Star Light Ministries

A dear friend of mine, Amy Butler, wrote a post last week about the women in ministry that she loves, in response to the recent cover story on Gospel Today magazine. For those of you who haven’t heard, Lifeway Bookstores (the Southern Baptist book store) have pulled the magazines from their shelves, and have placed them behind the counter, like Christian porn, all because there are women ministers on the front.

After recovering from my disappointment of not being featured in Amy’s blog, I decided to blog about my favorite female ministers. These are amazing women in ministry, funny, brilliant, and, yes, sexy. Here goes:

Suzanah Raffield
Fierce defender of women in the world, especially concerned with maternal care, Suzanah is one of the best preachers I’ve heard. She is funny, beautiful, and incredibly knowledgeable about women’s issues in the world. Plus, she really is one of my favorite people in the world.

Erin Spengeman
Erin Spengeman is an amazing minister, but one of those ministers without a standard pulpit. Her pulpit and church is a coffee shop in Richmond, Virginia. She hosts a wonderful Beer and Theology night on Tuesdays, writes a blog, and has hopes of being a “community chaplain” in her neighborhood. Oh! And did I mention that she’s an amazing preacher?

Rebecca Wand Ben-Gideon
Rebecca is my Rabbi. There aren’t enough words in the English language (maybe if I spoke Hebrew, I could find the words!) to express how amazing this woman is. Rebecca’s commitment to learning, education, and Torah are really an example to me, prodding me to be more serious about my scholarship and my ministry. Plus, she bakes the best challah ever!

Betty Pugh
I first met Betty at a preaching conference a few years ago. She has been at Grace Baptist Church in Richmond for over 15 years (I think!). At a time when pastors tend to last 4-7 years, that’s quite an accomplishment! She’s a great preacher, a wonderful pastor, and a great leader.

Sarah Jackson Shelton
When I was in seminary, there were very few women in pastoral roles. I can’t tell you how much it meant to me to see a woman being installed as a senior pastor of a church. It still means so much to me. Sarah is the pastor of Baptist Church of the Covenant in Birmingham, Alabama. When the Baptist leaders of Birmingham tried to start controversy about her being a senior pastor, Sarah said, “I don’t have time for controversy. I have ministry to do!”

Jennifer McKenzie
Jennifer is part of the pastoral team of Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia. I can always assume that Jennifer is going to say something straight from God’s mouth into my ear when we meet together. She is incredibly supportive, loving, and funny! She also has an amazing family and keeps her finger on the pulse of real life.

Only one left. Amy Butler. But, of course, you already know about her because you tracked my links. Amy is a great preacher, a wonderful friend, and is just a lot of fun to be around. She is Sassy. Thanks, Amy, for the blog idea.

For the last month or so, the Star Light team in Birmingham, Alabama has been visiting all the clubs in Birmingham. Usually, they only visit two clubs, but now they’ve been visiting all of them. There are 6 clubs.

The team visited with information about the Exotic Dancer, M.B.A. coming to Birmingham. They told the dancers, the managers, and the housemoms about the economic advantage that the EDMBA offers dancers. After the seminar, dancers will make and keep more of their money.

Armed with registration forms, gifts, and sometimes even tips, the teams signed women up for the Sunday event that started at 12:30, with childcare available.

13 women signed up. Seven of those women had pre-paid, either the total $50 for the event or a deposit. The Birmingham team was psyched.

Fast forward to Sunday. It’s 12:30. One woman has come to the event, and another has called for directions. Two women showed up, and another came at about 2 o’clock. Even though 7 prepaid, only 3 came.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not upset that only 3 women showed up. I’m thrilled that 3 women showed up! I know that these 3 women, bright, beautiful, and wonderful were exactly the women who needed the EDMBA. I have full confidence that they will use the skills and the network to increase their agency. I also have full confidence that these women were the women that I needed to meet. They showed me a side of exotic dancing that I haven’t seen in a while.

Because of the women’s privacy, I don’t want to share too much. But these women needed to be affirmed, feel loved, and learn the skills Star Light taught.

I was reminded of the story about the little boy on the beach after a terrible hurricane. He’s walking along the beach, picking up starfish and throwing them back into the ocean. An older gentleman walks up and says, “Why are you bothering with throwing them back in the ocean? You can’t make a difference!”

The little boy picked up another starfish, tossed it gently into the life-giving waves. “Made a difference to that one,” he said.

The Board of Directors of Star Light Ministries is meeting this weekend. Last night we met for dinner, introductions, and some good hanging out time. They are an amazing bunch of women.

