Beatles Mass and Installation of Pastor Megan Rohrer

Pastor Megan Rohrer was installed as the Pastor of Grace Lutheran in San Francisco on February 22, 2014.  Video from the Beatles Mass and Installation is below.

Archived Video from the Service:
Part 1

  Part 2
  Part 3


Part 4


Part 5

In the News: Bay Area Reporter

Lutherans install
first trans pastor

NEWS

---

Published 02/27/2014

by David-Elijah Nahmod

	Britney Wheat, left, holds a booklet as pastor Susan Strouse of First United Lutheran Church, right, installs the Reverend Megan Rohrer, center, as pastor of Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church. (Photo: Jane Philomen Cleland)

A transgender person who runs a ministry for the homeless was installed last weekend as the spiritual leader at Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church of San Francisco, making them the first trans leader of a Lutheran congregation.

The February 22 service for the Reverend Megan Rohrer at the Sunset district chapel was well-attended.

Congregants joyfully took part in the service, which included praise songs set to the music of the Beatles. Dubbed Beatles Mass, the lyrics were written by Rohrer, sung to the beat of well-known tunes like "Across the Universe" and "Let it Be." The congregation sang "The Meal" to the tune of "Hey Jude," in preparation for receiving communion. As the congregation sang and clapped, Rohrer held up the bread and wine for all to see.

"The worship that we used at the installation was created for an evening worship at St. Aidan's Episcopal," Rohrer, 33, explained. "In hope of attracting young people and those new to the church, I created a Lady Gaga Mass. The service gained a lot of attention, and I was able to share it at congregations around the country. Many of the young people knew the tunes, but the older generation had a difficult time. I created the Beatles Mass because the tunes were recognized by both older and younger members and participants often leave the service feeling uplifted."

The reverend, who prefers the pronoun they, has been opening doors for years. In 2006, Rohrer was the first transgender pastor to be ordained by the Lutheran church.

In addition to their duties at Grace Lutheran, Rohrer is involved in transgender spiritual outreach.
"I meet annually with a group of about 150 transgender pastors and faith leaders from diverse faiths at a retreat hosted by the Center of Lesbian and Gay Studies in Berkeley," Rohrer said. "We talk about how we can support and learn from each other, and the best practices for sharing our stories, advocating for trans individuals and our own employment needs. There may be many more than that, but some people choose not to be open about their transgender status after they transition. This is why I use the word openly transgender in my identification."

Transgender pastors, Rohrer said, serve a very special need.

"Many transgender pastors and faith leaders work in specialized ministry to support vulnerable populations," Rohrer said. "When it comes to faithfully serving LGBT individuals or the homeless, being transgender is often an asset. Very few openly transgender pastors are able to find work leading a congregation. I believe this will change as society becomes more welcoming and understanding of transgender issues."

Part of Rohrer's work at Grace Lutheran will be to continue opening doors.

"We take the name Grace seriously, so we will be doing outreach to people of all shapes and sizes," Rohrer said. "The congregation is enthusiastic about welcoming everyone, particularly those who have been lied to and told they are not good enough to be part of a faith community. We even want people who feel uncomfortable stepping into a church to join us for our weekly worship and "Bible Study That Doesn't Suck" livestreams."

Beyond work at Grace, Rohrer is involved with Night Ministry.

"This is a group of pastors who provide a presence on the streets of San Francisco from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m.," Rohrer said. "The Night Ministry also operates a crisis line. The ministry is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and was founded by a group of Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian and Methodist pastors who were working with homeless youth in the Tenderloin."

Rohrer added that the Night Ministry visits LGBT bars throughout the city and provides care and support to the drag court system.

Rohrer is happy to be a part of history.

"I am honored to be Grace's pastor and to be part of this historic new opportunity for transgender pastors," Rohrer said. "For over a decade I have been advocating and working toward a time when LGBT individuals would be welcome in the pews and behind the pulpits. Despite all my prayers, I never expected to see this kind of change within my lifetime."

For more information on Grace Lutheran, visit www.gracesf.com. For Rohrer's website, visit http://revrohrer.blogspot.com.

