Picture this: excited students on their final day of school before holiday break. They’re hopped up on sugar cookies and dreams of no school for days on end. Popcorn! Movie! Apple cider! Gift exchange! Perler beads (Lord help us all)! Decorate your own sugar cookie! It’s all happening. The time has come for the day to end; the students begin stacking chairs, throwing away trash, breaking down tables, grabbing their things. They head for the exits and then…? A mere table bump turns into a broken-down-table cascade with an APPLE CIDER AVALANCHE. Screams! Panic! Teacher’s gonna teacher, so I grab the Clorox wipes and a giant roll of paper towels and issue orders in a calm voice. Only–as it turns out–the cider avalanche chose to flow downhill onto the finger-sized DIVOTS on the backs of all the tables. Who even knew those divots were there? And what do they even do?? Student who table bumped is extremely embarrassed and keeps muttering the words “failure” under his breath while I pollyanna the situation and encourage my students that “We can do it!” and “No worries!” and “It’s fine!” even though I feel certain there is now apple cider fermenting on spaces previously unknown to man. I have sweat beading in places the sun don’t shine but it’s an interesting finale to an epic semester. We made it. We did it! I finish vacuuming the room, pack up my precious student gifts, head home, take a shower, and Jeremy orders a pizza.
Fast forward 18 hours and picture this: I’m enjoying my first holiday morning by finishing a book on the couch when concerned noises start coming out of my husband in the kitchen. Sink something. Disposal not working. A sweet smell and a powdery residue. Eventually me and my fingers go to check out the situation and I discover that SOMEONE did SOMETHING with wax in the sink and while it smells quite lovely kitchen productions have now come to a screeching halt. This needs management. Put the kettle on, Ma, we need boiling water stat. I use a ⅓ measuring cup to portion out the waxy water that my fingers and a slotted spoon can no longer grab. A pile of paper towels, two tea kettles-full, a gallon and a half of wax-filled water, and distant memories of my calm morning later and the disposal is open but my mind is clogged by WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD SOMEONE DO THIS? Someone is at school and cannot answer for herself. I have less patience with this Someone than the Someone at school yesterday, so it’s probably good the Someone isn’t here.
Ack.
Life is messy.
Learning to be gentle around apple cider is messy.
Figuring out that wax should never go down a sink drain is messy.
Raising children is messy.
People are messy.
I am messy.
There’s no easy fix to messes, but patience, time, and a whole lot of paper towels can cure a number of ills. I don’t know what messes you’re cleaning up this week but you got this, friend. Deep breaths. You’re not alone.
“There’s an opening for a church secretary. Do that!”
“Maybe you should get your counseling degree.”
These are all questions and thoughts I’ve fielded in the past 10 years, so I thought I’d record a few of my thoughts on what I bring to vocational church ministry as a woman.
(Note: this explanation is for those who interpret scripture as limiting preaching and elder roles to men. In short, for those I’ve gone to church with my whole life. Other interpretations open up preaching and eldership to women–and I can understand those viewpoints as well. I’m simply addressing the former perspective in this post.)
I once asked a PCA pastor friend if he thought women could be lower-case P pastors. His response was: of course! What does it mean to pastor someone? What does it mean to be a shepherd? Personally I love the concept of being a shepherdess. It means you teach. You exhort. You encourage. You facilitate. You read, study, and absorb the word of God to better understand it and you take it to people. You create opportunities for learning and for growing. You help build souls. You enter into lives and grieve with others, serve others, connect others, feed and water them.
Preachers preach. And some only preach. In the context of complementarian churches, only men are invited to preach. I’m not arguing with this (at least in this blog post). In complementarian churches, only men are invited to sit on elder boards. And I’m not arguing with this either (at least not in this blog post). Everything else is open to women. Even in complementarian churches.
I already do shepherding tasks. I’ve received training, both in professional contexts and in my denomination’s seminary–and I am eager to work with and for the institutional church. And I want to get paid for it.
That last tidbit is hard for some of my loved ones to swallow. “If you really loved the church why wouldn’t you work for free?”
