Simon started working at 7th church about three months after losing his job at 6th church. It was September 2013. They needed a children’s ministry director and he needed work. He disclosed upfront that he was ultimately seeking two things they weren’t positioned to offer: a pastoral (ordained) role, and a full-time position. He has always been a transparent person and he considers it a matter of his integrity. This job was 20 hours/week, and the church understood it wasn’t a forever-fit for Simon. It seemed like a decent arrangement for the time being. And so Simon’s new workplace became our new church (occupational hazard).
7th church was a young satellite community of 4th church, and technically located in our metropolitan area, but it felt very far away and foreign to me. It was in the far-out western suburbs, and it just wasn’t home in my book. We were living with my in-laws (also located in the far-out western suburbs), and thanks to the bitch that is depression + trauma, that twenty-minute drive from The World That I Knew might as well have been a thousand miles. We had lost so much. Our church, our home, our community, our income, our normalcy, our familiar surroundings — it was a crisis.
So when Simon started working at 7th church, and I stood in the YMCA auditorium on my first Sunday, all alone with a squirmy baby (#pastorswife), I was not, umm…in a good place. I openly wept during worship. During the greeting time, a well-intentioned church member approached me (still weeping). She asked me if I was new (I nodded my head despondently, tears running down my face), and then she gently asked where we had moved from. I gasped through sobs: “St. Louis!!!” and let out an epic, primal wail. That poor woman opened and closed her mouth a few times, unsure what to do. Simon appeared and that made things less awkward.
In January I got pregnant unexpectedly. Simon privately looked at full-time job postings, wondering if he should apply since we were growing our family. In March I miscarried. During April and May, Simon’s work situation deteriorated considerably. This was likely due to mutual misunderstanding and mutual miscommunication. Cultural differences may have also played an unquantifiable role — Simon is Korean, and his employers have all been white evangelical churches. In June Simon was asked to attend a breakfast with two elders – they informed him the church was looking for his replacement.
In the roughly ten months that Simon worked for 7th church, I attended irregularly. Our son started walking hallway through that time, and keeping him in church was incredibly disruptive – it seemed like a waste of time for me to attend, as I couldn’t enjoy the service or even stay in the sanctuary. And I just couldn’t stomach the thought of leaving my baby in the nursery. Honestly, I needed Gabe with me anyway — he was my therapy baby. On top of all the loss we were already struggling to incorporate, I was traumatized by my miscarriage. I was in agony for months, alongside my husband who was in an increasingly precarious work situation. So Gabe and I toddled through the halls of the YMCA. I cried a lot and I did not talk to people.
My body is an accident scene, a baby graveyard. My church is a casino — I might win, but I’ll probably lose, and the system is actually designed for me to lose.
These were common thoughts for me. I was adrift at sea. It felt like everyone was looking at me but no one was seeing me.
There were a couple dear, thoughtful people who tried to pursue friendship with me despite my detached and icy exterior. Most stayed away — I probably wouldn’t have wanted to approach me either. But I was just trying to make it through each Sunday morning. An hour and half…an hour…thirty more minutes…just ten more minutes… I did not feel safe. I was truly in fight-or-flight mode every single week.
This was the first time in my life I was confronted by the expectation that I attend church. Up until this point, my desire always led the way, so I hadn’t noticed any expectation. But now I didn’t want to be there, and that was a problem. Simon wanted to respect my emotional needs, but he was well-aware of the scrutiny we were under and the potential fallout, and he struggled to balance opposing motivations.
In the end, I became part of the reasoning for Simon’s dismissal. “Halley isn’t happy here…”
And I wasn’t. That was abundantly, laughably clear to everyone. But the solution was to prove me right that the church couldn’t be trusted? Of course that wasn’t the intent, but it was the impact.
I hadn’t unpacked it at that point, but eventually it would occur to me that some churches don’t care all that much about pastor’s wives as people. They often prefer a mascot. Smile, sweetheart…do your song and dance…go to church…take care of your children…support your husband…follow the rules…make people happy (definitely don’t make them uncomfortable)…and don’t interfere.
You could argue Simon wasn’t in the right mental or emotional space to take on a new church role after what happened at 6th church. Naturally the end of his previous job had an impact on him. So was he not up to snuff? Did he fail to perform his duties? I certainly don’t think so. I think he did an amazing job, and I’m inclined to fight anyone who would like to suggest otherwise. But he did need support, he did need to heal, and well, he needed a church!
Unfortunately, it’s been my experience that grace is primarily for congregants (to put it cynically, the people who give the money). Churches have to be gracious with (tithing) congregants because they need them to survive. But when it comes to the people they give money to (staff), if they are struggling, if they need help, if they aren’t at the top of their game for whatever reason (say, church trauma, new parenthood, miscarriage, floundering wife), then it may be simpler and less messy to just cut them loose.
To some extent I get it. I even accept it. “It’s not personal, it’s business.” That’s the way the world works.
But the church purports to be different. That’s the problem. So in situations when it ends up not being different, you feel at best bewildered and at worst betrayed. When the hand that feeds you (literally and spiritually) turns around and bites you…it creates a maze of cognitive dissonance and it’s really hard to find your way out.
In July it was over. It was the second consecutive summer that a church dismissed my husband from employment. It would not be the last.
Photo credits in order:
- Photo by Thomas Kinto on Unsplash
- Photo by Guillaume de Germain on Unsplash
- Photo by George Martin on Unsplash
- Photo by Matteo Maretto on Unsplash
- Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash
