“Do you serve a church?” A question asked when I was trying to get out of the hospital parking garage. A question that I had not been asked the dozens upon dozens of times that I have been there previously.

 But let’s back up. 

The hospital in my town has a fascinating story. It has evolved over the year from two separate campuses to one building under a new name. As many changes that have taken place with the structure of the building itself, there have been equal number of changes regarding every single detail - including parking passes.

 When I first began ministry in 2010 all clergy in the area could be given a parking pass. Why do you need a parking pass? Because when the hospital switched leadership they began to charge for parking. But the hospital-employed chaplains did not get a pass. Over time, instead of simply giving both groups passes, the chaplains received a parking pass and the clergy were directed to go to the security office for parking validation papers.

Every.single.time.you.visit.

For someone like me that can quickly become two to three times a week, with an older congregation rotating in and out of hospital beds. 

While it was certainly extra time to have to navigate to the security office before leaving, I didn’t think much of it, until I ended up in the building on a Saturday afternoon. All of a sudden, the people who recognized me were gone and in their place were new faces. New faces who had apparently been given a new set of rules - check the clergy before you give them a parking validation ticket. 

Before we get to the next part of our story, lets just sit with the fact that the minimum parking amount is two dollars and the maximum amount is six dollars. 

But for some reason it had been drilled into the new security office staff that they had to ask anyone they didn’t think looked like a clergy where they served. 

Only I completely missed the question. 

Yes, I do not look like clergy typical for my area, where older men predominantly serve. But when the security officer asked me, a petite, young, female, if I really served a church, I somehow translated it in my head to and what do you do and I said I was there to visit. 

It wasn’t until I left the building that it clicked what had happened. 

I wanted to go back and ask the security officer if they asked all of the men if they really serve a church. Or if they thought that I was in the building on a beautiful Saturday afternoon because I wanted my two dollars in parking validation. But once the snark got out of my system, I was left sad.
 
 This security officer, who was a young female, was not accustomed to seeing young female pastors. 

 What we do matters but so does the fact that it is us in these bodies who are doing it.

My sister-in-law recently sent me a picture of my nieces playing “church” with their dolls one Sunday afternoon and everyone leading the service was female. It wasn’t until this past year that they came to discover that boys can be pastors to. They were used to seeing female clergy in leadership.

But that wasn’t the case at the hospital that day. 

If given the chance to be asked again, I would proudly share that yes, I am a pastor of a local congregation and that I am here because I love my people and love my job. I am here, on a Saturday afternoon, to share scripture and prayer together and to be the living embodiment of the church to some of those who need it the most. 

 Do I serve a church? Yes. Yes, I do. 

I’ve been thinking about giving up on apologizing. Or rather, giving up on apologizing for things that are not my fault or do not warrant an apology. 

This topic came to mind when a colleague asked me to do something for him last minute. He needed it done that day (Thursday) or Friday. Friday is my sabbath, which I fiercely protect, so I agreed to meet him at a certain time on Thursday, rearranging meetings and a visit in order to do what he needed. 

 Only when he arrived, I found myself apologizing for my limited availability. 

 Why? Why was I apologizing for something I no control over. He was the one who asked me last minute to do something. Why did I feel bad?

 An administrative assistant I know has an email signature that states “procrastination on your part does not necessitate an emergency on my part.” Somewhere along the line, I had picked up the message that it was my job, as a woman, to care for everyone. To be there for everyone. To work around everyone else’s schedules and be flexible.

Of course, this is just compounded when you also consider the misconception of the vocation of a pastor - to constantly be available. To always be “on”. 

In my early years of ministry, a wise pastor told me that you need to constantly teach people what an emergency is. If someone dies, yes, I want to know about it immediately. Same with hospitalizations. But a new ministry idea or Bible study question, those aren’t an emergency.

I was apologizing to my colleague because I wasn’t treating his procrastination as an emergency and I felt guilty about my lack of ability to accommodate him. I’m still working on re-writing the scripts in my head about what it means to be female and clergy - that I do not always need to be available for every single person every single time, because I’m not God. And if I live in a way where I am constantly available, I am on the slippery slope of putting myself in God’s place. 

