Rev. Elder Don Eastman entered MCC in 1971 and engaged in the ministries of the church at a variety of levels. He retired from the position of Vice-Moderator of the Board of Elders in 2007 after serving on MCC’s staff for more than a decade. A prime teacher of the Strategic Growth Initiative and an advocate of church growth and health, MCC owes much to Rev. Elder Eastman’s background in business and management. Learn about his diverse and widespread ministry with MCC here!

Oral History

I’m Rev. Elder Don Eastman.

 

Where were you born?

Sheboygan, Wisconsin

 

Where do you call home?

Sunrise, Florida which is part of Fort Lauderdale

 

Did you grow up in the Church?

I grew up in the Assemblies of God Church.

 

When did you discover Metropolitan Community Churches?

I first discovered Metropolitan Community Church in 1971.  I picked up a copy of the Advocate Newspaper, and read about MCC.  In 1973 I read Troy Perry’s book, “The Lord Is My Shepherd And He Knows I’m Gay.”  I first really sought out MCC in 1974.  Troy’s book said there was a Church in Chicago, so I went to Chicago and found that Church. 

 

Do you remember your first experience after walking into the Church?  What did it feel like?

Well, first of all it took me, it took for me, a lot of courage to go into the church in the first place.  I drove around the block six times before having an argument with myself every time around the block, and then the seventh time I found a parking space, this was at Good Shepherd Parish MCC in Chicago back in 1974.  I went to the door of the church, and the first person I met walking in was Rev. Ken Martin who was the assistant Pastor at the time, and he just happened to be getting ready for the processional, so I shook hands with him and walked in and sat down.  My first impression—there were two impressions—Number 1, I just felt something inside me say this is where I need to be.  Number 2, I thought the people were very nice there and throughout the service and after the service in the social hour, they were very kind and very friendly.  And for me, my first experience with MCC was that it was a very friendly place, that I wanted to be.

 

So you decided to continue to come back.

Actually, I drove back to the city I was living in at the time, Des Moines, Iowa, and about a week later I got up enough nerve to go to a gay bar in that city for the first time.  There was a sign that they were forming an MCC in Des Moines, so that next Sunday I went to that Church, I was one of six people in worship and that became the real stepping stone to my own coming out process.  Actually, my coming out process was more of a coming in process.  Coming in to MCC.

 

Do you remember that first sermon?

At Des Moines?  Oh, yes.  Oh, yes.  Largely because the person who started MCC in Des Moines, his name is Jerry Sloan.  Jerry Sloan was an incredible individual who had immense courage to go in and start MCC’s, he also started the MCC in Wichita after he started the one in Des Moines, but like I said, I was one of six people in the service.  After the service I introduced myself to him because at that time I was an Ordained Minister in the Assemblies of God and I told him I was going through my own coming out process.  After the service we went out to dinner and we talked for a long time.  Jerry became a good friend and really, probably, the most influential person in helping me to come out. 

 

Do you have a particular sermon that you remember more than you remember any other?

That I preached or other people preached?

Well, I would say, that other people preached.

I’ll have to think about that a little bit.

Okay, we’ll come back to it then.

 

 

 

Who influenced you most in MCC?

There are so many people.  Probably Jerry Sloan, initially because I think he actually dragged me out of the closet, but once that happened it changed my life forever, and he was a strong early influence.  The other person who was a strong, strong influence, not so much in my coming into MCC, but my coming into the ministry of MCC, was Rev. Lee Carlton, who then was the Pastor of MCC-Los Angeles.  I came into MCC-Des Moines in probably September, 1974.  Over the Christmas holiday, 1974, I traveled to Los Angeles for my work and also to do the Christmas holiday with my brother’s family.  That was the first time I attended the Mother Church, MCC-Los Angeles.  That was absolutely an overwhelming experience for me and at the end of the service I introduced myself to Rev. Lee Carlton and he invited me to his home, with his partner, and his mother was visiting that day and I spent the whole afternoon in their home and then back to church for the evening services, and …   What actually happened, there were two young men from Australia who were visiting Lee at that time and they were just getting MCC started in Australia.  As we waited for the evening service to start, I was talking with them and explained to them that I was a minister in the Assemblies of God.  One of them said to me, “are you planning to be a minister in MCC?”, and I said, well I really hadn’t thought about that.  And he said, you really need to think about it, we need people like you in MCC.  That whole experience that weekend was so transformational and I will always, always be grateful to Rev. Lee Carlton for his encouragement in those moments.

