Wednesday, February 12th, 2020…
My “retirement” party was actually lovely. It had been well thought out and planned. I appreciated it very much.
They decorated tables for each ministry and event I had planned during my time as Children’s Minister. All the different VBS themes, all the camps, the Egg Hunt, the Fall Fest… it was really cool and very sweet. They decorated the stage with old VBS signs, streamers, and lights. There was a beautiful cake and gifts.
The verse I chose as the ministry’s “theme verse” was John 3:1
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God; and so we are.”
My friend, the former secretary, was very artistic. She wrote the verse beautifully on a canvas and then had all the kids from the church sign it. She had it framed, and they presented it to me at the party.
They dismissed all the Youth and AWANA activities early that night for the party. After the pastor spoke about how much they loved me and would miss me, I said a few words. It was emotional for me. After spending the past two weeks in a courtroom, I was in a strange state of mind. I was so confused after our meeting with the pastor just a few minutes earlier about the new girl. I was just uncomfortable for reasons I couldn’t even explain. Something didn’t feel right. But I did my best to hide those feelings, graciously thanked the church for the beautiful party, and assured them that I would be back to church soon.
I stood near the stage, and people came around to hug me, thank me, and tell me they loved me. I cried… it was hard. I didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time I saw some of those people.
The pastor didn’t stay around long. He hurried off with the Personnel Committee to interview the new children’s minister through FaceTime. They would be given the questionnaire that the pastor had “doctored” to look over before the interview.
He was selling her to them… he was doing everything he could to make her look somewhat qualified.
We continued with our trial that month. We experienced long and tiring days. The whole ordeal was mentally and emotionally exhausting. It would continue for the entire month of February, but the judge let us out of court on the 17th. So, I was able to call this prospective Children’s Minister.
I took detailed notes of that conversation…
This is how it went.
It was, umm, shall we say, interesting.
First of all, she was super sweet. She was very young and somewhat naive, but she seemed genuinely kindhearted. We made small talk for a little while. After two hours on the phone with her, this is what I learned.
I asked her why she felt called to Children’s Ministry… buckle up.
She started telling the story about how the pastor at Tree Town Baptist was her pastor at his old church for several years. They loved him dearly and thought of him as family. He led her to the Lord. He counseled her and her husband before marriage. He had told them they would need to move into separate homes and stop living together before he would marry them. (this is something the pastor would reiterate to almost anyone who would listen. He made a huge deal to everyone, including the deacons, that this couple lived together before marriage. I always thought it was strange that he did that)
He had indeed officiated the wedding of her and her husband after he counseled them and got them on the right track…
They were close, really close. They looked up to this pastor like no one else in the world. He was more than a pastor. He was a father figure. And when he left 2 years earlier, she was heartbroken.
She said that his leaving was so devastating that it hurt to think about him or stay in contact…So much so that they didn’t speak with the pastor very often because it was just too painful for him to be so far away and no longer in their everyday lives. They still loved him dearly, but it just hurt too much… until… HE called them and asked them to visit Tree Town in early January. They hadn’t heard from him in so long, they were ecstatic that he would reach out, and they came to stay one weekend. The weekend of January 11th, to be exact. This was the weekend we were away with the youth for the weekend retreat.
He introduced them to some people their age and even took them to a little get-together. She said they immediately thought these people would make excellent friends… they just loved them.
They visited the church that Sunday and loved it… It was so much bigger and better than their small town church. They loved how big it was, they loved the music, thought the check-in system was fantastic, and the children’s program was great… she couldn’t say enough good things about it.
Of course, the pastor told them while they were there that the Children’s Minister position was open. They didn’t think anything of it at the time, she said.
They drove through Tree Town and the surrounding areas, just looking around. They fell in love with the place, but more than that, it felt so good to be back with the pastor and his family. They had missed them so very much.
On the way home, she and her husband had a fight. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong. This wasn’t normal for them. Something wasn’t right… Did God want them to move to Tree Town? Is that why they were feeling this tension?
That would mean they would need to quit their jobs, pick up their family, and move. What was their reason?
Could they move just to be closer to the pastor they loved so much?
Was that a good enough reason to move? Was following a pastor something they should do? That didn’t seem right.
Whatever was going on was definitely causing them to be stressed, so maybe a call to the pastor would be a good idea.
They called and told him how they were feeling. Maybe they should move to Tree Town, but was following a pastor a good enough reason to move?
They weren’t comfortable moving only for this reason if it wasn’t something that the pastor thought they should do. Did he think that was a good enough reason? This is what they asked the pastor.
The pastor’s answer…, “Timothy followed Paul.”
I have this phrase circled over and over on my notes. Timothy followed Paul… are you kidding me? This is the pastor’s advice to a young couple. A couple who admittedly have elevated him to almost hero status, a girl whom the pastor says has very little Biblical knowledge or spiritual maturity, and when he’s asked a question that will have a lifetime impact on them, his answer is Timothy followed Paul.
Is he really likening himself to Paul?
I just can’t.
That comment made a huge impact on this girl. Enough so that she brought it up, on her own, in the conversation.
She goes on to say that a few days later, they tell their family that they are moving to Tree Town. They don’t have jobs or a place to live, but this is what God wants them to do. They will follow the pastor. They will move because they want to be close to him, and the pastor has told them that is a good enough reason to move.
They drive back to Tree Town a couple of weeks later. This time they meet several more new friends who they hit it off with immediately.
But when they look for jobs, her husband can’t find one. He was leaving an excellent job to move, and they expected that he would easily find one that paid the same in or around Tree Town, but things weren’t looking good.
They left Tree Town feeling defeated. Maybe they made this decision too quickly.