When I am introduced to a church, one of the first things I tell the congregation about is my weird inability to digest certain meat products. I want them to know that I will not be trying everything at the potluck dinner, can sometimes be overly cautious about what I eat to avoid getting sick, and will constantly ask what is in a dish I’m unfamiliar with. 
    But I am much less open with some of my other medical concerns, even when they can lay me up for days, maybe because they have such power over me. 
    In 2008, I was diagnosed with IBS - Irritable Bowel Syndrome. It is as unpleasant as it sounds. My colon sometimes spasms for unknown reasons, causing pain and a whole host of bodily ramifications. It took almost a year for the diagnosis and the shrug of the shoulders from doctors about what could be done. 
    There are certain things that I can do to limit a potential flareup, including being cautious about certain foods and exercising. Still, there is no guarantee that a flareup won’t pop up - sometimes from stress, sometimes because I accidentally ate something that triggers a reaction, but mainly with no prompting.
    I remember the embarrassment of being at a lunch meeting with a colleague when I had to excuse myself because I suddenly felt a flareup coming on with fierce intensity. A cocktail of prescriptions later, I felt human enough to re-engage in the meeting, but not well overall. 
    Or the time that I was having a flareup during VBS week, which zapped every remaining bit of energy I had to be present, even if I couldn’t be engaged at my usual level. I was so disappointed in myself, even if others did not notice. 
    IBS falls into the category of invisible illnesses that are not seen and often are not talked about. Also in this category is PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome, which I have known that I have had since high school,
    Invisible illnesses are hard to explain to people, but explanations are far too often met with the refrain, “Well, you look fine” or “Just push through.” Yet, an illness is an illness; if we are honest, the United States and the church aren’t always sure what to do with diseases. If you cannot be treated and return to be a valuable part of the workforce quickly, we devalue your humanity in America. If you cannot pray for a cure, we aren’t always sure what to do as the church. 
    Yet, sometimes my body says “no more.” When flare-ups happen. When exhaustion is overwhelming. When another doctor returns with a diagnosis but no promise of a cure. 
    What would it look like to be clergy who feel safe to make our invisible illnesses visible? As clear and visible as I make my weird inability to digest meat. What if we are the people who say that our value doesn’t lie in our productivity or pushing through but in our belatedness alone? What could change? What possibilities could emerge just beyond the horizon?

I was recently in a scripture discussion group that opened up the Psalms to me in a whole new way. We were talking about how the poetry found within the book of Psalms may have been written by individuals but were communally expressed. That means that the Psalmist very well could have heard other people speaking, or singing their words back to them. 

It was like something within me broke open. 

I started to think of Hortiao Spafford, who penned the now famous hymn “It is Well with My Soul.” As the story goes, Spafford was to go on a trip with his family, but got delayed due to business dealings. He, however, did send his family on the trip ahead of him. Only the ship they were traveling on sank when it collided with another vessel, resulting in the death of all four of his daughters. While traveling to meet his grieving wife, the only member of his family surviving from the accident, he wrote the words that would become the hymn we know today. 

While that story may be familiar to us, in light of our discussion about the Psalms, all I could think of was Spafford hearing the words of his hymn, penned in grief and faith, sung back over him, again and again and again. 

And that broke me even further open. 

For a long time, Western culture has tried to contain and privatize grief. You get a few days to plan and hold a funeral and then are expected to return back - to work, to business as usual, to all of your hustle and bustle. But that’s not how the human heart works. We need places to express our grief and have people sing it back over us. To hear our words expressed with compassion and held as true. We need to publicly proclaim our grief, while being tenderly held in community. 

​My guess is that idea makes many of us uncomfortable. We don’t like the idea of people knowing about our grief, let alone joining us in publicly proclaiming it. Yet, what gift could that offer to us, both as grievers and the wider community? What shame could be diminished and understanding expanded by joining together in breaking open the constraints we have culturally placed on grief? What is just waiting to be sung? 