Ready for this? Because that is unfair. It’s unjust to expect women to work for free when they are gifted, skilled, tested, and have bills to pay.
Women are free to be veterinarians and we know they run fantastic practices. For pay. Women are bankers. Educators. Surgeons. Zookeepers. Women are encouraged to run for office. You vote for them. Women are welcomed into seminary. They are trained. They can get MDivs even in conservative places. But somehow folks want to draw the line at paying a woman to work in a ministry context? No. That is not right.
So, back to “what would you do?”
I’d provide counseling from a pastoral perspective. I’d teach the bible to anyone I’d be allowed to teach. I’d build and develop programs aimed at discipling believers. I’d improve communication between staff and congregants. I’d want to shepherd the sheep the Lord has given us. In short, I would pastor. In this context, I would not preach.
Know what my first real job was when I turned 16? I worked in the church office and I learned from the incredible pastors, elders, deacons, teachers, and youth group leaders that God surrounded me with.
I went to our denominational youth leadership camp for years. (They were training ministry leaders. But now, as a women in her 40’s I’m confused about what opportunities they were actually training us for!)
I began to lead youth group as soon as I graduated from it and it was my absolute JOY to love my middle school girls.
In fact, I adored them so much that I graduated with my bachelors of science in education for middle grades. All the while that I was in college I was focused on ministry as well. An upperclassmen female commended me for speaking up in our youth ministry class as “girls usually don’t speak.” I’ll never forget how surprised I felt that she saw me as brave for raising my hand and asking questions. (This speaks very poorly of how women often feel within our denomination.)
I graduated and immediately went back to working in the church office again. This time, though I continued to provide support at the front desk, I also had the opportunity to receive pay as Children’s Ministry Coordinator. I spent a few years volunteering as co-chair of the Nursery Committee just as we were getting ready to build a brand new nursery. I continued with my youth ministry work for free. And even after the church hired a man to do youth ministry, I worked for free. I finally realized that I was still doing his job and then I exited the program quickly, my sense of inequality only beginning to be developed.
Even after I made the my choice to become at a stay-at-home mom, I worked again administrating the start of a church plant. I got paid for 5 hours a week and sometimes worked twenty. I only stepped away from that position in frustration when it was clear I wasn’t part of the ministry team the way I wanted to be.
My denomination can be a boys club. Scratch that. It *is* a boys club. Much like the old golf courses for men only, the rooms where decisions happen in my denomination is almost always exclusively male.
Elders meetings are for men.
Presbytery meetings are for men. (I’ve both been told “why would you want to come?!” and “you can come sit by me” by pastors when I’ve asked about these regional meetings.)
The country-wide meeting of my denomination is attended by female ministry workers and wives, but you can only vote if you are a man.
See where I’m going with this? We have largely male-dominated spaces because only men can preach and only men can be elders. But guess what? It’s not only men that are called to ministry.
In the spaces I’m in, women have to be invited by a man. Ministry jobs are few and far between, but the doors to that work are opened by men. The job descriptions must be written by men, voted on by men (elders), and then approved by those same men. Women cannot walk into paid ministry work here without an express invitation.
I’ve recently been studying Galatians with a small group of women and I’m more convinced than ever that I have been set free to follow Christ. If I quit following his call on my life–out of fear or out of exhaustion–then I am willingly walking behind prison bars again: It is for freedom that you have been set free!… There is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
I am going to minister to others. The Lord has heard my cries, my desires, my hopes. He made me and established his purposes within me to serve him and shepherd his people. I’d love to serve him in a church context, but the best thing is to see what doors he wants to open for me. I’ve been set free–beautifully so–and I will follow my Savior where he leads.
I believe in God and love him with my whole heart.
That may be a weird thing to say because God is pretty mysterious and also he’s pretty big and so what does it mean to be one small person in this universe and declare that I love the One who made it?
I’ve been mindful of the seasons, of the church calendar to be specific, as I teach my 4th-8th graders a bible lesson each week. Connecting new material to old material is the way we learn, so I refer back to concepts we’ve already learned or holidays that are already in their lives, and lately we’ve been looking forward a little bit. Jesus was born into a people, born for a specific task, born to continue the story God began with humanity, and born to redeem. We’re now beyond the Easter story and working through WHAT IT ALL MEANS.