What are they going to do? They’ve already told their family they are moving, and to back out now would be embarrassing. They can’t just change their mind and not move. What would their family think?
On their way home, they begin to discuss these things. Finally, the husband says… what about the Children’s Minister position? She tells him that she thinks that the job is for a woman and wouldn’t be a good fit for him. He tells her he’s not talking about the job for him; he’s talking about her taking it. She thinks about it for a minute and agrees to pray about it. So, she does… for one whole night and into the next morning.
The following day as she’s praying, she just starts crying, and she knows that she should take the job.
She calls the pastor, and he tells her it sounds like she should.
He thinks they should move to Tree Town. He will help her get the job…
I was completely and utterly confused by her story. She never told me anything about feeling called to children’s ministry. This was a job. A way to make a living in Tree Town. A way to keep their family from thinking they made a wrong decision. And the pastor had offered it to her on a silver platter.
After she told me this story, I decided to be frank with her. I told her how hard the job was, how many hours it took, and that working for your friend could be a bad idea. I explained to her how much the pastor would require of her and how much the job entailed. I was as honest with her as I could be. But it’s already a done deal.
She’s going to be the next Children’s Minister of Tree Town.
A young girl who adores the pastor… someone who can’t even give me a clear reason why she feels called to the ministry, other than they love the pastor and can’t find another job.
One could argue that she couldn’t understand a “call” on her life because she was spiritually immature, as the pastor said. Maybe that’s the reason she couldn’t explain herself.
Or perhaps she was just starry-eyed about the pastor she loved thinking that this was a job she could do. She would do anything he asked.
What could be more flattering to a person than someone like the pastor, this pastor, the one who you think hung the moon wanting you to take a position like this?
Can you imagine what this might have felt like to her? Can you see why her answer might not include anything about a “call” on her life but only a “call” to follow the pastor and work for him?
Is there any greater spiritual compliment a young Christian can receive than for the person they admire to think that they can handle something as big as a Children’s Ministry? And at a much larger church than they’ve ever been a part of?
Again, imagine what it might have felt like to her.
The more time I’ve had to think about this, the more I see that he was manipulating her.
Can you see it?
The convenient call to them in January, just when the pastor needs to fill a position? How he brought them to the town, introduced them to people, told them about a job, convinced them that it was okay to follow a pastor…
It definitely seems planned…
I can see it now…
But, I’ve never been more confused in my life than I was when I hung up the phone that night. What had just happened? The pastor said from the moment I resigned that this position needed a QUALIFIED full-time person. This girl had never even taught a children’s Sunday school class.
When I asked her why she felt called to it, her story was about following a preacher, and when her husband couldn’t find a job, this seemed the best way to make ends meet until he could.
How did we get here?
The timeline requires a little speculation on my part. Still, I know that their first visit to Tree Town, where they were invited by their hero pastor, was the weekend of January 11th. I know that they visited again on the weekend of February 1st. I know the on-the-way home discussion about her taking the job was probably on February 3rd. I think the call to the pastor about her feeling like she might take the job was on February 4th. This means that when he told me on February 6th that she wasn’t qualified and wanted me to talk to her on the phone, he had already told her he thought she should take the job. We may never know why he said to me that night that he thought she wasn’t qualified and that it probably wouldn’t work out. I doubt he wanted anyone to know what he was working out behind the scenes. It needed to look a little less planned. But the truth was it was already pretty much a done deal, probably even as early as January when the pastor invited them to Tree Town the first time, and by February 12th, she was as good as hired.
By the 17th, when I talked to her, they had already discussed the fact that she would be full-time and discussed pay and housing.
After I hung up, I went to talk to my husband. There were so many red flags. It seemed all set up by the pastor. It was as if he had picked her from the beginning and had been working the system.
I’m just going to insert my opinion here since this is my blog. I don’t think the pastor ever wanted someone qualified. I think someone who was qualified would have been a threat to him. He was extremely insecure. Insecure people surround themselves with people that make them feel superior.
The pastor readily admitted how much he loved them, how he had discipled them, helped get them on track as a couple, married them, and loved that he was their hero.
They would make built-in best friends.
These would be people he already knew he got along with. They were from his state, and they basically worshipped him. It was perfect… for him.
He texted me later that night after my phone conversation with this girl and asked if I had talked her out of the job. I told him I tried but hadn’t.
But it’s kind of hard to talk someone out of a job they’ve already taken…
I told him I liked her. She was super sweet, completely naïve, and she had no idea what was about to hit her.
His answer…
The same answer he gave us in his office a few days before…
And I have the text message to prove it…
Blank slate.
Code for, she would do anything he asked, and he could make her anything he wanted her to be.
When someone is handed a blank slate, they turn it into whatever they see fit.
I’ve heard that comment used on home improvement shows so many times… they walk into a house and say, “this place is a blank slate,” and then they make the house suit their needs. They move walls, rearrange the layout, paint it their favorite color, knock some walls down, and in the end, it’s just what they wanted it to be… their dream home.
I recently began reading a book by Wade Mullen called “Something’s Not Right.” In the introduction of the book, this part jumped off the page when I read it.
“If you’re like me, you may hear the word abuse and think, as I did, of physical or sexual harm done to another person. But the truth is, the term abuse is appropriate for far more situations than those. When someone treats you as an object they are willing to harm for their own benefit, abuse has occured and that person has become an abuser”
“Something’s Not Right” by Wade Mullen
A blank slate never has a will of its own; it becomes just what the person holding it wants it to be. A blank slate is an object.
Let’s not forget that the pastor said he would hire the person HE WANTED. No concern for her whatsoever, just a blank slate, ready and willing to work for him.
If you think this part of the story sounded crazy… keep your fork.
The best is yet to come…
Until Next Time,
Whitney