share what we learn.
DeLyn: We can advocate for restoration.
Shirley: For land back.
DeLyn: For reparations.
Shirley: For the respect of treaties and tribal sovereignty.
DeLyn: For better care.
Shirley: For justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
DeLyn: For all Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives.
Shirley: We have gathered today in a beautiful place, full of history. We’re gathered here because Lake Junaluska is a special place to Jo, as it is to many. Our history does not negate that. It can’t. But it does contextualize it, and guide us forward.
DeLyn: Imagine the beauty of restored people, restored land, and restored community. Imagine what could be. And then, commit to being a part of that restoration.
Would you breathe in with me? [Breathe in.] And out. [Breathe out.]
Shirley: Thank you for gathering with us today, friends.
DeLyn: Though we will be laying hands on Jo in this service during the moment of their ordination, ordination does not happen in a moment. It is a journey, often a long and difficult one for members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and it takes the love and support of many, many people from many different walks of life and religions, over the course of years. In recognition of the role each of you has played in Jo’s journey to this day, let us bring greetings today to each other.
Friends, family, and colleagues brought greetings reflecting Jo’s journey. This included voices from Granite Falls, NC, Hickory, NC, Durham and Chapel Hill, NC, Marion, NC, Scotland, Washington, DC, Lewisburg, PA, Sylva, NC, Johnston City, TN and Young Clergy Women International, Burnt Hills, NY, New York, NY, Garland, TX, and the Church Within A Church Movement.
DeLyn: No matter where you come from or where you have been, what you believe or what you’d don’t, what you’ve experienced and what you haven’t, you are welcome here today. Be here as you are: move your body as you need to and speak, sing, clap, or laugh as you want. Let us prepare our hearts for the ordination ahead through music and word.
Preparing
Music: The Deer’s Cry
Music and lyrics by Shaun Davey, based on the Breastplate of St. Patrick
Sung by Ron Sinclair, accompanied by Kathy Wiggins
The video below isn’t Ron and Kathy, but it’s the same song, to give you the vibe.
Prayer of Commitment to Healing
written and led by Bethany Printup-Davis
Creator, Great Spirit,
You who breathe life into the wind and carry our songs on the wings of eagles,
We gather in this sacred circle today,
To honor the call you have placed on this servant’s heart.
We give thanks for the waters that cleanse,
For the fire that purifies,
For the earth that grounds our journey,
And for the breath of life that stirs within all living beings.
Today, we commit to healing—
Healing of self, of spirit, of the people, and of the land.
Let these hands be instruments of peace.
Let this voice carry truth with gentleness.
Let this heart remain open—
To listen, to learn, to love without fear.
May this ordination not be an end, but a beginning—
A sacred vow to walk gently and firmly,
To lift others with humility,
And to restore what has been broken,
With courage, prayer, and community.
We call upon the ancestors who have gone before,
And the children yet to come.
Let their wisdom and dreams be our guideposts.
We honor the circle—no one above, no one below—
Only the unity of purpose,
And the promise of healing through service.
Creator, walk with this one now—
As a vessel of light,
A steward of truth,
A healer in your name.
So may it be.
Text copyrighted Bethany Printup-Davis © 2025
Music: Seen
Music and lyrics by Chris Wylie, performed by Chris Wylie, aka DJ Pastor Rock
Introduced by Rev. Ethan Shearer
Ethan: Rev. Chris Wylie, also known as DJ Pastor Rock, is a justice seeker and queer disabled musician, whose music and ministry always works from the margins in. Chris has filmed a performance of his song, Seen, to prepare us to hear the scripture and the sermon today.
Scripture Reading: Luke 4:16-21
Modified NRSVUE text, read by Adam Marshall
Our scripture reading for today is from the Gospel according to Luke, chapter 4, verses 16-21. Jesus is returning to his home region of Galilee after being tempted in the desert. Hear these words from Luke:
“When he (Jesus) came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because she has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
They, the Lord, have sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’
“And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’”
The word for us today.
