I do not see my pastoral role as gathering a group of people and doing everything in my power to keep those same people together forever, because doing so most often takes place at the expense of the most vulnerable in the group. My job is to protect everyone’s God-given gift to sit with everyone else in equal fellowship, and if some people at the table do not want certain groups to serve them, lead them, share the same silverware or cut the turkey, then (to be blunt) they have agency to leave the table.