In the News: HRC Blog

Dalai Lama Honors Lutheran Church’s First Transgender Pastor

February 24, 2014 by HRC staff

Post submitted by Diane Martin, HRC Religion and Faith Assistant

In 2010, Pastor Megan Rohrer was one of seven LGBT pastors in the San Francisco Bay Area who, after being previously barred from serving the church, were reinstated to the roster of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in the first ceremony of its kind.  Now, Pastor Megan is the first openly transgender pastor to be ordained in the Lutheran Church and to lead an ELCA congregation after being installed at Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church this past Saturday.

But Pastor Megan’s work and ordination is not only notable as a first for the LGBT and Lutheran communities, but as tremendously impactful for the greater San Francisco community—so much so that this past weekend Megan also received an honorable mention as an Unsung Hero of Compassion by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who was in San Francisco for the ceremony held by Wisdom in Action, a Bay Area nonprofit.

Pastor Megan has served for the past 12 years as Executive Director of Welcome Ministry, working with homeless and impoverished people in San Francisco.  As Executive Director, Megan spearheaded several programs, including the Urban Share Community Gardening Project and the Homeless Identification Project, which have enabled more than 150 homeless individuals to find and maintain residencies in the San Francisco area.

Pastor Megan has also worked closely with HRC’s Religion & Faith Program to create resources and lead trainings for congregations taking on conversations about gender identity within their faith communities.  We at HRC are grateful for Pastor Megan’s continuing partnership and look forward to seeing what comes next from Megan’s inspiring ministry.

In the News: Bay Area Reporter

News Briefs: Trans person to
pastor Lutheran church

NEWS

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Published 02/20/2014

compiled by Cynthia Laird

Megan Rohrer, a transgender person who has been running Welcome Ministry, a group that helps homeless people in San Francisco, will be installed as the pastor at Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church, 3201 Ulloa Street (at 33rd) during a service Saturday, February 22 at 7 p.m.
Earlier that day, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. the Welcome Ministry will be hosting a health and vision event at St. Francis Lutheran Church, 152 Church Street. SF CARES will provide free glasses for those who need them. Rohrer said the event will be "like a mini LGBTQ Connect." Folks from Project Homeless Connect will help people sign up for cellphone service, a doctor will provide flu shots, and physical therapists will be on hand for free consultations.

As for Rohrer's installation, she said that she would be the first openly transgender pastor of a congregation in the Lutheran church.

On Sunday, February 23, Rohrer will be recognized with an honorable mention as an unsung hero of compassion by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who will be in San Francisco for the event, being held by Wisdom in Action, a Bay Area nonprofit.

How I Became the Pastor at Grace Evangelical Lutheran in San Francisco's Sunset District

The Journey To Grace:  I was the kid in Sunday School who collected perfect attendance stickers even when I'd travel.  I began my academic religious studies at Augustana College in my hometown of Sioux Falls, SD.  I went to seminary at the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA. 

I began my work as as the Executive Director of Welcome my second semester of seminary in June of 2002 and over the last eleven and a half years we have feed over 50,000 individuals, grown and given away 5.5 tons of food grown at community gardens, had 18,868 people join us for Bible Study that Doesn't Suck, provided 126 pairs of prescription glasses and touched countless lives. 

My work at Welcome has been lauded with an Honorary Doctorate from Palo Alto University and in a few weeks I will receive an honorable mention as an Unsung Hero of Compassion from His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

I have been prayed for, supported and mentored by the congregations who called me to my work at Welcome: Christ Church, herchurch, St. Francis and Santa Maria y Martha Lutheran churches.

I served as co-pastor, with Tommy Dillon, of the Community of Travelers from 2010-2012 at St. Aidan's Episcopal Church in San Francisco's Diamond Heights.  "Community of Travelers" was a group of folks figuring out how to be a liturgical, Christo-centric, social justice oriented, incarnational, contemplative, irreverent, ancient- future church with a progressive but deeply rooted theological imagination.

Following in the spirit of Martin Luther, who rewrote the lyrics to pub songs to create contemporary hymns, I created a series of Vespers services from the tunes from popular music: Beatles Mass, Bob Dylan Folk Mass, and Lady Gaga Mass.  I also created the Gospel According to Pop, a series of video meditations, created to illuminate stories from scripture and special Gospel According to Pop Liturgies for Lent and an '80s Easter Mass.

I'm am grateful that I have been able to preach and teach all over the country, worship in so many diverse styles and theological expressions.  Now, I'm excited to partner with the congregation at Grace to discover what kinds of worship and faithful programs might reignite the Lutheran community that once thrived at the corner of 33rd and Ulloa.