Thanks be to God.
Sermon: Today’s the Day
Rev. Dr. Dorothee Benz
In the 1992 cult classic film My Cousin Vinny, two college students from Brooklyn decide to drive south for a warm-weather vacation in January. They cross the Alabama border as the opening credits roll, and the movie immediately sets up the culture clash between these urban ‘yutes’ and the rural South. They pass a “Dirt for sale” sign as well as a Confederate flag before stopping at the Sac-O-Suds convenience store, where they stock up on snacks and one of them inadvertently shoplifts a can of tuna – putting it in his pocket and then forgetting about it at the cash register. Soon after they leave the Sac-O-Suds they are pulled over by police, and the first of many misunderstandings ensues. They think they’ve been pulled over for the can of tuna, but in reality they are being arrested for shooting the store clerk. Only after they have casually confessed does it become clear that Bill and Stan are actually accused of murder. A panicked phone call back home results in a lawyer in the family, the eponymous cousin Vinny, coming down to Alabama to represent them.
The scene when Vinny and his fiancée Lisa drive into the small town where the whole story takes place is priceless. People on the street start whispering when they see the New York license plate. Then Vinny and Lisa get out of the car, both dressed – as we New Yorkers do – in all black. People stare. He’s got on a leather jacket. She’s wearing a mini-skirt.
“You stick out like a sore thumb around here,” Vinny says.
“Me? What about you?” Lisa retorts.
“I fit in better than you,” Vinny says. “At least I’m wearing cowboy boots.”
To which Lisa sarcastically replies, “Oh yeah, you blend.”
I’ve always loved this movie because of how well it represents the experience of New Yorkers in other parts of the country. But honestly, it’s also the perfect description of what it is like to be a queer person trying to get ordained in the United Methodist Church.
To be our authentic selves was never really an option. Certainly during the half century of official theological abuse and codified discrimination, it was always an internal negotiation: Can I be out? How out? Maybe I should let my hair grow a little longer. Perhaps I shouldn’t be the one to speak out at annual conference. So many of us left. Or hid. Or were kicked out. The ones who stayed maimed themselves in order to blend.
And while the rules have changed, the church – really – has not. Institutional priorities and conformity are still the norm – people who don’t have the “right” call story, a sufficiently tamed theology, and the willingness to fall in line, need not apply.
Jo Schonewolf, our beloved Jo, tried to blend. They tried to pursue ordination in the UMC. In a conversation we had a few months ago, Jo described the UMC process to me as “the inevitable track to Ninevah.” As in, knowing you have a call, being told that the only way to answer it is to sail to Ninevah, having everything in your being rebel against that and try to run away, understanding at some gut level that this is not the way for you, only to be forced in the end to sail to Ninevah after all. And Jo’s experience, like so many others’, was that the UMC pretended that there was only this one way – the inevitable track to Ninevah – in which you could be faithful to your call. And so after majoring in physics and astronomy (instead of religion) and pursuing a Masters of Science (instead of a Masters of Divinity), Jo finally got on the boat to Ninevah and went to seminary and tried to blend.
Jo’s plan was to keep their head down, follow the rules, get through the process, not draw attention to themself, lie if they needed to, to get to the other side, get ordained, and then –bam! to let loose the ministry to queer youth in the South that they always knew was their true call. And not to take anything away from the fabulous uniqueness that is Jo Schonewolf, but this is a lot of people’s plan for making it through the UMC ordination process.
That was the plan. But then one day in their first year in seminary, someone in the cafeteria asked them to sign a petition in support of queer United Methodists. Specifically, the petition was asking the Council of Bishops to include meaningful queer representation on the just-formed Commission on the Way Forward, a commission created to make recommendations on whether and how the church would continue to discriminate against LGBTQIA+ people. It was an absurdly modest request – that queer people should be part of the conversation on how queer people are treated – but in the politics of the UMC it was considered a radical idea, completely beyond the pale. And Jo, seeking ordination in the Western North Carolina Conference, part of the notoriously homophobic Southeast Jurisdiction, was confronted in that moment by a choice: a choice between institutional loyalty and basic human dignity. Jo’s entire strategy for getting through ordination and on to the ministry to queer people they dreamed of was suddenly called into question.