At one point, they noticed that I kept using the phrase “sex workers,” which I’ve discussed here. One person asked, “Who does the term include?” Well, it includes porn stars, exotic dancers, erotic modeling, phone sex operators, escorts, street-level survival prostitutes, professional dominatrices, and many, many more.

“Why that term?” they asked. I replied, “The sex workers I have met prefer the term, it is a better descriptor of what they do, work, and it highlights the fact that many people in the sex industry work in several different places in the sex industry.”

Kit Heifner, a passionate Star Light Board member piped up, “Well, I guess we need to change our mission statement to say sex workers!”

I love these people!

A lot of times I can complain (let’s face it, bitch) about the complexities of the work that I do. Sex work has a lot of complexities: the diversity of the work, the variations of reasons that women choose sex work, the divergence of economic opportunities, the list could go on and on. And sometimes I do go on and on about it.

But it is days like today that remind me of the really simple truth.

Sex workers need friends, allies, and people who care.

Just like everyone else, sex workers deal with loss: a man loses his mother, a woman takes her own life, a beloved dog dies. In these moments of pain that we all share, it’s never good to be alone.

Can’t we make sure that sex workers aren’t alone? Will you join me in breathing a prayer, having a kind thought, holding in the light, whatever it is that you do, for the sex workers who are in pain?

I am sitting here getting ready for a Board meeting for Star Light. I want to take all the lessons I’ve learned from sex work bloggers and from the Desiree Alliance’s conference, Pulling Back the Sheets, back to my Board, as a much needed guide for our work.

Will you please answer these questions, and pass them on to anyone who you think would like a voice in our work? If you have a blog where you would like to post the questions, please feel free, and please feel free to send folks my email address (or publish it) to answer them. You can email me the answers or post them in the comments.

For those of you who don’t know, Star Light shares unconditional love and friendship with women who are exotic dancers so they will not forget they are also loved and valued by God. We help them build supportive communities and find resources for successful living.

1) What do you think are the most pressing issues for people in sex work? In what way could Star Light help meet those needs?

2) Our Mission Statement says, “build supportive communities and find resources for successful living.” What would a supportive community feel like to you? What are some resources you can identify that would make you more successful in your goals?

3) What response do you expect to get, given your work, from people who are from “the Church?” How would you like for that to change?

4) How do you, today, get your spiritual needs met? Do you feel like this is a need for you? Can you imagine a place where you might feel free to get those needs met? What would be some ways that those needs could get met?

5) What would you recommend that Star Light’s Board read in order to understand your experience? Shorter is better, and blog posts would be great. I’d like to compile a little reading list for them, so please point me to one of your posts (or one of you favorite blogger’s posts) that best explains your life and work.

All answers and respondees will be given complete anonymity (unless, of course, you post your answers on the blog!). My real purpose is to find guiding principles for Star Light.

Thank you so much for answering these! I can’t tell you how grateful I am for all the experiences I had at the Desiree Alliance, and for this amazing community of folks in sex work.

Lia

It happened! And it was AMAZING! Star Light’s first Exotic Dancer, M.B.A. came together on April 28, 2008, and what a successful exciting beginning it has been for our new venture…

The day started with a self-care session. I taught a brief session on personal interaction styles based on Myers-Briggs, and then turned the focus to boundaries, those pesky limits that are worth recognizing and cherishing.

Next came the intensive from SuperStripper Avalon about money matters where we learned how to open a checking account, a savings account, and get out of debt. We learned about Money Markets and Individual Retirement Plans. We learned to budget. We learned why it’s important to plan for the future.

Then came the fun art project led by Urban Artist, Caroline Armijo. We made collages, focusing on the things we love to do, the great qualities we all possess, and our hopes and dreams. Tapping the artists in us all, we turned those collages into “cootie catchers,” those fun fortune-tellers that we made when we were 8 years old. We were reminded that if we do what we love, be who we are, we can have our hopes and dreams.

The final session was on sales skills (because stripping is sales). I think my favorite part of the day was practicing a “head-bobbing” technique to convince people that THEY WANT WHAT WE’RE SELLING. It was so funny watching the students and volunteers head-bobbing to one another as we practiced!

I received this note from one of our students:

Re: I think it’s working!
Just wanted to let you know how my first day back at work went.

I rocked!!!!!!!! It really wasn’t too busy and I managed to get more dances than I usually do! I did my best to put my new sales skills to work, and sold more than I usually sell!

My night DJ said I was smiling all night and my manager said he could see a difference in me when I hit the floor. He was so impressed he wanted to know if we should have the course taught at the club and make everyone attend!

I know it’s just one day so I’m not going to pretend that I’ve got this down yet but I definitely on my way!

Thanks again for making this available!

Star Light has three goals for the Exotic Dancer, M.B.A. The first is that our students will feel accepted. The second is to give them real resources that they can use. The third is to create community. We achieved and surpassed all of these.