On Sunday, February 2nd, the congregation at Grace Evangelical Lutheran called me as their pastor.  I am excited to see the unique ways we can support individuals who are hungry, to support the parents of the Grace Infant Child Care and to visit aging members of the congregation who have a hard time making it to church.

I hope you will pray for me as I begin this new chapter and that you will join us for an installation.  We'll let you know as soon as we set up the date.  If you would like receive email updates about the installation, contact ulloagrace@aol.com.

If you would like to join me as I my move to Grace, I invite you to join me for my first Sunday on February 16th - in person or on live stream.  I won't know who is new and if you're not sure when to stand up and sit down, we'll both be new together. 

Thanks for all your support on this journey.

The LGBTQ Journey:

Refusing to obey the unjust policies against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer individuals (LGBTQ) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's (ELCA), I was ordained Extraordinarily on November 18, 2006 and became the first openly transgender pastor ordained in the Lutheran church. Rostered by Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, I served on the organizations Covenant Circle as Director of Communications and as Director of Candidacy.

In 2009, the ELCA changed its policies to allow LGBTQ On July 25, 2010 I was one of 7 GLBT pastors in the San Francisco Bay Area who were previously barred from serving the church who were received/reinstated to the roster of the ELCA.  This service was the first of its kind and received national media attention.  Learn more on the blog for this service.

On February 16th, when I begin my first Sunday at Grace, I will become the first openly transgender solo pastor serving a congregation in the ELCA.   Two other trans identified pastors have served as associate pastors in Lutheran congregations (First United and St. Francis Lutherans in San Francisco, who were not members of the ELCA at the time the pastors were serving) and there are a number of openly transgender ELCA seminarians.  On February 16th, I will be the only openly transgender pastor serving an ELCA congregation.

The members of Grace called me to be their pastor because of the unique gifts I have for ministry and our mutual desire to reach out to neighbors in the Sunset, not because they were interested in making a political statement.  Still, I feel honored to be called to a congregation that is able to truly live out their name and share Grace with the world.  While the congregation may get some attention for calling me, I hope that over then next couple of years we can become equally well known for our faith centered worship, thoughtful mission and the ways that the members are able to care and support each other.

In the News: NY Times

For Gay Community, Finding Acceptance Is Even More Difficult on the Streets

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Bobbie Ingalls, 50, who is homeless and transgender, at St. Francis Lutheran Church in San Francisco, where people lined up for breakfast.

By ERICA GOODE

Published: December 2, 2013

Activists at City Hall in San Francisco.

But there were also days when he sat on the bench in the square and sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” looking up at the flags atop the Westin St. Francis hotel and thinking, “That’s breathtaking, that’s my American dream.” Or when he mingled with tourists, giving them directions to the cable cars, or gazed through the windows at the shoppers in Macy’s and was saddened by how rich and healthy they looked. 

He scavenged for meals in garbage bins. He avoided the homeless shelters, where he had heard that gays were taunted, or worse. His “angel,” he said, was in the center of the square: the statue “Victory,” a trident in one hand, a wreath in the other. 

“I would look at it at night and think, ‘Oh my God, that’s my hope,’ ” he said. 

San Francisco is often viewed as a Mecca for gay people. But the warmth of the city’s welcome can quickly vanish for those who are poor. 

City leaders were startled this year when a survey revealed that 29 percent of the homeless population —about 2,100 of the 7,350 people counted — identified themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. 

Bevan Dufty, the director of the city’s homelessness initiatives, said he was surprised the percentage held true for all age groups, even adults and the elderly. “What was really staggering was to see that it didn’t change as you got older,” he said. 

The survey found that gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people who are homeless had higher rates of disability than homeless heterosexuals and were more likely to be homeless when they arrived in the city. Some of them were older gay men with AIDS who had been evicted from their apartments or people who had been cast out by their families in other states. Others, like Mr. Bolvito, a native of Guatemala who graduated from college in Hayward, Calif., with a degree in political science and once worked as a real estate agent, had good jobs that disappeared during the recession. 

In response to the findings, Mr. Dufty and Kara Zordel, a coordinator of Homeless Connect, organized an event in October that offered medical and dental services and other assistance to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people who are homeless. And in August, the city’s planning commission approved permits for a 24-bed shelter with a focus on helping them. The shelter is expected to open in the coming months. Other cities have shown interest in San Francisco’s efforts, Mr. Dufty said. Officials from Santa Clara and Phoenix attended the Homeless Connect event.

