Now stick with me here – 6th church was the same church as 1st church. The very first church I was ever a part of, the one I attended during high school. I started dating their youth pastor, Simon. (See, my former youth pastor, Matt, was now an assistant pastor at 1st church, and Simon had taken the youth position when Matt was promoted – you follow me?). Once I fell in love with this youth pastor guy (which didn’t take long), I started attending his church, which was of course my old church from years prior.
It was 6th church though and not 1st church – things had changed. Different senior pastor, different congregational makeup, and I was different too. And I was now a pastor’s girlfriend, which was just all kinds of awkward. But I fell in love with 6th church just like I had with 1st church. I became part of Simon, he became part of me, and we were part of 6th church together. The youth group embraced me with open arms. I delighted in those kids, and I really delighted in Simon’s genuine connection with every single one of them. They loved him so much.
Nearly all of 6thchurch was there when Simon and I got married, about a year after I started going to church there. They were our people and they loved us well. We were part of a house group at 6th church, and we developed deep, authentic friendships. 6th church pursued community really well, as it always had. I led an 8th grade girls bible study (those girls are now all close to graduating college and I can’t believe it). I volunteered in the 4-year-olds room once a month. I sang on the worship team rotation. I participated in women’s bible studies and attended retreats. Simon was a volunteer football coach at my old high school and some of the players got involved in our church too. We were deeply invested at 6th church and in the surrounding community and we loved it immensely. I think we might have stayed for a very long time.
But we couldn’t. One of the many things I loved about 6th church was that they didn’t hound people for money. There was no offering collected during the service, and money was rarely discussed with the congregation. There were avenues for donating financially, but they weren’t pushed on anyone. And that’s great…but it gets messy when your livelihood is dependent on people tithing. I had a job that I hated in the beginning our marriage, and I eventually quit with nothing lined up because I just couldn’t take it anymore. I was pregnant with our first child and Simon collected an average youth pastor salary.
And then all of the church staff took a 10% pay cut because the donations just weren’t coming in. This was after stripping down the budget repeatedly. Unfortunately, even that across-the-board pay cut wasn’t enough. It was infuriating to me that there wasn’t more talk about the financial crisis on Sunday mornings – tell the church! They care about us! Tell them how bad it is! One full-time staff member was let go. Then a second one. There were many nights that I blew my nose through a whole box of Kleenex as I cried about the instability of our world.
At one point someone anonymously left an envelope with $1,000 cash on our doorstep. It was completely unmarked except for three small words: “in your corner.” I’ll never forget that.
Eventually the church’s financial situation became so bleak we just knew it was coming – a third person would be let go, and it was either going to be Matt or Simon. They were the only full-time staff left, except for the senior pastor. Between the 50% chance that my husband would lose his job, and the overwhelming experience of becoming a mother, my mental health was crumbling.
I remember the lunch at Nacho Mamas like it was yesterday. It was late April. I was wearing our 4-month-old son in a baby wrap. Our senior pastor broke the news to us that the elders had decided to eliminate Simon’s position and offer him a 10 hours/week position instead. He was kind, but it was a brutal meeting. I remember Simon saying, “Oh. Oh, it’s us” (who have to leave). I couldn’t think straight. My margarita glass sweat the tears I couldn’t yet form. Seemingly hours later, we walked home. It was one of the worst walks of my life. We have a baby…soon we will have no money…where will we go…we’re losing our church…this can’t be real… Our unstable world was imploding and I struggled to reconcile reality.
But 6th church was hemorrhaging. And we were her hysterectomy.
Simon did not take the quarter -time offer. We loved 6th church and did not want to leave, but it was obviously not financially viable, and we didn’t know how it could be combined with something else, and ultimately it was all just too painful. And you can’t do youth ministry in any effective way in just 10 hours/week (not with a ton of kids like 6th church had). Simon knew he would have given more than 10 hours just because he loved those kids so much.
And, you know, when your boyfriend breaks up with you, you can’t just stay friends, even though you really want to see him and you try to tell yourself that you’re fine.
That’s how it felt. We were not fine.
Telling the youth group Simon was leaving was agonizing. They were angry and shocked and hurt. No one was happy about what was happening — including the decision-makers — which was helpful; on the other hand, my brain kept screaming, “If you don’t want to do this, then don’t!” It was a really horrible situation. But as much as 6th church hurt me with their release of Simon, and as much as I think some details could have been handled better, now I look back on that situation with empathy for everyone involved. The monetary resources simply were not there.
We sold our home (we had to) and moved in with Simon’s parents. I was so, so angry. I was furious with God and raged against him in my prayers. I would take my Bible out to a park near my in-laws’ house and read Pslams and literally scream at the sky. I told God to fuck off a few times. Annoyingly, he didn’t talk back, so I set directed my fury towards my pastor husband who got me into the situation instead.
Simon started waiting tables. I worked part-time work as a doula. On our final Sunday at 6th church, a friend squeezed my hand and said, “Hopefully this will just be a little blip in the road.”
I wish she had been right.
Photo credits in order:
- Photo by Nathan Walker on Unsplash
- Photo by Mike Erskine on Unspalsh
- Photo by Herson Rodriguez on Unsplash
- Photo by Alex Dukhanov on Unsplash