 

He is a wonderful person, he is still amazing.

Yes, he is.

 

Do you attend an MCC now?

Oh, yes, I’m a member of the Sunshine Cathedral MCC in Fort Lauderdale and I just love that Church.  It’s a great Church.

 

Well, then, that leads me right into my next question:  What do you love about the local Church?

I love the vibrant worship, the incredible music, I love the intentionality of worship, how well worship is done in this Church, how it engages the needs of the people in worship.  In every worship service we offer prayer for healing and in every worship service we also offer Communion, as does every other MCC, but all of that happens in a very intentional way and it also happens in less than one hour for each worship service, but it is just a very spirit-filled, excellent worship service and I like the vibrancy of worship.  Secondly, I like the sense of community, I like the role that our Church plays in our community, it is well recognized for its’ contributions to the community.  We have the first gay/lesbian senior citizen day care center in the United States, and that’s doing very, very well.  We have so many different outreaches in the community and I just think that is an incredible Church and I feel such a joy and a privilege to be a part of that Church as a member.

 

MCC’s movement and ministry and community is well-known.  What do you like about the ministry, the movement and the community of MCC?

 I like the fact that it changes people’s lives forever.  It helps people to accept themselves as they are.  It helps people to know that God created each one of us as we are, God accepts us as we are and it also helps gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people to know that God created us as we are.  Our sexual orientation, our gender, all of this is a gift from God and in MCC we celebrate that and I think that’s a very life transforming message for people who otherwise had been excluded from the Church. 

 

Can you think of the time when you felt the most proud to be a member of MCC?

There are so many times, that it would be hard to single out one.  But, I’ll just share one story with you.  I had the privilege for nine wonderful years to be the Pastor of MCC in Dallas, Texas.  We had a wonderful congregation which grew steadily over those nine years and had just incredible ministries in our community and also it was a Church that was strong in prayer and one day I received a phone call in my office to come to the hospital, a young man in the community had been terribly burned.  He was 31 years of age and I arrived at the burn unit at Parkland Hospital and the doctor made me put on the robe, the mask, the gloves, to go into the burn unit.  The doctor explained to me before we went in, he said “this young man is 31 years of age and he has third degree burns covering 80% of his body.  In medicine we have a guideline that the age of the patient plus the percentage of burn coverage will determine the probability that the individual is going to die.”   He said, “this young man is 31 years of age, he has 80% third degree burns, there is a 111% chance that he is going to die.”  In fact, when he arrived at the hospital, he was conscious and the doctors told him he was going to die.  I went into his room, he was, at that point, not conscious, but I had prayer and then we had him on our prayer list every Sunday in our Church.  I went up to the hospital another time and the physician was a woman who was also a lesbian and knew who I was and she took me in the room and again, he was still unconscious and all of a sudden the cardiac monitor stopped, something happened with the heart rate and she immediately made me leave the room and a team of doctors came in and she told me then, “his heart’s not going to hold out, he will not make it through the night.”  I went back home, thinking this is it.  Well he did make it through the night.  And every week he was on our prayer list and folks on our pastoral care team would go up, and it was a long, long time and you know, he recovered.  He got out of the hospital.  And it was about a year or so later, I remember, a summer day in June that David Ruth walked up the aisle of our Church to thank us for our prayers and I can’t think of a prouder moment.

 

Well, I can imagine that was quite an experience for both of you.  Well, I’m sure that this question will be a very easy one to answer.  Have you attended General Conference?

