Crossing thresholds

Oak Lawn UMC’s new senior pastor says her church is welcoming, not just tolerant

DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com
Her clerical collar gives her away as the church’s pastor, but the Rev. Rachel Baughman’s dreads contrast with the traditionally conservative image of the historic Oak Lawn United Methodist Church.
When Baughman talks about welcoming all people to her church, she is talking not only about her LGBT members, but also about the housed or the homeless and immigrants, regardless of status. Caring for refugees isn’t just something she includes in her work, it’s her passion.
Through her work with Faith Forward and the International Rescue Committee, Baughman has helped care for refugees who’ve come to Dallas. But she takes her calling to help many steps farther. Her mission work has taken her to central Lebanon, where she’s building a school for children trapped in child labor, including those who have escaped from Syria. She said just $100,000 would outfit the school and pay for 280 students for a year.
The program, she explained, focuses on accelerated learning to bring the students up to grade level.
Why is she doing all of this? “It drives my spiritual well being,” she said.
And how does she rate the job we as Americans are doing caring for refugees?
“We’re not showing up,” she said, referring to both Americans and Christians worldwide who are doing little for the Syrian refugees pouring into neighboring countries and seeking asylum around the world. Baughman has been to Lebanon twice already this year, and she’ll be going back later in September.
Methodist ministers are appointed to congregations by district superintendents, who supervise congregations. And the OLUMC staff and members of its congregation are delighted Baughman showed up as their new senior pastor.
“So many people said, ‘That’s such a perfect appointment,’” Baughman said. “I found out very quickly the reason that was true.”
She said people at OLUMC live by the biblical mandate to “let love continue” and “don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers.” So she calls her match to the congregation and the neighborhood “unbelievably perfect.”
“I consider it a huge blessing,” she added.
The church, at the corner of Oak Lawn Avenue and Cedar Springs Road, was completed in 1915, and the building is on the National Register of Historic Places. The building is currently under renovation with a goal of making it more inviting. Lighting is being designed to make the colorful stained glass windows visible from the outside.

“Thresholds can be really hard to cross,” Baughman said, explaining that some people might find an historic and imposing building uncomfortable to enter, and some people may have a hard time entering a church because of their own personal past or the church’s own outreach.
Several years ago, OLUMC became a reconciling congregation, a process that ensures the church knows how to welcome the LGBT community and ensures standards of acceptance. Baughman said her church is welcoming, and that goes way beyond tolerance.
“Who wants to be tolerated?” she asked. At her former church, Baughman said, she was simply tolerated. So she understands that doesn’t always feel good.
But that process helped the church welcome everyone.
“We welcome you at Oak Lawn whether you’re housed or homeless, gay or straight, citizen or immigrant,” she said.
And when she refers to her LGBT members, she loves when they can be out and open about who they are: “We’re better able to be who God calls us to be if we can be our whole selves,” she said.
For the last several years, Oak Lawn UMC’s participation in the parade has grown. It began with welcoming people to sit on the church steps or relax on the lawn to watch the parade, and with opening the doors so parade-goers could use the church’s bathrooms.
Last year, the church added a tent to provide shade for those watching the parade and as a water distribution site.
This year, the church arranged with Jaime Vazquez’s office — which is located behind the church — to offer handicapped parking. Church volunteers will help get people from their cars to a special parade viewing section set aside for anyone with disabilities.
And the church has arranged emergency medical care. Off-duty paramedics will be on site providing assistance to anyone who needs it. Of course, bathrooms will again be available to anyone who needs them.
But at the mention of bathrooms, Baughman turns red thinking about how much time the Texas Legislature wasted this year trying to hurt members of her congregation and others in the surrounding neighborhood. “I’m proud our clergy showed up to talk to the legislature about the bathroom bill,” she said.
Baughman knows that just opening the doors won’t get most people into her church, so she goes out into the neighborhood.
“I spend a good number of nights on The Strip,” she said. “I go to bars. God’s love might not be where you expect.”
During a recent visit to The Grapevine on Maple, she said, “One conversation began with, ‘I really like your dreads.’”
Baughman is married, and she and her husband have four children, ages 8 to 16. “Having two pastors as parents, they’ll have a lot to tell their therapists,” she joked.
Whether she’s talking about her church and its diverse congregation or the children she’s helping in Lebanon, Baughman said what keeps her going is the knowledge that, “I can make a difference.”
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition September 15, 2017.