Working through WHAT IT ALL MEANS is the work of a lifetime. Truly, I’m working through WHAT IT ALL MEANS at age 44 and I’ll continue working through WHAT IT ALL MEANS until I meet Jesus face to face.
I believe the bible is true.
I believe God really does love me and I learn more about how He does that all the time.
I believe Jesus was God—is God—and that he died in order to redeem us from our sins. He balances the scales of justice cosmically and ultimately.
And I believe that the Spirit of God dwells in me now. He dwells in those who believe in him, giving us insight and correction, hope and purpose to live out our days.
This week has been a doozy. May brings with it wonderful occasions that leave me breathless on a normal year, but this year it’s all I can do to doggie paddle in order to keep my head above water. It’s the end of the school year—for me as a teacher and my kid as a junior. (JUNIOR. Lord have mercy.) It’s Livia’s EIGHTEENTH birthday tomorrow and, no, I have not absorbed what that signifies. It encompasses everything from “how did these years go so fast?” to “in Nebraska you’re a minor until age 19” to “what should she wear for her senior pictures” to “I’m so incredibly proud of her” and everything in between. It’s Mother’s Day. And maybe it’s still Infertility Awareness Week? And it’s Birthmother’s Day and boy oh boy do we miss and think of Livia’s first family with the biggest love in our hearts right now. Lots. of. feelings. It’s also graduation week for dear ones who have worked hard for their advance degrees and we are so proud of them. It’s Teacher Appreciation Week and we had an IEP meeting and, wow, do I love these people who love my kid day in and day out. I also love my students in ways that keeps my mind and heart both tremendously busy and tremendously full.
And in the middle of all the celebrations, there is hardship.
Long-loved friends are dying and that seems impossible. There’s pain and suffering and being too far away to physically help those you love. There are loved ones ailing. In hospitals fighting for their lives and awaiting surgeries with fear and trepidation. The country is torn over women’s rights and women’s health issues and the ever-pressing question of whose life is worth more? Why do we even have to decide whose life is worth more? They are ALL worthy of love and attention and good care and respect. But who wins? Truly, no one wins. Not before Roe v Wade and not after. Not if abortion is a federal issue or a state issue. Women have always been on the crap end of healthcare and that game continues on. No winners, just a lot of losing.
Lord God, what do we make of all of this? How can May usher in so much joy and so much heartache all at once?
From one small person in the expanse of an entire universe I do not know. But God, you are huge and you are great. You created every creature, you know the number of hairs on my head, you clothe the lilies in the field, you know the number of stars in the sky. The pain is not too much for you to handle, too great for you to understand. The celebrations are not so small as to escape your notice. You see it all and you care for us in the midst of it all.
Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.
A few years ago a life coach observed that I was beating my head against a brick wall. She knew I wanted to fly.
Up until that point I hadn’t considered it really, but I came to acknowledge that I felt like I was living in a straitjacket, that all my options were wrapped up and, boy, did I really want to stretch. What would it feel like to be set free? What would it feel like to exercise my abilities and to move beyond the boundaries that felt stifling?
Around the time I met with this wonderful life coach I wrote the following in my journal about what the word “thrive” meant to me:
to be excited, somewhere to channel the excitement
to blossom, to flower, to spread arms wide and run toward the light
to be uniquely used
to feel alive, vibrant, meant to be, purposeful
to be DELIGHTED & DELIGHTFUL & DELIGHTED IN
For years my prayers had begged God for some pretty specific things. I suffered greatly in spirit, going over my giftings with a fine toothed comb, reviewing my resume to see if I was falsely understanding who God had made me to be. My girlfriends, bless their hearts, heard my woes for many years and I am certain I exhausted them. My husband supported my pursuits, heard all the hardness and sadness in my heart, and in turns affirmed me, held me while I cried, challenged my thinking, and then set me back on my feet. And through it all, I turned the the One who made me and we talked. We talked a lot.
