Video: Rev. Katie Ricks Preaches at MLP Worship Service

Rev. Katie Ricks became the first out lesbian since policy change in 2011 to be ordained by New Hope Presbytery to ministry in the Presbyterian Church (USA). The passage of Amendment 10-A, now G-2.0104 in our Book of Order, made her ordination possible.

Katie is a graduate of Columbia Theological Seminary and serves in ministry at the Church of the Reconciliation, a welcoming and affirming More Light church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Katie came out as a lesbian at Columbia Theological Seminary and served as co-chair of the Imago Dei Chapter on campus.

In her sermon at the National MLP Celebration Worship Service, Katie spoke about the beloved community, a Church that reflects God's heart.

We the body of Christ inside these rooms and far outside these doors cannot live as the beloved community when some of us are continually being sent into exile. Yesterday as I listened to the same words that I have heard over and over again in these settings, I thought of the increased numbers of suicides by LGBT teens. I thought of children turned away from baptismal fonts because their parents are gay. I thought of the hundreds of thousands of believers shut out from faith communities by being told their kind didn't belong.
 
Our conversations in Pittsburgh are more than debates about semantics. Our conversations have life and death consequences for beloved children who long to be in relationship with God.
 
And so like Isaiah, we must proclaim the good news of the gospel of this God who has gone down this road before. Who loves us. Who has not forgotten any of us. Who has journeyed along side the broken, the lost, the excluded and the outcast.

Watch Rev. Katie Ricks' Sermon