Longtime Nashville pastor talks Christian advocacy
Ingrid McIntyre is a prominent local figure. She is the pastor at Glencliff United Methodist Church and an organizer. She is a co-founder of Open Table Nashville, the developer of The Village at Glencliff, an activist who has led marches across the city, a protester who has been carried out of legislative committee meetings by State Troopers, a fighter for the poor and those whose voices are all too often ignored.
McIntyre knows and is known to politicians at local and state levels and is an advisor to some of them while feared by others. When she enters a room, you will know she is present and there to speak up and fight for justice.
“I see myself as someone called to live out the gospel’s demand for justice — not as an abstract concept, but through concrete actions that address the suffering right in front of us,” McIntyre says. “My work flows from the understanding that the church’s mission isn’t complete until everyone has dignity, shelter and hope. I advocate for those society has pushed to the margins because that’s where Jesus consistently placed himself, and where the church is called to be.”
McIntyre spoke with The Contributor about her work over the years in Nashville.
You are a co-founder of Open Table Nashville, a homeless outreach and housing justice group. Open Table Nashville started in response to the 2010 flood. What was the deciding factor for you to launch a nonprofit?
The short answer is housing equity. It wasn’t happening. People weren’t effectively talking about that. The flood was a catalyst that exposed what was already there, how quickly people can lose everything and how inadequate our systems are for the most vulnerable.
I watched neighbors helping neighbors in ways that transcended all the usual barriers and realized we couldn’t let that spirit die when the waters receded.
The deciding factor was seeing that disaster relief was temporary, but the need for community, dignity, and housing justice was permanent, and so we had to build something that would last beyond the crisis.
What are your thoughts about the recent dismantling of Old Tent City, which is the camp that was flooded and started your journey?
The clearing of tent cities is always presented as cleanup or public safety. But it’s really about making poverty invisible rather than addressing it. Every time we dismantle these communities, we’re not solving homelessness. We’re just moving it around and traumatizing people who are already surviving unimaginable hardship.
But what breaks my heart is that we spend more energy moving people along than we do creating the affordable housing and support systems they actually need.
You eventually moved on to build The Village at Glencliff. Explain briefly what The Village at Glencliff is, and why you took on this venture of essentially becoming a developer?
The Village at Glencliff is a medical respite for people who have been homeless or unstably housed and then went into the hospital. And under any other circumstances, they would be discharged, but they can’t be discharged because they don’t have a place to go. We all know that healing doesn’t happen in 95 degree weather under a bridge on a bypass in Nashville, Tennessee, or on a bench, or down by the river. The Village at Glencliff operates under the principle that housing is a human right and not something that you have to earn.
I sort of became a developer because I got tired of asking others to do what we could do ourselves. And I was tired of seeing people die without dignity and die too early.
The nonprofit industrial complex often keeps us dependent on others’ timelines and priorities. So, sometimes you have to build the thing you want to see in the world, even if it means learning skills you never thought you’d need or have.
Politicians in this state have gotten to know you for standing up against and being outspoken about discrimination of all kinds. Most recently, you have been fighting the current political immigration agenda. Why is it so important for people to speak up in these times?
Silence in the face of injustice is complicity, right? And so when politicians are able to scapegoat immigrants, they’re not just attacking policy, they’re attacking the image of God in our neighbors. As people of faith, we can’t stand by while families are torn apart, and communities are terrorized. I’ve seen it up close and firsthand.
Speaking up is important because it breaks the illusion that these policies have broad support, especially in places that are so red like Tennessee. We say Tennessee isn’t a red state, it’s a non-voting state!
Speaking up gives others permission to find their own voice, I think. I’m sort of the loud one, and that’s OK with me because I think it does give other people permission to raise their voice.
How can people get involved when they want to help, but don’t have the same level of influence or courage that you have? What are your recommendations?
I haven’t always been who I am, but I’ve always been doing the work.
You don’t need my level of influence. I think you need your own. Start where you are, with what you have. I think showing up consistently is the key. This work looks different every day. But showing up consistently to city council meetings, building relationships with people who are not usually in proximity with you. Learn about another person’s neighborhood. Support local organizations with your time, not just your money, although we all need your money, so do that. But also, we need time. That’s what builds relationships and creates change.
Be courageous and challenge discriminatory language when you hear it at work, at church or at family gatherings. The most powerful thing you can do is refuse to let injustice become normal in your own sphere of influence. So, that doesn’t take being somebody else. It takes being you.
And this is real, courage is not the absence of fear. I am often afraid. But it’s acting despite of it because you cannot handle the alternative to speaking up. And courage grows with practice.
What is your current focus area and what do you hope to achieve?
Things right now are so terrible on all fronts, and for good reason. They want us to become exhausted.
For me, my goal is to be a witness in presence. Being in spaces where people are not always comfortable to speak out. Being a public presence of dissent.
It’s really White Christian Nationalism that we’re fighting right now, which goes hand-in-hand with fascism. This is really broad. Under that umbrella there are so many things.
I would encourage folks to start small. You’re not going to eat the whole elephant in one bite, right? The practice of embodiment is what’s important. So, practice that embodiment, even if it’s just going next door and meeting your next-door neighbor. Or whatever the small steps are you can take and do it consistently. That’s what we have to be doing every day. It [will help you] practice coming out of yourself a little bit, getting familiar with things that are in your immediate sphere, so that you can build courage.