By Laura Tarro Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash I was in a room recently where a female professor paused her teaching to ask: How many women in this room have done the job of a pastor without the title? Hands went up all over the room. She paused for a moment to let it land and then went back to her teaching. That moment has stuck with me.
I recently said to someone I was being introduced to, “oh yes I was on the ministry team of a church for ten years”
only to have the other person in the conversation, an Anglican clergyman, say,
over the top of my head, “she means she was on staff.”
I had another clergyman from the same diocese answer me when I said I was on the ministry team “‘well then you certainly have a strange definition of ministry team.”
My job included planting and running a weekly service, writing and preaching sermons, leading a pastoral care team and doing a huge amount of pastoral care, many funerals and all the general planning, being part of the team that anyone else did. But no, not called pastor.
As everything was falling apart beneath me, I was called to pursue my doctorate of leadership and spiritual formation. There is so much I am learning about 1) how abusive that environment was and 2) how I *might* have led the adaptive process differently. In the beginning of my program I found your blog and read Nijay Gupta’s book. While I haven’t learned anything women haven’t been seeing and saying for years from you or Nijay (specifically regarding women in ministry), I’ve learned that God is raising up allies for women in the church. So my project is focused on the unique formational needs of evangelical women formed in the patriarchal church as space opens up for mutual leadership in evangelical churches. I believe God is doing a good work, but, man, the breadth of pain and damage that’s been caused along the way makes me weep. Thank you, Thank you for providing space for us to give voice to our experiences. Please don’t stop.
"I was told to resign. When I said I didn’t want to resign I was told, “staying is not an option.” Do you know why you didn't want to resign? You "asked for my job description and title be changed to match the actual work I was doing". They admitted they were taking advantage of you by saying "resign". You didn't write that they denied their strategy for getting the work done. They were not, are not, ashamed about using you. They are not delighted that the hurting people you comforted were comforted. What was it, is, that you still wanted to stay?
"I hadn’t suddenly become more qualified." When you internally realized, and boldly named the distinction, you experienced their belief system. That you are an object to be used and discarded to keep the system in place.
We like to say "it's not fair", but why don't we expect it? The Fall created a system that cannot change before Jesus returns. We are taught to live as IF the system has changed, but it has not. Do I think it's possible to create a better system? YES. And people like you, Laura, will do it. I want you to fully experience all the feelings that got you to the ask. So you don't forget. So you don't create what harms too. So you don't go back accidentally. So that Jill and Erin can work with you to create the real church using the real Gospel.
I recently said to someone I was being introduced to, “oh yes I was on the ministry team of a church for ten years”
only to have the other person in the conversation, an Anglican clergyman, say,
over the top of my head, “she means she was on staff.”
I had another clergyman from the same diocese answer me when I said I was on the ministry team “‘well then you certainly have a strange definition of ministry team.”
My job included planting and running a weekly service, writing and preaching sermons, leading a pastoral care team and doing a huge amount of pastoral care, many funerals and all the general planning, being part of the team that anyone else did. But no, not called pastor.
Cut, paste, insert my name.
As everything was falling apart beneath me, I was called to pursue my doctorate of leadership and spiritual formation. There is so much I am learning about 1) how abusive that environment was and 2) how I *might* have led the adaptive process differently. In the beginning of my program I found your blog and read Nijay Gupta’s book. While I haven’t learned anything women haven’t been seeing and saying for years from you or Nijay (specifically regarding women in ministry), I’ve learned that God is raising up allies for women in the church. So my project is focused on the unique formational needs of evangelical women formed in the patriarchal church as space opens up for mutual leadership in evangelical churches. I believe God is doing a good work, but, man, the breadth of pain and damage that’s been caused along the way makes me weep. Thank you, Thank you for providing space for us to give voice to our experiences. Please don’t stop.
"I was told to resign. When I said I didn’t want to resign I was told, “staying is not an option.” Do you know why you didn't want to resign? You "asked for my job description and title be changed to match the actual work I was doing". They admitted they were taking advantage of you by saying "resign". You didn't write that they denied their strategy for getting the work done. They were not, are not, ashamed about using you. They are not delighted that the hurting people you comforted were comforted. What was it, is, that you still wanted to stay?
"I hadn’t suddenly become more qualified." When you internally realized, and boldly named the distinction, you experienced their belief system. That you are an object to be used and discarded to keep the system in place.
We like to say "it's not fair", but why don't we expect it? The Fall created a system that cannot change before Jesus returns. We are taught to live as IF the system has changed, but it has not. Do I think it's possible to create a better system? YES. And people like you, Laura, will do it. I want you to fully experience all the feelings that got you to the ask. So you don't forget. So you don't create what harms too. So you don't go back accidentally. So that Jill and Erin can work with you to create the real church using the real Gospel.
Stop the fraud.
How sad this is , that the “church “ would do this.