A Plea for Honesty

I sat across the desk from a male leader in my church denomination several years ago as I was about to embark on the adventure of seminary studies. At that meeting, I voiced one of my concerns at the outset of the journey--that I would ultimately not find space to use my gifts for ministry within the denomination that I called home.

And I still remember, as clearly as if it were just yesterday, him looking across the desk at me and telling me that there would be no problem with me finding a place to use my gifts within the church as long as my theology was solid. Gender and singleness, he assured me, were not determining factors in how churches in the denomination chose their leaders anymore.

I wasn't sure that he was right, but I badly wanted to trust him.

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I have had a sense of being called by God to serve in pastoral leadership in the Church for more than fifteen years now.

And for many of those years, churches within the denomination have been officially free to call men or women to leadership positions including that of lead pastor. For all of those years, churches have been free to call women to other leadership positions with the exception of the role of lead pastor. That is to say--on paper, there was no barrier to me serving in the way that I felt called.

Many people within the denomination over the years have chosen to quietly affirm my gifts, or their support of women in ministry leadership roles.

And yet, for fifteen years I struggled to find a place to serve, a place in which I felt like I and my gifts were truly welcomed.

And in those fifteen years I gradually came to the conclusion that it must be because my theology was lacking, or because I was misunderstanding the gifts that God had given me, that I was unable to find a place for myself, no matter how hard I worked, or how much I excelled in my coursework, or how diligently I worked to prove my loyalty to the denomination, or how patiently I waited for someone to offer me an opportunity to do what I loved to do.

I could never pinpoint exactly what it was that was wrong with me. I just knew there had to be something--or some things.


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And so, it came as a shock to me when I made the difficult but necessary decision to seek opportunities for ministry within a different denominational setting that virtually immediately my gifts were recognized, welcomed, affirmed, and sought out. That it was not a matter of fifteen years, but less than fifteen weeks before I found a place to belong.

It's a shock to the system, to say the least. Suddenly, I was receiving the external affirmation of my call to ministry from the church that I had been longing for for so long.

It's a shock to the system, to begin to wonder if there isn't actually something wrong with me after all.


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What I really, really want to say is this:

Friends, we are not doing anyone any favours by pretending that there are not systemic barriers facing women in our churches when, unfortunately, at least at some levels of leadership, those barriers are alive and well.

We are actually hurting people when we quietly pretend that these forces are not present, when we fail to name the actual forces at play in our churches.

How I wish that someone had the courage to say to me that I was unlikely to find the place to serve that I was looking for because I was a single woman. It would have been a gift. It would have saved me so much agonizing about what I was doing wrong, or why I couldn't shake the sense of God's call even when I clearly didn't have the affirmation of my gifts by the church.

How I wish that someone had arranged to have a conversation over coffee and actually asked me the question--whether I might consider seeking more welcoming spaces to test my gifts, where I wouldn't have to wonder if it was my giftedness that needed examination, or simply my gender or marital status leading people to certain conclusions before I ever opened my mouth to speak.

It might make us feel better, to ignore the uncomfortable truth that in many (not all!) cases, there is much work to do before women can be truly free to serve as they are gifted in our churches.

But this silence, it's actually hurting people.

So, this is my passionate plea for a new attempt at honesty. If this doesn't mean speaking out at a larger level, could it at least mean having the courage to have a hard conversation with someone one-on-one, to find out what their lived experience is like and to speak truthfully?

Because if we can save one person from thinking she is not good enough, not worthy of full acceptance in the Kingdom of God, not truly beloved by God, it will be worth it a thousand times over.

Gratitude

I've been feeling reflective lately, thinking back in particular over the year that has been. There have been lots of quiet anniversary markers over the past several months as a number of "one year today since..." milestones have come and gone, and as I've remembered some of the harder transitions of the past year, I've found myself becoming increasingly grateful for the moments of beauty that have come along the way.

This picture resonates with me as I reflect on some of the moments that leave me with a profound sense of gratitude--in the midst of the sharp and painful edges of the year, there has also been abundant beauty, for which I am so very grateful.

The blog is too public a forum for me to link names and stories with these spots of beauty, but in my mind with each one of these anonymous snapshots is a face and a name, a person for whose presence in my life this past year I'm profoundly grateful.

I'm grateful for each and every moment in which someone has understood without question my need to grieve the closing of House Blend and the loss of the community I loved--for the permission and encouragement to find safe spaces to process the hurt that I was feeling, for the acknowledgment that grieving is normal and healthy. For everyone who has, however briefly, stood with me without exerting pressure to 'be okay' when I simply wasn't. Thank you for teaching me the value and importance of the practice of lament.

For the people who held space for me to question my own vocation in ministry--who allowed me to ask the very hard questions that I needed to ask. Who didn't rush in to offer easy answers, as much as they might have wanted to. Who believed in me enough to trust that the answers would come, in time.

For the people who believed in me when I needed it most. I can't express how important it was to know that there were people who could still envision a future for me in which I was free to use my gifts to serve within the church--who still believed that I had something to offer, even when the way forward wasn't at all clear to me. Who reached out to tap me on the shoulder, to remind me that they were still in my corner. Who, in the end, spoke more loudly than the critics. Who reminded me of the power of being enfolded by the love of a community.

In a year that hasn't been easy, one of the things that stands out the most as I look back is the beauty offered by so many loving words, warm hugs, and honest affirmations. By people who made space for all of me, not just the bright and shiny parts. By people who never stopped believing that God has good work for me to do yet.

In a year that hasn't always been the greatest year, I'm grateful because these cumulative experiences of being loved have given me a picture for the kind of church that I want to be part of going forward--a church that persistently sees the good in others; that is quick to offer love, especially to those who are lonely or hurting; that believes that God has good work for us to participate in; that make space for vulnerability and honesty, even when it's uncomfortable; and that manages to be beauty incarnate even in the hard spaces in life.

Much has been given to me this year. I hope that I can find some way to pay it forward in the future.