Brian Basinger, a co-founder of the AIDS Housing Alliance in San Francisco, said the harassment of gays is common in the city’s shelters. 

People there “do not have a lot of status in society to begin with, and so the way they protect or generate status in these social environments is to step on the queers,” Mr. Basinger said.

Gay and transgender residents have their shoes stolen, he said. They are robbed or beaten up in line.

Mr. Basinger, whose partner was homeless for 10 years and who came close to being homeless himself after he developed AIDS, brought in an architect to design the new shelter. 

“I really wanted to think about how does the built environment impact people’s experiences,” he said. “So we spent a lot of time thinking that through and talking to people and designing something that was going to be functional and respect people’s dignity.” 

But the shelter will house only a fraction of those who are without homes. 

On a recent evening in the Castro District, Hjalmar Bjorkman, 48, sat cross-legged in a doorway. He has lived in the Bay Area for years. But two months ago, he said, he lost his job at a bar and his partner kicked him out. Since then, he has been sleeping on the sidewalk behind an old theater, he said, or at the home of a friend, who charges him $20 a night for the couch. 

“My ex-partner walks by me every day,” Mr. Bjorkman said. 

Bobby Spencer, 47, arrived in San Francisco from Atlanta in May, thinking he had a job as a nanny with a former co-worker at the company where he had worked as an executive assistant.

He was excited about the move. “Being gay in the South is still a lot different than being gay here, even in Atlanta,” he said. “I moved here to be queer, that was part of the plan.” 

But the job did not work out and, after having volunteered in soup kitchens in Atlanta, Mr. Spencer abruptly found himself without a place to stay. 

  He bunked for a while with people he had met, but then ended up on the streets. He was hungry and sick. He is H.I.V. positive, and his viral load rose from undetectable to high levels after his medication ran out, he said.

Brian Basinger, a co-founder of the AIDS Housing Alliance, said harassment of gays is common in shelters. 

Mr. Spencer said the gay community he had expected to open its arms to him had been less than gracious. 

“It’s a mad, cold world out there, even in your own family,” he said. “My own community treats most queers that are homeless as pariahs; they want nothing to do with them.” 

He eventually found a clinic where he can get his medication and moved to a shelter, where he has settled in for now, taking cooking classes and living on food stamps. 

But he said he is constantly alert for trouble. On his first night in the shelter, a man in the next bed became abusive. 

“It makes you anxious and it makes you nervous to have things like that going on and knowing that it’s absolutely being directed at you,” Mr. Spencer said. 

Supervisor David Campos, who held hearings on the shelter problem, said that even though the homeless population may not have grown, homelessness has become more visible in San Francisco recently, perhaps because of an increase in evictions. Mr. Basinger and other advocates held a “sleep in” in Dolores Park in October to protest a proposed ordinance that would close city parks, where many homeless people sleep, between midnight and 5 a.m. The proposal narrowly passed on Nov. 5.

For Mr. Bolvito, Union Square, with its tourists and constant stream of pedestrians, provided a sense of safety for the months he spent there. But he is happy now to have enough to eat and a roof over his head — in September he moved into a single-room-occupancy hotel that he found with the assistance of Mr. Basinger’s housing alliance. Mr. Bolvito earned a cosmetology degree while he was homeless and is looking for a job. His mother, who lives in Oakland, helps him out when she can. 

“I wanted people to know that poverty is not just the addicts,” he said. “It’s people who are educated like me. It is so many.”

In the News: The San Francisco Chronicle

Bay Area food banks need help ahead of holiday

Kevin Fagan

Published 6:46 pm, Tuesday, November 19, 2013

 (This is reposted from SF Gate.com)

Ghaleb Milouda (left) helps her mother, Mahjouba Benabou, bag items for the food pantry at St. Francis Lutheran Church. Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle 

Blame it on this month's cut in food stamps. Or stubbornly lean times for the poor. Or Thanksgiving coming later in the month this year.

They all boil down to this: Bay Area food banks and other charities that hope to lay out a traditional Thanksgiving feast for the poor next week are running well short of turkeys and other staples of a good holiday meal. And unless they get a heaping helping of last-minute luck and donations, there's going to be more grief than gobble this year for those struggling to get by.