In this instance, my internal struggles made it very easy to say yes when an opportunity finally came my way. The yes was so immediate that I forced myself to take a breath and then consult with both my 17-year-old daughter and my husband. And then a whole bunch of other circumstances came into play—and I haven’t wrapped my head around all of that yet. Being in one position—a life-giving position—yielded to another position and now I find myself at the end of a school year preparing to say goodbye, for a season, to my students.
I graduated in 2001 with a Bachelors of Science in Education and a teaching degree in Missouri and here I am in 2022 planning out my final weeks of academia for my middle school students. To say I did not see this coming is an understatement, but all I can do for the moment is to turn back to that concept of thriving and how utterly freeing it is to abandon that straitjacket that hindered me.
I am trusted in my position in the classroom. Appointed to it, seen worthy of it, entrusted with it.
I am released to be my very best self. In this space I’m encouraged to be creative, to teach, to shepherd, to encourage, to raise up these precious young people into their futures.
I have autonomy here. There is always accountability and structure, which is so important, but also autonomy.
I work within a team of godly and wise people to bring excellence to all we do.
I’m compensated fairly for my hard work and for my resume.
I still find it tremendously sad that the place where I felt most restricted and bound against being fully myself was in the church. I don’t think it has to be that way by any means, but it’s the reality for many women with leadership skills.
For now I praise God for the good gift of work, for my incredible co-teachers, and for the students I spend time with each week. They engage my mind and spirit, they challenge me, and in our classroom I am free to exercise my gifts in a thousand fulfilling ways.
How many people are ever ready for a pandemic? Very few, I’d guess. We’re now looking at Year 3 of living with the coronavirus and psychologically it’s really… really something.
I’m still trying to figure out my own reactions to events in the past few weeks. All I can surmise so far is that I had expectations for the holiday season and then I was very surprised by some big changes, namely the mask mandate for my city. I care far less about the mandate for the city (thanks to pickup grocery orders) than I do about the ramifications it has on my weekly plans with church where we **sing**. Let’s just say that I was planning on attending our Christmas Eve candlelight service, and then the mask requirement was dropped completely—by the city and by my church—and bam, I could not in good conscience attend a service where people right next to me would be singing maskless.
I was hurt.
Do I like to admit my hurt in public?
No, I do not.
For the sake of reflection I’m going to include a few of my social media posts here. My first post was from a mind-boggled state, my second was written with great frustration, and the third came after several days of consideration.
From December 26:
Longtime church goers and church leaders,
Are you okay with immunocompromised individuals simply not attending your churches in person any longer?
Would your church consider hosting a “masks-required” service so that people at risk could more safely engage in communal worship?
Real questions asked by a real human. Not up for a fight. If you know me then you know that I won’t tolerate disrespect in the comments here. I’m truly interested in your thoughts.
From December 27:
When I see high school choir kids—singing AND dancing—100% masked and then see Christians in church choirs **not** masked at all during a pandemic… well, my head explodes. Just straight up explodes.
The high schoolers are making the rest of y’all look bad.
For shame.
From December 28:
Important.
You and I may wildly and vehemently disagree, on a number of topics, and yet we can and should still love one another.
I hold to the exclusivity of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I believe this means that the Church should hold wide open her doors to allow everyone to hear that good news. We need that life-giving good news on a daily basis.
In the past week I have felt like some of you are wearing your nicely working autoimmune systems like armor. You aren’t aware how delightful it is that your body works well, but you’re able to go where you want to go freely and you don’t have to consider others’ welfare very often. I’m so glad your body works. But I will not remain silent about how exclusive the Church becomes when you close your doors to the infirm, to the weak, to the elderly, to the disabled. If I can speak with a bullhorn I will call out the ugliness of such a thing.
I have seen the Church do beautiful things in my lifetime. Beautiful, creative, life-giving, wonderful things.
I tasted my first bit of Covid communion from a car in a parking lot on Father’s Day. A creative pastor (or pastors more likely) decided to hold services outdoors for a season or two and it allowed me to safely take the bread and the cup again. Praise God.
I have seen deacons scroll through church directories to hand out turkeys and cranberries and gift cards to families that needed a boost at Thanksgiving time.
