Grace for gangs: Father Gregory Boyle’s Tattoos on the Heart: The Boundless Power of Compassion influences First United Methodist Church of San Diego

First United Methodist Church of San Diego

• Contact: 2111 Camino del Rio South, San Diego 619-297-4366 www.fumcsd.org
• Membership: 2,000 (pre-covid)
• Neighborhood: Mission Valley
• Pastor: Trudy Robinson
• Age: 58
• Born: West Covina
• Formation: California State-Fullerton; Claremont School of Theology; Iliff School of Theology, Denver, CO
• Years Ordained: 25

San Diego Reader: What’s your favorite subject on which to preach?

Pastor Trudy Robinson: It’s always on grace. That’s such a churchy word, but by it, I mean the ability that God gives us to try again, and the ability to keep on being forgiven or being given the opportunity to have another chance. That’s all surrounded by a gift of love. Grace is the biggest gift we have to give. Actually, it’s not ours to give, but we remind people that it is God’s to give and ours to receive.

SDR: What’s your main concern as a member of the clergy?

PR: I’m trying to figure out how to invest in the ministries we’ll need for our future. As we come out of the pandemic, we’re being given great opportunities to respond to the world and our community differently. We’ve been seeing different tools that we can use to reach people, and that’s very exciting to me. We’ve been livestreaming forever as a church, it seems, and with the pandemic it took on a new role. We were getting well over 2000 viewers before covid; we now have 1,660,100 viewers during the covid time, which is incredible. Folks are looking for something, and if this is the way they are finding it, then the church ought to keep giving it this way. We need to reshape what church membership looks like and what worship really means.

SDR: Why Methodist?

PR: The easy answer is that I was born and raised Methodist. But I find that the theology of the Methodist Church is very inclusive when you get down to understanding the grace of God. I am grateful that the Methodist church I am serving has taken that literally. While the larger Methodist denomination has been trying to figure out what kind of relationship we have with our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, my particular church is embracing people of all kinds — gays, lesbians, transgender. It’s in the Methodist theology to understand that, at least from my perspective.

SDR: What one book has had the most influence on your ministry?

PR: I am a huge fan of the Jesuit priest, Father Gregory Boyle, who wrote Tattoos on the Heart: The Boundless Power of Compassion. He speaks of grace beautifully and lives it as he is trying to offer that love and grace to gang members in LA and has been doing this for I don’t know how many decades. His persistence in being grace-filled to those that most people want to write off, and his persistent hope in doing that, is inspiring to me.

PR: Where do you go when you die?

SDR: I am content not knowing the answer to that question. But I have a sense that it is going to blow my mind. The best way I can describe what I believe is that we will know the fullness of God; we will be embraced by the fullness of God in way that will render all our preconceived notions of heaven irrelevant. It’s true there are people who don’t want to be with God, but I think that if God is a God of grace, then we have to be open to the idea that even after death there might be an opportunity for those people.