Dear Young Seminary Graduate,


You asked me today what I thought about the statement from the Southern Baptist Convention - a  doubling down on their dismissal of women’s ordination. The first thing that came to mind was a meme circling the internet of a woman reporter speaking to a baseball player who is stepping on an overturned container to appear taller than her. The text? The man - “Men with little Bible knowledge.” The woman - “Women who have degrees in theology.” The bucket - “The patriarchial system.”


I wish that meme didn’t hit so close to home. I wish that things would be different for you, graduating from seminary and entering into the pulpit thirteen years after me. But the truth is, that meme doesn’t just hit hard because of the SBC - it hits hard because of all of the other ways that the patriarchy shows up and is ignored, even in mainline denominations.


Don’t get me wrong, my heart breaks for the women in the Southern Baptist Convention. Especially a dear mentor of mine who has her degree in theology, but her church will not use her in leadership outside of women’s ministry. She is a powerhouse in the world of discipleship, but she is regulated and silenced in her own church. 


But that isn’t the only reason my heart breaks. 


My heart breaks thinking back to when I was ordained, and one of my churches wouldn’t acknowledge my ordination publicly. I say one because the other church I served at the time had a huge, secret celebration that I almost missed. I was so distressed by the other church’s attitude, led by a few males centering on not doing enough for them despite working myself to the point of being ill, that I almost missed the blessing that was before me. 


I don’t want you to work yourself into illness because of the attitude of a few men. 


My heart breaks thinking back to my last appointment, where I completed my doctorate in church leadership. As that journey began, I explained to the PPRC and each church board what I would be studying, only to have one male church leader think it was their right to vote on whether I should be able to “become more educated.”


I don’t want your education to be dismissed because a male feels threatened by the gift God has given you. 


My heart breaks thinking back to a Sunday School class I had led, where one of the male participants derailed the entire conversation on a directional topic we weren’t discussing because “he had done a lot of research.” This echoed a church meeting just a few days before where another male congregation member tried to tell me that I was incorrect in my denominational polity because his “family member has looked it up and told me all about it.”


I don’t want you to be silenced by the egos a few men that are allowed to run amuck.


Lord, help us. 


Young seminary grad, I wanted this to not be your story. But it is still the story of women clergy today. Even with our education and experience. Even with our calling from God. The truth is that you don’t just have to do your job well (some would even argue excellently even when that isn’t the expectation for other clergy who are not young and female) but you need to navigate how respond to these male congregation members as they stand upon the overturned bucket of patriarchy. 


If I’m honest, I haven’t always done this well. I don’t have an answer. If I’m all too honest, I let the patriarchy dictate my response far too many times - choosing silence and timidity over boldness and courage. 


Because the patriarchy isn’t just alive and well in the Southern Baptist Convention - it is stealthy stealing voice and dignity daily in other denominations as well, even those who celebrate the calling and ordination of women. When women are treated as not as knowledgeable. When our degrees are seen as pieces of paper with little value. And when our voices are dismissed in favor of others. Or when our ideas and teachings are accepted only after being expressed through a male voice.


So, what do we do with our hearts break, young seminary grad? We get up day by day and face what is before us, working hard to do better. To be better. To lead the Church to be better. Because what we do today is not for us - it is for the next young seminary grad to come. 