I’ve witnessed elders and their wives coming to tiny apartments to shepherd lonely couples, making an impact for a lifetime. And I’ve seen the same caring individuals pack up and move the umpteenth seminary couple even though it meant personal loss and sadness.
I’ve witnessed parish nurses entering homes and praying over elderly patients stuck in their four walls for far too long.
I’ve read about nurses in hospitals continually being the last faces to cry with, pray over, and witness Covid patients’ final breaths.
I’ve known of churches who sent “We Miss You” postcards to a family who only came through their doors once simply because they know that this viral pandemic has created a pandemic of loneliness.
I’ve seen church members, week after week, giving rides to license-less folks who live in group homes. They’re hungry for community and those simple acts enable them to hear the gospel over and over.
And now I’ve heard of churches still requiring masks so that a few, with chinks in their armor, may still walk safely into their pews.
I’ve heard of spaces where scientists’ opinions are valued and people care about the quality of the air.
I’ve heard story after story of CHRISTIANS WHO CARED. They’ve followed in Jesus’ very footsteps, denying their own comfort for the sake of another. This happens so often and I consider it an enormous privilege to witness and rejoice in it.
I sometimes speak strongly for the truth, and in this moment I can see how easy it is to leave those like me, with autoimmune disorders, behind. We have a lot to lose if we’ve loved belonging to the body of Christ. We miss communion. We miss congregational singing. We miss hearing your kids in the pews behind us and seeing your family walk up the aisle for the Lord’s Supper. We don’t want to stay home because we need you, church family. We love you. Please creatively love us back.
[Locals and PCA people, please note that I don’t speak as a representative for my particular church, Redeemer PCA. I resigned from the diaconate last May. My opinions are my own and no one else’s.]
Absolutely bit off more than I could chew with this year’s DPP. Pretend with me that I’m totally cool with not meeting a goal. So cool. NBD. Here’s a close up of glitter to distract myself from all this non-goal-meeting. #dpp2021
Here is one of the most important lessons of life that I can pass along: EVERYTHING REQUIRES MAINTENANCE. The sooner that a person can learn this truth, the better.
Your body requires maintenance so quit avoiding the dentist (that’s for me; hello, dental anxiety).
Your car requires maintenance, so either figure out how to do an oil change or visit Valvoline even though you feel intimidated every time you drive in there.
Your spirit requires maintenance so don’t neglect to feed it good food.
Your lawn requires maintenance.
Your sprinkler system requires maintenance; heck, even your outdoor hoses require maintenance. (Drain and unplug before the first frost each season!)
Your carpet requires maintenance. Buy a good vacuum.
Your friendships require maintenance. Trust me, you will wake up friendless and alone if you do not invest in other people.
We all want to be lazy people and yet somehow enjoy our best lives. That is not going to happen. A little maintenance on a regular basis will let you actually enjoy your existence without dealing with crises at every turn. There you go, my life lessons, FOR FREE.
I’m not sure why I settled on “eyes closed” as a unifying theme for this year’s December Photo Project, but by the end of November I knew it was time for something new. In the past I have challenged myself to take shots of people only, however I wanted to attempt something else this time around. After 12 years of the DPP, I could not shoot the same ornaments any longer. (Oftentimes I would find myself wandering around my living room at 11pm grasping at straws for the day’s image.) This year I had the added pressure of working on a final exam for my theology class. While it was rather refreshing to insert a little art into my studying hours, I also gave myself permission to not shoot daily. When I could, I would, but aside from that I cut myself some slack. I knew that some folks wouldn’t like my “eyes closed” idea and I was okay with that. In the end I found a theme that was a lot of fun and truly interesting. It grew stronger as I added more faces to the project, and I could not be happier with the end result.
This month I want to toss up some outtakes from my DPP. I’m keeping post-processing simple by making them all black and white with very little, if any, editing. Enjoy!
You know a good time has been had by all when shoes are left outside by the trampoline. No, not the cheap flip flops from Target that are crusty from wear and weather. The good sneakers. Kicked off during jumping fun. Forgotten during outdoor play.
Today I’m okay with a little bit of global warming. It’s enough to kick away the winter blues.
