2020 Issue 6 Nov/Dec - Focus Mid-Tenn Magazine

faith+spirituality
‘YOU ARE BELOVED’
By Lauren Means | photos courtesy Pastor Dawn Bennett & The Table
I grew up in the Church
of Christ. I was never taught
to hate but I do remember
hearing the phrase “hate
the sin, not the sinner”
frequently. As I grew older,
I started to question what
that meant exactly. When I
came to terms with my own
sexual orientation, I realized
I was the sin. This has led to
much time reflecting on my
personal relationship with
religion and spirituality.
This is common for many in
the LGBT+ community. We’re
inundated with it in the news,
on TV, on social media, and
often in our families. We’re
told we are broken; that
there’s something wrong with
who we are; that we need
fixing.
Luckily, there are numerous
affirming faith communities
in the Middle Tennessee area.
Many are in Nashville but you
can find them in outlying
areas too. In the South,
being affirming to the LGBT+
community is a bold stance
to take. We’re fortunate to
have organizations that go
out of their way to let us
know we are loved as we
are. The Table is a welcome
addition to the list.
Finding Her Truth
The Table is described as
an organic faith community
by its founder Pastor Dawn
Bennett. Pastor Dawn was
raised with her siblings in the
Catholic tradition. “Strangely,
from an early age, I was
driven to go inside with my
feelings and questions, which
included my bisexuality. As
a kid, I began talking to God
in a conversational way,” she
said. Pastor Dawn explained
while she didn’t learn this in
Sunday School per se, it’s
what developed for her. She
also shared that, over the
years, she learned about
abuses her siblings endured
— especially her brothers —
within the church. She kept
talking with God about how
this could be and eventually
found the Catholic doctrine
wasn’t a maintainable faith
tradition for her.
Embracing Her Truth
In the mid-’90s, when
her children were young,
Pastor Dawn and her family
moved to Tennessee.
She’d transitioned to the
Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America (ELCA)
and began working in lay
ministry, teaching and
Vacation Bible School.
As time passed, her
children wanted a youth
group with all the buttons
and bells. “Enter [the] bigbox
evangelical church,”
she said. “A few years in,
my middle child came out
as lesbian. Or, actually, was
outed by the youth pastor’s
wife.....no way! Yes, way. Well,
family and church life blew up
and before I knew it, none of
my kids would go to church
and divorce was right around
the bend,” shared Pastor
Dawn.
As the years progressed,
she said her conversations
with God turned more to
rage and questions. “But still,
I couldn’t seem to separate
myself from either my lived
experiences or ministry. Over
time God began talking back
to me in answers like, ‘if you
want something to change,
change it.’ So, I did,” she
said. She went to Vanderbilt
Divinity School and Luther
Seminary. Now, she works to
help people and families heal
Page 28 / focusmidtenn.com / NOV+DEC 2020 / CHEERS!