Your Mentor in Ministry 

   I’m not sure who said the phrase “no is a complete sentence,” but I can say that I have not always been firm about living into it over the past decade-plus in ministry. I was reminded of that just this past week when I was confronted with a decision about what boundary to put in place around my time.
    Friday is usually my Sabbath. Over the years, it has meant different things to me - a time to rest and recharge. A time to worship. A time to cease to work. However, two things will make me shift my Sabbath day - emergencies in the hospital and funerals.
    A beloved church member had died, and his family wanted to have his funeral on Friday. I readily agreed. The problem, when I looked at my calendar, is that the day I would shift my Sabbath to Saturday was marked with a church fundraiser. 
    I toyed with what I should do for far longer than well-kept boundaries would necessitate. Finally, the tipping point was when a voice in my head said, “Can you work thirteen days straight?” That was a firm “no.”
    All of the guilt and struggle around saying “no” to something as simple as a church spaghetti fundraiser made me wonder how other young clergywomen have grown in their understanding of boundaries, which led to a conversation with Helen and Sandy, two colleagues I deeply admire.
    When Sandy and I jumped on Zoom, the first question I asked was about when she set a boundary that was well-respected by the congregation she served. It didn’t take her long to tell the story of her first maternity leave. Describing the congregation as “supportive and amazing,” she noted that even with their love and care, she and her husband discerned that they needed time to be a family after the birth of her daughter and not feel like she had to step into the care-taking role, entertaining people who would come to their home. Therefore, they set this rigid boundary with the church that they didn’t want anyone stopping by while she was on maternity leave. 
    “How do you say that delicately?” Sandy mused. “We thought we probably sounded like complete assholes.” But her church family thrived with the boundary - going as far as buying a cooler, putting together a meal train, and on the dot, every single day, there would be a meal waiting for them in the cooler on their back porch. 
    Helen had similar stories to tell of her current church, that despite their busy calendar, respected her and her leadership enough to know that she can’t be at everything and that intentions can be quickly thwarted. She recalled recently committing to a women’s circle meeting - only to find that she wasn’t feeling well shortly before the meeting. She knew that she could go and push through the meeting, but that would mean not prioritizing her health. When she reached out to the leadership of the circle, she found that not only did they honor her boundary, but they reached out to check on her the next several days, which led to her feeling loved, as well. 
    Helen also spoke of a Sunday School gathering that happened to fall on her husband’s birthday. When she said that they would be celebrating as a family instead of attending the meeting, members of the Sunday School reached out to wish her husband a happy birthday.
    While I wish that all examples of people holding boundaries as clergywomen would be as encouraging as these, when asked about a time congregants did not respect boundaries, Sandy shared of setting a similar boundary regarding forming as a family when her son was born at another parish. People immediately did not like or respect the need to gel as a family. After three weeks into an eight-week maternity leave, daily text messages came with questions about the church, effectively pushing Sandy back into work. 
    What was the difference? Sandy noted that the statement she and her husband made was similar to that of her daughter: “We are so grateful for your care, and we are excited for you to meet our family, but we need space during leave to become a family.” It wasn’t a wording issue. It was that they were setting a boundary in the first place - which this congregation did not see very often from previous leadership. 
    As Sandy continued to have congregants trample over her boundary, she asked other colleagues with children about the boundaries they held with their families. Some of the advice she received included, “You are the one who can protect your family as a pastor, and your family deserves it.” “Your family is a calling.” And “You can never go back in time to spend time with your family.” Hearing these wise words about boundaries gave Sandy the resolve she needed to hold fast to the created boundary, even amid the pain. 
    Helen shared that she probably played a large part in denigrating some of the boundaries she had placed in one of her congregations. This particular church was busy with a large staff, and the culture was so geared to workaholism that boundaries became too flexible to be helpful. She spoke of setting a day apart for Sabbath and one day a week to work from home, but this was seen as more of a suggestion than an expectation, resulting in Helen disrespecting her boundaries because of the perceived needs of others. “We all played into it and said it was because we loved what we were doing,” she noted. But she has also witnessed first-hand the physical importance of having boundaries because “if we don’t honor our boundaries, your body will force you to take a break.” 
    With me, my struggle was around perception - what would people think if I wasn’t at the fundraiser? When I explained my boundary and why I was setting it, almost everyone was gracious and understanding. And I realized that those that lacked such responses have the same general attitude towards others and their boundaries. 
    Sandy perhaps summed up the best advice I had heard around boundaries beyond “no is a complete sentence” when she said, “Take thou authority, what is said at our ordination, is what comes to mind the most often when maintaining the boundaries I’ve set. There are times you let your boundaries bend or break - but only in emergencies - which are few and far between. So Take authority not just in work we do, but in the lives we lead.” 
    Let it be so, fellow clergywomen. Let it be so.