As of Tuesday evening, the San Francisco and Marin Food Banks were short 800 turkeys. The Alameda County Food Bank still needed 4,000 turkeys, hams and chickens.

St. Anthony's Dining Room in the Tenderloin, one of the biggest meal providers in the Bay Area, is ready to start its annual drive for 1,000 turkeys on Saturday - and, with needs spiking higher every day, organizers are nervous.

Every year brings a call for more donations, but this year seems different, charity managers said. And not in a good way.

Nerve-racking

"Before this month, we'd go from serving 2,400 meals a day to about 2,600 around the end of the month, but now we hit that 2,600 mark right away," said Karl Robillard, spokesman for St. Anthony's. "People are feeling the safety net start to erode. Pay is flat, rents are up, and even though we always trust that people will come through, it's more nerve-racking than ever."

Paul Ash, executive director of the San Francisco and Marin Food Banks, said that not only is his nonprofit short hundreds of turkeys, but also donations are running about $1 million shy of where they should be this time of year.

"As we come out of the economic downturn, people are looking away from giving to food banks and more toward the arts, things like that," Ash said. "They kind of make the assumption that with the stock market being so high, and so much prosperity coming into San Francisco, that maybe people don't need as much as they used to. But it's just not true."

More poor

U.S. census data show that while great wealth has accumulated at the top end of the economic scale in the past few years, the number of Americans living in poverty rose from 13 percent in 2008 to 15 percent in 2012.

The Public Policy Institute of California, using locally tailored numbers, said a more accurate figure for poor people in California is 30 percent overall - and 39 percent for children.

Federal figures also show that 20 percent of the nation's children go hungry every night, and in San Francisco the total is 25 percent, according to a city Food Security Task Force report due Thursday.
Those numbers are likely to rise because of this month's cuts in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps. Monthly benefits dropped by as much as $36 for a family of four. That may not seem like much to some, but it's huge for anyone scraping by on minimum wage or welfare, said Mike Altfest, spokesman for the Alameda County Food Bank.

Worse this year

"That cut in food stamps means missed meals, as simple as that," Altfest said. "People's benefits typically run out every month after about three weeks, but this year is much worse and we are seeing it right now."

He said that in November last year, his nonprofit had received 18 emergency calls for food help by this time of the month. So far this month, it has received 51.

"And those are just the ones we are hearing from," Altfest said. "The fact that the volume has nearly tripled is extremely telling. We knew these food stamp cuts were coming at a bad time, but this is validation."

Waiting in line at the food bank giveaway at St. Francis Lutheran Church on Church Street in San Francisco, 58-year-old Calvin Cole glumly totaled up his prospects Tuesday for next week's holiday meal.

"They used to have the Salvation Army come in and serve us a meal, but that ended a while ago," said the resident of the Graystone Hotel supportive housing complex near Union Square. "I'm going to stay at home and listen to some music and be glad I'm alive.
"Not much else I can do. These are very hard times."

Looking forward

For Anthony Alfone, 47, and his family of four, the holiday looks a little brighter - if St. Anthony's manages to snare enough turkeys.

"We'll be back here on Thanksgiving and feel blessed to have the meal," Alfone said, taking in lunch with his wife and 2-year-old son. "We're in a shelter saving money right now to be able to move out, so we can't afford a holiday meal on our own. But this is a great place, and I'm sure they'll come up with something."

His son, Zeus, took in a forkful of curry chicken and laughed.

"For us, it's really about family and being grateful for what you have," Alfone said. "That's all you really need for the holiday."

He smiled at his son.
"But it does help to have turkey," Alfone said, patting the boy on the head.

How to help

Among those accepting donations for Thanksgiving meals:
-- San Francisco and Marin Food Banks: 900 Pennsylvania Ave., San Francisco. Call (415) 282-1907 for hours.
-- Alameda County Food Bank: 7900 Edgewater Drive, Oakland. Call (510) 635-3663 for hours.
-- St. Anthony's Dining Room: Turkey drive begins Saturday,150 Golden Gate Ave., San Francisco. Call (415) 241-2600 for hours.
-- Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, 330 Ellis St., San Francisco. Call (415) 674-6000 for hours.
-- Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano, 4010 Nelson Ave., Concord. Call (925) 676-7543 for hours.
-- Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties: Call (866) 234-3663 or e-mail donor.relations@shfb.org for locations and hours.