I like to think that what happened next is that the queer ancestors intervened.
To see what I mean, we have to turn to today’s scripture.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
Because she has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
They, the Lord, have sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
These words that Jesus stands up to read in the synagogue have always been balm to the poor and the oppressed. They ring with the yearning for liberation, and they are part of the enduring witness of scripture that God is on the side of the poor, on the side of the marginalized, the vulnerable, and the oppressed – good news to the poor… release to the captives… set free the oppressed… Yes!
But the key to this passage in Luke is what Jesus says after he sits back down: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
On first read these words are kind of a head scratcher. It was definitely not the case that captives were released when he said those words, nor were the oppressed set free. Nazareth was just as firmly under Roman occupation when Jesus sat down as it had been when he stood up to read. What does it mean to say that this scripture is “fulfilled” when clearly none of the things it calls for have happened? And “today?” Huh?
The same is true for us in 2025. There are nearly 2 million people held captive at this moment in U.S. jails, prisons, and detention centers and camps, an increasing number of them without due process of any kind. And then there are those who are being sent, again without due process, to foreign concentration camps. Good news for the poor is hard to discern at a time when our government is shoveling money at the obscenely rich while condemning countless thousands to death by stealing their healthcare. Masked government agents are abducting and disappearing our neighbors. And antisemitism is weaponized to defend genocide while our government funds the slaughter and starvation of babies. Oppressed people are not going free – quite the opposite.
Meanwhile, Christian bullies, aided and abetted by state governments and school boards alike, have taken aim at LGBTQIA+ people and are tormenting, in particular, transgender children, denying them healthcare and erasing them from public space. Twenty-nine states have so-called “religious exemption” laws[1] that invite people to deny goods and services to queer folx in the name of their faith. Books with LGBTQIA+ characters are being yanked off library shelves while laws like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” prohibit the mere mention of our existence in schools. And the epidemic of lethal violence against trans people, especially trans women of color, continues.
But queer people, queer people have always met the denial of our existence with defiant resistance. We have fought in the streets and in the courts. We have fought with our families of origin and our churches. We have faced rejection and violence rather than deny who we are. From the gay men who met and forged community at the 34th Street YMCA in New York during World War II to the butch-femme bars in working-class neighborhoods in the 50s and 60s and the seedy bars like the Stonewall in enclaves like Greenwich Village and San Francisco, we risked everything to be ourselves, our authentic selves, and to find each other. We built our own community institutions and community centers, we created our own families, long before some of them got official state recognition.
This, my friends, is what that word “today” means. It means that, despite everything, in a world in which so many are oppressed, we can still claim a piece of our liberation. We can be our authentic selves, we can live as if the world were already free through that authenticity in all of our flamboyant or flannel or ordinary queerness.
In one way, it is not much. It doesn’t protect against discrimination or violence, it won’t make your family un-disown you, and it can never bring back all the lives we lost to AIDS, hate crimes, and suicide. But in another way, it is precious beyond measure. It means that there is something no one can take away from us, our agency, our ability to define ourselves on our own terms.
In this, queer people have given a great gift of example to all those fighting for liberation. We do not need anyone’s permission to act authentically and justly now. Today. We have the moral agency to treat each other with love and dignity and without bias. We have the agency to refuse to participate in unjust laws – and indeed, as Dr. King exhorted us, the obligation to do so – and we have the freedom to do our work in a way that embodies the values and the liberation we seek for all people.
In the spaces of justice that we create as we organize, there is good news for the poor and there is freedom for the oppressed. Today.
