Below, I have provided a written version of my first words as an ordained minister. I have made slight edits, though the speech is largely the same. These words were originally given at my Service of Ordination on 8/9/2026.

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This morning, I woke up to an incessant pain. I had become numb, but this time, I again cried. I laughed, I screamed, and I melted, melted into this reality where pain and death, so often, pervade.

At lunch, I put on my suit, and I fastened the clergy collar. I yelled at the top of my lungs, and I fell to the ground, disheveled, wishing I could cut this collar from my neck.

This afternoon, I stand here wearing a robe that part of me almost wants to burn, and a stole, the burden of which seems more than I can bear, or at least, more than I can bear alone.

If I told you I didn't know this weight as a child, I'd be lying. When I first heard the pastor speak the words of God, I knew the full weight of this call. In my soul, I knew: "If sharing this Gospel was truly this important, then I could spend my life doing nothing else."

I knew this call, and I so eagerly, so graciously, so joyfully made peace that it was mine. Yet, years later as I stand here, I want to claw at the collar, and I feel bound by the robes. Why can't I shed them and throw them away? Why can't I choose to forget they exist? Why can't I abandon this Gospel and leave it behind?

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When I was a child, I heard the God of the Heavens speak to me. The heavens opened, and the words of God descended until they met the mouth of a minister. Thus, God spoke. I received the call to speak the Gospel to the hurting, to the grieving, to the crying, to the pained, to the hungry, to the thirsty, to the broken, to the bruised, to the shot, to the dispossessed, to the oppressed, to the burned, to the ignored, to the cut, to the trying, to the giving-up, to the depressed, to the disillusioned, and to each and every person who cries for a world that has not been blighted by such painful, deathful realities. When I heard this call, I said yes, knowing deep in my soul that this choice would ultimately become the most consequential of my life. 

I now don a minister's title and gown. I sit in the school of the Prophets; I stand in the line of the Judges; I speak as a sibling and a servant of Christ. Thus, though Christ's burden is light, I have come to know the weight of the cross. I've come to know its pain, its yearning, and its grief. 

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So too, however, do I believe in the reality of the Resurrection. I have faith in, and am coming to know, that the death of the Cross was not God's final breath. Joy does not end in death; rather, death ends in joy.

Thus, I am here. I wear this collar, I don this gown, and I graciously accept this ordination as a Minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I do this, yes, in honoring the decision of the congregation of Broadway Baptist Church to ordain me. I do this, yes, in honoring the many of you here today who have supported me in the pursuit of my call, from my family and partner to my friends and my mentors to those from all throughout my life's journey. I am grateful to y'all beyond that which I can express, for I am a servant unto each one of you.

I receive this ordination in the faith that the pain of the cross-wounds is not eternal. I accept this ordination in faith that the dream-vision of Jacob and its consequent prophecy, upon Nathaniel by Christ, are but holy premonitions of a life to-come. This life is not gone in the clouds on some other world, but it is a life present in the walk of Christ, a life present in the hope we, as did the churches of John's Revelation, choose to hold in the deepest recesses of our souls. This is the life of the Gospel of Jesus, that very Gospel to which I am ordained today.

For, I heard a loud voice from the open heavens saying, 

"See, the home of God is among humanity! 

God shall dwell with them, and they will be God's peoples, and God themself will be with them and be their God.

God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will exist no longer; mourning and crying and pain, neither shall they be.

For, the first things have passed away... behold, [the voice said] I am making all things new!

This is the promise of Christ: that death shall exist no longer, neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain. For the cross-wounds shall no longer pang, and our souls will find rest in the easy yoke of Christ.

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For every morning, I am reminded that I bear the wounds of Christ. I hurt, I cry, and I have begged the cup be taken away. I have clawed at the collar on my neck, I have thought to burn the gown, and I have wanted to flee from the call of the minister altogether. However, in faith toward joy, and in faith in finding joy, and in faith in joy, I choose to believe in a Gospel where the cross is not final, but rather, life is. To this Gospel, I am fully, willfully, eternally bound. And thus, I proclaim this truth as did the shepherd boy, Amos, from Judah:

The lion has roared; who can but fear? 
The LORD God has spoken; who can but prophesy?