There are too many people to thank in this email, but I do want to say that we had amazing support from all of you….Patient volunteers who stayed to ensure that dancers felt welcome and accepted. Great volunteers who helped with outreach to welcoming churches, setting up supplies and gifts for the dancers, and so much more. Gracious vendors: Crossroads Coffee in Richmond, who donated our breakfast, Breadwinners Catering who provided an wonderful lunch, and Gallery5, who provided a wonderful space that was great. Wonderful photographer Jay Paul, who documented the day. And last but certainly not least, the so many wonderful supporters whose donations helped make this event possible.

Thank you all.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Have you ever wondered how the downturn in the economy effects women who are exotic dancers?

I’ve wondered, too, and while I don’t have any statistics on it, I’d like to tell you what happened to me in a club last week, on a marathon day where I visited 6 clubs.

I talked with one manager about the Exotic Dancer, M.B.A. program. He was enthusiastic about it, thought it was a great idea, but he didn’t think any of the dancers would come.

“Why not?” I asked. Instead of answering directly, he stopped a dancer walking out of the club. “Starry Night?” he asked, “How much money did you make today?” Starry Night answered, “It was the best day I’ve had in a while…I made $75 after tip out.”

The manager turned back to me. “They can’t afford $50.”

The manager went on to say that he thinks it has to do with the economy.

Yesterday was my 40th birthday. As birthdays go, it was a really wonderful one, with many messages from many wonderful friends. A day of love. I thank you all.

It’s impossible not to spend some time on your 40th birthday reflecting on your life. I asked myself, “Am I happy? Am I doing what I want to do with my life? Am I making the difference I want to make? What’s important to me, and does my life reflect this?”

As a result of recent work with an Executive Coach, Cary Kelly, I have identified the purpose of my life: to offer acceptance to everyone I meet. I grew up with an understanding that God loved me because God had to, but that perhaps God didn’t like me very much. You’ve heard it before from religious folks, haven’t you? God loves you, but you have to change so that God can accept you?

That’s not how I experience God anymore. I think that even more than loving us, God accepts us, who we are, how we are, what we do, all of it. It’s deeper than, “I love you but don’t like you.” It’s actually more like “I think you’re the neatest person I have ever met!” (Okay, yeah, I think God uses words like “neat.”)

And as a result of that deep acceptance by God, I figure that the best use of my time and energy is to spread that around. And that is what I’m doing with my life. The amazing thing about it is that it’s so much fun! A few weeks ago, a dancer on on a stripper forum suggested that Star Light has an agenda, based on her assumption that all of religion has an agenda. She wrote, they have “an agenda disguised in compassion.” Yes, we have an agenda (offering acceptance). Now that’s the kind of criticism I’m willing to have every day!

My favorite part of my birthday was going to a strip club. I stopped by a club to give the owner information about the Exotic Dancer, M.B.A., and just to say hi. After telling the owner that it was my birthday, he tried to buy me a beer, lunch or dinner! What a nice gesture! And proof to me that if you have the agenda of offering acceptance, it comes back to you ten-fold.

May it ever be.

On a recent post on stripperweb, a dancer asked an interesting question. She wrote:

On your site it says:

Pray! Pray daily for the women who dance, for the people who work with them, for the women preparing to minister in the clubs, and for the customers and clientele of the clubs.

May I ask what it is you want people to pray for?

That was such a thoughtful question. I really had to think about it. I answered this:

I pray for safety. Some of the clubs we visit are rough places. In one club I was met at the door by the manager/bouncer/DJ who explained to me that 3 women who worked there had died in 2 months. One from a drug overdose, and two had been killed by their boyfriends/husbands. While I understand that this doesn’t happen in every club, it does happen in some clubs.

I pray that the dancers will have a financially lucrative night. I pray that the dancers are living their dreams. I pray that they are living successfully, in whatever way they define that.

I pray those same prayers for the waitresses, the bartenders, managers, bouncers, and house-moms. I pray similarly for the customers–but mostly that they find what they need in the clubs.

I believe in the power of prayer. Some people call it meditating, some call it good thoughts. I believe that it changes the pray-er more than it changes the one prayed for. If a person who is not a dancer starts to see dancers in a different way, then prayer has changed her. I like a quote from The World Famous Bob. She said, after seeing the protesters who were praying outside of the Sex Workers Art Show, “I also feel that prayer is powerful and can generate love.”

I hope we are generating love.

The website will be changed soon to reflect this. I would like to thank Maria, who asked the question, for pushing me to a more thoughtful place about my words.

*I’ve received this from at least 15 people so far. I would give attribution, if I knew how.