And it is this great example from the queer ancestors that reached through time and space and entered Jo Schonewolf when that petition was put in front of them. They stood there awkwardly for three minutes – and then signed the petition and never looked back. “Eff the plan,” Jo said, and after that, as they told me, they went to every possible protest.
This was Jo’s “today” moment. They understood what Martin Luther King called “the fierce urgency of now.” They understood that their ministry to queer people could not wait until some safe time on the other side of an artificial marker of authority. And that day, that moment, set them on the course that has brought them – and all of us with them – to this day, this joyous day.
The “today” of Luke 4 has also been the hallmark of the Church Within A Church Movement. The movement came together in the early aughts with the explicit commitment to being an inclusive church, now, regardless of the UMC’s official positions and prohibitions. Its signature contribution to the reconciling movement was to ordain those whom God had called but the UMC rejected, beginning in 2008.
This, of course, set Church Within A Church on a collision course with the institutional church. Virtually everyone involved in that first ordination was threatened in one way or another by UMC officials. But the movement understood that while we did not have the power to change the UMC’s bigoted rules, we did have the power – and indeed the obligation – to defy them. We had, we have – always – our moral agency that allows us to act justly in our own context, to live as if, to refuse complicity in unjust systems, to embody the “today” of Jesus’s prophetic proclamation.
I want to take note that the conflict between the institutional church and those of us committed to living out Jesus’s “today” is not new, nor is it limited to the issue of the church’s homophobia and transphobia.
Methodists in New Directions (MIND), another dissident formation in the UMC, one that I helped found, made this point with an educational action at the 2019 General Conference, an action we called “the exception.” We lined the entire balcony with people holding placards that spelled out the church’s bigoted history with dates and events.
These included Methodist support for slavery and segregation; Methodist involvement in the massacre of Native Americans; Methodist participation in imperialist subjugation of Filipinos; Methodist efforts to silence women, refuse to seat them at General Conference, and refuse to ordain them; the segregated Central Jurisdiction; and of course, our own era of anti-LGBTQIA+ discrimination. We called the action “the exception” because in doing the research for it we realized that there were exactly four years in Methodist history, 1968-1972, in which codified discrimination of one sort or another did not exist. An absence of exclusionary policies was indeed the exception in the church.
This realization is depressing as hell, but critically important for us to understand. If you think bishops started prizing church unity over justice in the fight to contain queer demands, think again. They shut down debate on anti-slavery resolutions at General Conferences throughout the 1800s, and “unity” is what gave us the Central Jurisdiction. Methodist moderates, who always tell us they agree with our goals but cannot endorse our methods, have been choosing institutional self-preservation over justice since the 18th century. They always put off until tomorrow what is inconvenient or disruptive to do today.
The truth is the church as an institution has always been in tension with the church as the followers of Jesus Christ. Jesus’s priorities in centering the marginalized, the vulnerable, and the excluded are an inherently destabilizing force that demands that we constantly readjust what we are doing, constantly shift our attention away from those in charge to those on the margins, constantly decenter the most privileged.
This is the work of Luke 4’s “today.” Today is the day to demand the oppressed be freed. Today is the day to feed the hungry; to name the genocide and demand an end to the forced famine. Today is the day to call out ethnic cleansing and put our bodies in between our neighbors and Trump’s Gestapo. Today is the day to throw down and fight injustice with everything we have. Not tomorrow. Not someday. Not when it’s safe or popular. Not at the next General Conference or after you’re ordained. Today.
I have never once heard a bishop preach on the word “today” in Luke 4, but this is the true work of the church, and it explains why those of us trying to do it always end up being labeled divisive or counter-productive or told that we have to follow the process or be patient or somesuch.
But we do not! The power to be the church of Jesus Christ in the world does not flow down from the office of the bishop but rather up from the body of Christ, organizing together to enact the agency of God in the world. Never doubt that this power can change the world, for indeed it has. The power of the people brought down the Berlin Wall and threw Jim Crow into the dustbin of history. It ended apartheid in South Africa and sent the British Empire packing in India. And yes, it even ended the codified discrimination against LGBTQIA+ people in the United Methodist Church.
