Presbyterian Church of Okemos, Michigan reaffirms baptism vows for a boy named Zach, a beloved member and transgender youth
Zach’s mother: ‘When our congregation said in unison, “We see you,” I thought my heart would burst’
LOUISVILLE — Last month on Baptism of the Lord Sunday, Presbyterian Church of Okemos, Michigan, engaged in a memorable and meaningful reaffirmation of baptism vows for one of its beloved members, Zach, a transgender boy who was originally baptized at the church as a female.
“It wasn’t a rebaptism. We were acknowledging he was baptized with a different name. The renaming ceremony was an important part of it,” said the Rev. Dr. Lisa Schrott, the church’s pastor since 2021.
The congregation “was uniformly supportive and loving for Zach. So many people expressed what it meant” in the life of the church, Schrott said. “The church has been with Zach throughout his whole journey.”
“You were first brought to the waters of baptism with a different name, and we return today to remember God’s promises continue with you throughout all of your life,” Schrott told Zach that day. “We gather around these waters as a community to mark your name change. By what name shall you be known?”
“He was baptized in the same church as a baby with the name his father and I gave him when he was born,” Zach’s mother said, “and he reaffirmed that baptism with the name he chose for himself.”
Baptism is “about becoming part of a community and being embraced by that community,” Schrott explained during the service.
“From the moment my son started his transition to becoming a boy over 11 years ago, our church family has embraced him just as he is, with their whole hearts and without hesitation,” Zach’s mother said. “When our congregation said in unison, ‘We see you,’ I thought my heart would burst.”
For the reaffirming liturgy, Schrott sought help from the Rev. Dr. David Gambrell, associate for worship in the PC(USA)’s Interim Unified Agency. Gambrell sent several possibilities, and Zach picked the one in which the congregation would affirm to him, “We see you.”
“That nailed it for him. It hit on the whole theme that Pastor Lisa was preaching about, that baptism is not just an individual thing — it’s a relationship with the community,” Zach’s mother explained. “The liturgy was really good at expressing that community.”
Rebecca Mattern, the church’s coordinator of pastoral care and youth ministry, said that during the service and afterward, “I was filled with a sense of the Holy Spirit, an expanded heart for what the church can look like and how welcoming and loving this church has been.”
One example: a youth flipping through a church photo album noticed a picture with captions containing Zach’s former name. “The wrong name is here. What do we do about that?” the youth asked. The captions are being updated with the permission of Zach and the family.
Zach told Mattern after the service how grateful he was, especially because his older brother was home from college to share the experience. “I was surprised the decision [to participate in the service] was made as quickly as it was,” Mattern said. “I had put the bug in his ear a few weeks before and told him and his mom, ‘You have all the time you want to make this happen.’ Within hours, the family said, ‘Yes, we want to do this.’”
Mattern was taken by the volume with which the congregation delivered the “We see you” line.
“It wasn’t a shy, ‘We see you.’ It was a ‘Yes! We see you,’” Mattern said. “People were paying attention, and the way people said it was meaningful for them.”
“I wonder for those in the congregation who have experiences in their families, how this affects them and their acceptance and ability to articulate it for persons who identify as trans and LGBTQIA+,” Mattern said. “What a witness to say, ‘God sees you and loves you, and the church does too.’”
Zach’s mother said the family “wanted to share this deeply personal moment because right now the world is a frightening place for transgender people. Trans people are being vilified, their right to exist attacked, and many of those attacks are originating from within churches.”
“We share the reaffirmation of his baptism to show a different way forward, one that embraces instead of excludes, celebrates instead of vilifies, expresses love instead of hate.”
“If you are LGBTQAI and your religion is important to you but you are not embraced by your religious community as your whole self, find another community,” Zach’s mother suggested. “There are people out there who will see you, too.”
Members of the congregation have been reading William Yoo’s award-winning book, “What Kind of Christianity.” Yoo described in his book how Presbyterian churches and leadership excused and protected slavery, calling the place where he teaches, Columbia Theological Seminary, “wicked,” but noting at the time that it “looked and sounded like a church.”
“I wonder in the future what we will look back on and see as wicked what now looks and sounds like what a church should do,” Zach’s mother said. “What are churches doing right now that seem consistent with Christianity that later will seem abhorrent to Christians?”
“So many people after the reaffirmation told us they had tears in their eyes. They thanked him for doing this and told him how proud they were of him,” she said. Most of the congregation “knows the science behind gender. You either think God made people this way by mistake, or you understand people are born a different way and you embrace that.”
“If you don’t understand science, it’s easy to be transphobic,” she said. “If you understand the science, you have to decide if you will use your religion as a bludgeon.”
When Zach was about 12, he was writing a position paper as part of a school assignment. He made the argument that “transgender kids need more legal protections,” his mother recalled. She asked him to think about the arguments people might make against his thesis. “What about the Christian argument?” she asked him. “He said, ‘What Christian argument?’”
“He has [since] learned the term, ‘Pray the gay away,’ but at the time he was absolutely unaware of it,” she said.
Zach’s mother thanked the Rev. Len Scales and Slats Toole for creating the reaffirmation of baptism liturgy that Zach selected, the Presbytery of Lake Michigan “for supporting our church’s use of the liturgy,” and our pastors and congregation at the Presbyterian Church of Okemos “for seeing and loving my child.”
“Every minute I don’t share this makes me panicked,” she said. “I think it’s so important. I don’t know who’s out there thinking they are not loved.”
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