I’ve attended every General Conference since 1975. 

 

Okay.  What do you like most about General Conference?

Two things—seeing people that I’ve known for so many years and it’s the time when we all gather again.   And the second thing is meeting new people.  And especially, the thing I like about meeting new people is seeing the new generation of youth and young adults and children just growing at every General Conference.  That just fills me with joy.

 

Do you remember the inclusive language project?

Oh, yes.  We were all very much a part of that in the late 70’s and early 80’s.

 

And you know I’ve heard so many stories about that particular project and so many different opinions.  Can you share with us, what was your experience like?

Well, the General Conference in Houston was where we ultimately decided our inclusive language guidelines.  And that was the result of the Inclusive Language Task Force and its work and I remember that it was a very divisive issue at the time, there was a lot of conflict and contention and at the same time, we worked through that during the course of that General Conference with these extremely passionate, sometimes angry divergent viewpoints.   What happened was we just, by God’s grace, and by the gifts of people who were there, we were able to work through to an understanding to what I think became a very good foundation for our future.  And we actually made two important decisions at that Conference.  Number 1, we decided that we would be a Christian Church, we would continue to be a Christian Church.  And Number 2, we decided that we would be an inclusive Church and that gave us the contours for the future and those were our new boundaries:  we would continue to be a Christian Church and we will be an inclusive Church, and I’ve watched that steadily evolve now over the last 26 years.

 

What can you tell me about the Ordination of women and the Ordination of people of color in MCC?

The Ordination of women really began to get its impetus with Rev. Elder Freda Smith prior to the time that I came into the fellowship.  I come out of a Pentecostal tradition, the Assemblies of God, which also Ordains women, so from my frame of reference I knew women who were Ordained Ministers all of my life.  So that was not a novelty to me.  I think what I did see in MCC was the evolution of more and more women in the life of our Church.  Actually there are two big influences in MCC through its early history and those were very influential to me through my formative years in MCC, I would say in the mid to late 70’s and into the early 80’s, those two influences were the Pentecostalism of Troy Perry and all the influences of the Pentecostal movement, the Pentecostal frame of reference, and then the subsequent Charismatic movement that the Pentecostal movement evolved into.  That was very influential in MCC.  And the second movement that was occurring at the same time was the liberation theology movement.  The liberation theology movement that arose out of Latin America profoundly impacted people of color, it profoundly impacted feminists and so you have these different strands of liberation theology and MCC was very influenced and very influential in those processes through that period of time, so all of us, you know that was part of our culture and our time and those were strong influences on my development.  I think what the two things, interestingly, had in common, Pentecostalism and liberation theology, is they both placed a very strong importance on an individual’s own experience.  In other words, I’m not just going to depend on some other theologian or some other religious leader or some televangelist or a Pope to tell me what my experience with God has to be, but I’m going to take the experience that I have myself, and what the Spirit of God confirms in my own heart, and that’s going to be my truth, I’m not taking the truth from somebody else who tries to impose their truth on me.

 

You know we’ve heard so much about the transgender community and, of course, MCC itself, had to grow into its own as far as the transgender community is concerned.  Can you remember the beginning ministry of the transgender persons?

Oh, yes.  I go back to my first experience in MCC was in Des Moines, Iowa.  I came into that Church in late 1974, by May of 1975 I was asked to become the Pastor of that Church and I can remember transgendered people coming into the Church then and being perceived as drag queens in drag and having other members of the Church want us to forbid them to be there in drag.  I remember having to fight that fight and say “No, this is a Church where we’re going to welcome everybody just as they are and accept everybody just as they are.  So that was my first recollection.  My second recollection was when I moved to Dallas in 1978 to become the pastor and began to have transgendered people in our Church.  And we actually had a psychiatrist in the city who was counseling people in transition and so we had direct cooperative relationships where we offered an accepting, affirming, empowering community for transgendered individuals in their transition process in Dallas.  So, from the earliest months that I can remember there, we had transgendered people in the life of our Church.  We also did, in the South Central District, which was our District for that region back in those years, and we had some transgendered individuals as District leaders.  To me that’s always been a part of our fabric that’s MCC and I’ve watched that continue to grow over the years.