Now is not the time to doubt whether we can change the world, but rather to insist that we must. We must not blend. We must be the church, the church within a church. Today’s the day!
Amen.
[1] One, Alabama, actually has a constitutional provision rather than a statutory one; so technically, 28 states.
Music: Upend the World with Love
Lyrics by Rev. Annie Britton, composed for this ordination service.
Led by Kathy Wiggins
God-who-is-Love, voice and vision, gather with us in this place;
Seeking justice, liberation, and relationship with grace.
May we sing and name our hopes here as we share this sacred space;
Take a moment to consider: the Spirit’s hidden in each face.
May we liberate each other from this world's unloving ways
Where supremacy of self has poisoned ours and others' days.
Something happens when we live and move with full justice as our goal
As we free ourselves for loving and in turn are then made whole.
Yet, we know we're prone to wander from the Fount that offers life
As we navigate through choices and such crushing, endless strife.
But, we are chosen, and so may we choose anywhere that we may rove:
There to grow determination to upend the world with love!
Quantum acts or random happenings call us to explore what's true,
As our hearts and minds and spirits seek a faith both fresh and new.
Love and beauty, gifts surround us, wonder guides us on our way.
Scrappy Spirit, beyond knowing, travel with us this fine day!*
*“travel with us every day” can be substituted on occasions other than this Ordination.
WORDS: Rev. Annie Britton © 2025
TUNE: NETTLETON
MUSIC: attr. to Asahel Nettleton. pub. 1813
Ordination
Greeting
written by Jo Schonewolf, based on past CWACM ordination services
led by Revs. Vicki Woods and Colleen Riley
Vicki: Ordination is an affirmation and an authorization, a sign to all that this person is set aside for a sacred task. It is an affirmation that recognizes that, just as God calls the faithful to other ministries, God calls some persons to the ministry of the ordained.
All Christians have a baptismal call to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves. The work of leading, planning, and connecting that the ordained undertake can be done by a community engaged in non-hierarchical, decolonial, and anti-capitalist work. But it doesn’t hurt to have a little help from someone with training and wisdom, who has dedicated their life to this work.
With that in mind, we say that ordination recognizes that lifelong, sacred dedication and authorizes those persons to ministries of Word, Order, Sacrament, Service and Witness. Such recognition and authorization is given, not to create hierarchy or special privilege, but as a sacred trust to enable community.
Colleen: The Church Within A Church Movement, having prayerfully examined this candidate and found them qualified for ordained ministry, is delighted to present Addie Jo Schonewolf for ordination into Christian ministry.
Jo, we invite you to come forward as a sign of your consent to receive ordination.
Those authorized by The Church Within A Church Movement have found them to be of sound learning, deep character and possessing the faith and the necessary gifts to serve God as an ordained minister.
Do you as the gathered community declare your support and assent for this ordination?
People: We do!
Will you do all in your power to uphold them in their ministry?
People: We will!
Examination
Written by Jo Schonewolf, based on past CWACM ordination services
led by Rev. Susan Morrison
Susan: Jo, you have heard that your community supports both your ordination and your ministry. Now, I ask you:
Do you believe that there is an abundant, persistent, undying love at the heart of the universe, a love that will neither subjugate creation nor abandon it, and do you call this love God?
Jo: I do.
Susan: Do you believe that this love was made flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who, together with the wisdom of his tradition and fire of the prophets who came before him, commands his followers to love God and love their neighbors as themselves, and who, through his life, death, and resurrection, refused to abandon us to the finality of death and freed us to live now as people who are liberated and can liberate others?
Jo: I do.
Susan: Do you believe in the liberating, life-giving, healing, and revolutionary strength of this love, the Holy Spirit who accompanies us in all things, urging us to see love, beauty, compassion, and wonder everywhere we are and in every situation?
Jo: I do.
Susan: Then will you live out these beliefs as an ordained minister, strengthened to do the good work of the Gospel, to return always to grace and restoration, to cry “justice” when justice is demanded, and to act at the moving of the Spirit?
Jo: I will.
Susan: Will you in your ministry administer the sacraments and celebrate the ceremonies of the Christian life to those who have been rejected; will you teach and preach the Good News to the lost and the lonely; and will you bind up the brokenhearted in community, solidarity, and care?
Jo: By God’s grace and the challenge and support of the community of faith, I will.
Acclamation and Laying on of Hands
written by Jo Schonewolf, inspired by previous CWACM services
led by Rev. Colleen Riley
Acclamation
Gathered friends, you have heard the promises that Jo has made. What is your will?
People: Let us ordain them.
Laying on of Hands
The laying on of hands is a traditional and symbolic act which invites the gathered community to recognize the ordinand and invoke the Spirit to fill these persons and their ministries with abundant life. I invite you to come forward and lay a hand on Jo or lay a hand on someone laying a hand on Jo, as we create a web connection and community.
Would you pray with me?
Holy God, Love Abundant and Never-ending,
You speak to us in places known and unknown,
Even the depths of our hearts.
We give you thanks that you have spoken to Jo
And that you have guided them and us to this moment.
Lover of all things,
You know all that is glorious in this world.
We delight in it along with you.
The dance of the stars in the night sky,
The beauty of the flower,
The rushing water,
The power of sacred words and sacred music,
The goodness of people gathered together.
And yet, Beloved-Made-Flesh,
You know the pain that lives alongside the delight.
You know the cry of the oppressed,
Because you yourself have cried it.
You know depths of despair,
Because you yourself have plumbed them.
You know the pain of exclusion, of discrimination,
Of criminalization, and of dehumanization.
You call the pain of the world into our sight.
God of all things, we hold these two together,
The beauty and tragedy of life,
As we lay hands on Jo.
We ordain them to a ministry of beauty:
May they share it and may they make it,
Always pointing back to you.
We ordain them to a ministry of justice:
May they find the places of despair in the world
And proclaim the year of your favor.
We ordain them to a ministry of healing:
May they carry your Word, your Sacraments,
And your unfailing love to those who long for it
Outside of the doors of your church.
May they never forget that their authority comes from you, Love,
That their call is rooted in community,
and that their ordination is not a lonely thing,
but a joining in the great dance of your redeeming work in the world.
May we all say together, Amen!
Consecration to ministries
written by Jo Schonewolf, inspired by previous CWACM services
led by Rev. Susan Morrison
Susan: Jo, to which ministries will you be consecrated this day?
Jo: To connect communities, especially the queer community, to Saratoga Springs UMC; to preach at Ballston Spa UMC; and to all opportunities for teaching, care, and justice in my communities near and far.
Susan places the stole on Jo as she says:
Susan: Addie Jo Schonewolf, take thou authority to preach the life-giving Word of God, to administer the Holy, restorative Sacraments, and to order the life of Christ’s Church and all justice-seeking communities in your care; in the name of the who we know as Lover, Beloved, and Love, God the Parent, Child, and Spirit.
Friends, I present to you The Reverend Addie Jo Schonewolf, ordained this day by this gathered community as clergy in the Church Within A Church Movement.
And now, let us come to the table.
Sharing and Celebrating: Communion
Rev. Jo Schonewolf presiding
Liturgy written by Rev. Jo Schonewolf
This is my favorite place in the entire world: here, at the table, preparing to share love and life with all who want it. Thank you for affirming my place here with you and at every table where we gather together.
John Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism and God’s perfect weirdo, talked about the duty of constant communion for Methodists. We should be at the table as often as we can. I take him seriously here because I take Jesus of Nazareth seriously: as often as you eat bread (gluten or not) and as often as you drink the fruit of the vine (wine or not), do this. Remember this.