 

You know, children was another big subject, in some instances, a big no-no, cause it seemed as though one of the ways that homosexuals were attacked was because we supposedly were pedophiles, or whatever.  Do you remember when children started coming in to MCC and how that itself felt to those that were going to MCC at that point in time.

I remember that in some places within MCC there was a resistance or a fear of having children because of the perceived kinds of accusations that we might get that we’re trying to recruit children or young people for sexual purposes, for predatory purposes and so people were very resistant and fearful to even having children in our midst.  I think primarily for that reason.  I think there was a second issue, and that is that some cases the kinds of things we said or did in our Churches were not exactly G-rated for children, and so it was not a conducive environment for parents to bring their children into, but I also saw that changing by intention in a lot of our Churches.  And indeed, again, in the Dallas Church, I can remember that we started a children’s Sunday School.  By the time I left we had a Sunday School with about 30 children in it, and that was a very central part of our Church.  I can remember when I went to Dallas there was one lesbian couple who had a ten-year old son and they would bring him with them every Sunday.  I watched him grow up in our Church, in fact he wanted me to come to his high school graduation, and that was a joyful moment for me to watch this young man grow up in our Church, and he also invited me later to his wedding, but that I had already moved away, so I was not able to get back for that celebration.  But, it was great to see children grow up in our Church and find a safe and healthy place where they could grow, having family and friends who were both gay and straight.

 

AIDS is another subject where MCC was very much affected.  Because what I understand about our history, we experienced so much death.  Can you share those times, some of that time, with us?

Those times border on being indescribable.  They were, at the same time, our most painful time and I think in many cases we may look back on those as our finest hour.  I remember first reading the New York Times article in the summer of 1981 about this new gay-related disease.  I had a prior period of work in public health, and I knew immediately when I read that article that this was going to be something very, very bad.  I called the publisher of our local gay newspaper in Dallas, and I said you need to call the Centers for Disease Control and find out everything you can about this because this is going to be a major, major, major story and this does not look good for our future at all.  And by early 1982 we had our first case of AIDS in MCC-Dallas.  A young man, 32 years of age, sang in our choir, was admitted to the hospital; I was called to the hospital on a Monday, I went into the hospital, they took me to the intensive care unit.  They made me put on gloves and a mask and they told me that they thought that this was that new gay-related disease and that he was in critical condition, he had this rare form of pneumonia called pneumocistis.  They took me into the room, he was unconscious, with a tube, on a ventilator, and I had prayer with him.  That was on Monday, on Thursday he was dead.  He had only been admitted on Sunday.  That was the first of many, many people, and by the time I left Dallas in 1986 (that was 1982), the third from last week I was there I conducted five funerals in that week.  It was up to where we were having like a funeral a day being conducted by our Church staff.  You know, interestingly, through that period of time, probably from the early 80’s through the mid- to late nineties, we lost a third of our members, and yet our Church grew.  And I think our Church grew because we were so aggressive in reaching out to do AIDS ministry, and I think that was characteristic of many Metropolitan Community Churches, but without question, it was the most difficult time of my life, to stand with people as they die, to stand with the families as they make the decision to unplug the ventilator, to have the funerals where families don’t even want to be a part of the funeral, they just want to disassociate from/about anything with this individual, all of that, it was very difficult and yet we came through it and I think that we’re stronger for it and I think that it fills me with comfort and it fills me with joy to know those who have gone before us whether from AIDS or other reasons, are still with us in that cloud of witnesses spoken of in Hebrews 12. 

 

With this being an opportunity to leave a legacy, one of speech, one of spoken word, what words would you leave us with? 

Never give up.  Persistence wins.  If you walk with God long enough, one day you’re gonna have the luxury of looking back over all of those years and saying, “Now it all makes sense.”

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