This is not my table. It’s not the Church Within A Church Movement’s table. It belongs to no single church, organization, or denomination. This table belongs to a man, sitting amongst his friends, knowing he is about to die. This table belongs to a mentor, desperately trying to impart the knowledge and wisdom and hopes and dreams those with him will need to sustain them after he’s gone. This table belongs to the One who was before all things and will remain with us through all things, the One who invites all who long for connection to join with others around a simple feast of bread and cup.
Everyone is welcome at this table. I will not now nor will I ever put a barrier between anyone and this community, this communion.
Christians who are with us today, I invite you to the table. Do what you need to get ready: own who you are, where you are. Recognize what in your life keeps you from communion: disagreements, anger, fears, doubts. Let go of what you can. Free your hands and hearts to receive. Trust that you are loved, and wanted, and welcomed.
Everyone else here today, I invite you to the table too, if you want to come. Think of it as visiting friends for dinner. Come as you are. Visit with this faithful community, gathered across all of time and space, for just a moment. I hope that whether you come forward to receive or whether you save yourself some sweat and stay in your seat, you too will know that you are loved, and wanted, and welcomed.
May Love be with you.
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to Liberation.
Let us give thanks to the Holy.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
It is right, and a good and joyful thing,
always and everywhere, to give thanks to you,
Love Enduring, maker of heaven and earth.
You have made us in your gracious, caring image
And breathed into us the breath of life.
When we forgot who we were, and our love failed,
You, Love, remained steadfast.
You delivered us from all that held us captive,
And spoke to us through prophets of all generations.
And so,
With the people of your heart here on earth
And all those beyond,
We name you Good and join in the unending hymn:
Holy, holy, holy One, God of perseverance and hope,
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of God.
Hosanna in the highest.
Holy are you, and blessed is your Son Jesus the Christ.
Your Spirit anointed him
To preach good news to the poor,
To proclaim release to the captives,
And recovery of direction to those who have lost their way,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed,
And to announce that the time had come
When you would save your people.
Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry, and ate with sinners like us.
He taught us that we must embrace the poor and the outcast,
And align ourselves with the tormented and troublemakers of history.
Jesus noticed the ones who did not quite fit,
And welcomed them in.
Jesus noticed the ones who fit too well,
And called them to account.
He turned the world upside down,
So that we might one day do the same.
This is to say,
That by the baptism of his suffering, death, and resurrection,
You gave birth to your Church,
Delivered us from the death-captive, sinful powers of this world,
And made with us a new covenant
By water and the Spirit.
When he ascended,
He promised to be with us always,
Holy Love experienced through Word and Spirit.
On the night in which he gave himself up for us,
He took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread,
Gave it to his disciples, and said:
“Take, eat; this is my body. I give it to you.
Don’t forget what you’ve learned here.”
When the supper was over, he took the cup,
Gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said:
“Drink from this, all of you;
This is my blood of the new covenant,
A promise of new life,
poured out for you and for many
For forgiveness and freedom from sins.
Do this, as often as you drink it,
Because it is in that moment that I will be with you again.”
And so,
In remembrance of these your world-shaking acts in Jesus Christ,
We offer ourselves in the only way we can,
Poured out in holiness and love,
In union with all Christ has given to us,
As we proclaim the mystery of faith.
Love has died; Love is risen; Love will come again.
Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here,
And on these gifts of bread and cup.
Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ,
That we may be for the world the body of Christ,
Redeemed by his blood.
By your Spirit make us one with Christ,
One with each other,
And one in ministry to all the world,
Until the end of this age finally arrives
And we share in the banquet that never ends.
Through your Son Jesus,
With the Holy Spirit in your holy church,
All wonder and glory returns to you, ever-present God,
Now and forever.
Amen.
If it is your practice, we invite you to pray the prayer Jesus taught us, in the language of your heart.
Each prays or not in their own way.
Because there is one loaf,
we, who are many, are one together,
for we all share in the same need.
The presider breaks the bread.
The broken bread is a sign of shared life; receive it with hope and share it with certainty.
The bread is shared with the servers, who take their place
The cup over which we give thanks is a sharing in the promise of Christ, brokenness transformed into action, emptiness to fullness, separation to wholeness, and overflowing justice; take, drink, and remember you are not alone.
The cup is shared with the servers, who take their place.
All is prepared.
Those at home, receive these gifts: the fruit of the vine and the bread you have before you.
Those who are here, come and receive the bread of heaven, the body of Christ, and the blood of Christ, the cup of promise.
Prayer after Communion
Eternal Love, we give you thanks for this holy mystery
in which you have given yourself to us.
Grant that we may go into the world
in the strength of your Spirit,
to give ourselves for others,
in the way and name of Jesus our Christ.
Amen.
Leaving
Music: Here again
A hymn, sung to Noël Nouvelet
Lyrics by Sarah Agnew © 2024
Used with permission.
Led by Kathy Wiggins
Commissioning
Rev. DeLyn Celec: Jo, we have laid our hands on you and ordained you for life. We have consecrated you to the ministries you will serve in this season of your life. Now, we commission you to the good work that is laid out before you.
Rev. Ethan Shearer: We commission you to break bread with the unloved and uphold human dignity wherever it is lacking.
We commission you to dance in the rain and sing recklessly in all seasons.
We commission you to remember how absurd it is that you are a bunch of stardust that is aware of itself, and to rejoice in the silliness of being.
And in all things we commission you to remain grounded in the truth, that the truth may spread forth through you.
We commission this of you in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Written by Nick McMichael
Adam Marshall: We commission you to disrupt outdated power structures with enthusiasm and righteous purpose; to dismantle obstacles holding back the transformation of this world.
Written by Chris Johnson
Bethany Printup-Davis: We commission you to lead us in worship, from the front of the sanctuary and from in front of your keyboard, creating and leading liturgies that both humble and embolden, that bend knees to God and hearts toward justice.
Written by Rev. Victoria Larson
Rev. Vicki Woods: We commission you to live the questions—
questions that get to the heart of the matter,
that bring people into conversation,
that open new possibilities,
and that inspire everyone to keep asking, “What the hell is a pastor?”
Written by Rev. Diane Kenaston
Grace Kreher: We commission you to face the world’s suffering, to see it and bear witness, and to meet it with Christ’s compassion.
When there is temptation to crush yourself for societal approval into the minister you think others expect you to be, we commission you to be genuine and honest, integrated and authentic. We commission you to laugh, to be joyful, and to take delight in God’s world.
Written by Rev. Dr. Keith Menhenick
Rev. Ian Urriola: We commission you to seek out forgotten places and discarded people, to offer them a hope that's free from judgement or shame.
Written by Chris Johnson
Sarah Herbein: As you live into your calling
may you flourish - and thus
encourage, equip, and empower
those with you into the Holy Dream -
fullness of life for all.
Written by Rev. Dr. Sarah Agnew
Blessing
Written and led by Jo Schonewolf
Friends, I gladly receive your commission.
As we prepare to leave from this moment and this place, I give you all this blessing and commission of your own:
Go from this place in the knowledge that
Every thought you think can be holy,
Because Holy Love hears it,
And everything you do can be worship,
Because Holy Love sees it.
May you go and live in robust love:
Love that welcomes the stranger,
Love that celebrates the outcast,
Love that relentlessly pursues justice,
Love that priorities the lost and the least,
And love that does all that it can
to bring about abundant life for all.
This is our ministry.
This is our work.
The work continues.
Amen.
Music: Draw the Circle
Words by Gordon Light
Arranged by Mark A. Miller
Led by DeLyn Celec
All text and images, unless otherwise indicated, copyright 2025 Jo Schonewolf.