Did you keep your fork?
Here we go…
I was literally shaking when the 2-hour phone call with the prospective children’s minister was over. I could not believe what I had just heard.
And then the “blank slate” text from the pastor… I didn’t know what I should do.
I had just listened to a young girl go on for 2 hours about how much she loved the pastor. Then, finally, she told me they were moving to Tree Town to be near him because he had assured them that Timothy followed Paul, so this would be ok for them to do too.
That conversation never included why she felt called to Children’s Ministry.
You can say she was a nice girl…
She’s young and had to start somewhere…
You can also say that I was overthinking things, that it wasn’t my place to interview her for the job.
That’s all true. She was a nice girl. She was young. She did have plenty of time to learn things. I wasn’t on the Personnel Committee, so I wasn’t interviewing her. I was asked to talk to her and tell her about the job.
But the person who did pick her and begin the process had an agenda. He was a little too close to the situation to make decisions. I might not have been on the committee or the person that was making the decisions, but one thing is certain… I wasn’t looking for a new friend to bring to Tree Town. There are friendly people all over the world. I wasn’t looking for a new young family from out of state to transplant into Tree Town. This was what the pastor was doing.
My mind was entirely centered on the children’s ministry and its future. That was my number one concern.
I won’t argue that she was sweet, I don’t argue that she was a hard worker and could learn… but let’s just be honest… she wasn’t the only young, sweet, hardworking girl in the world. There were also plenty of those in Tree Town. I was looking for a qualified person to take the job because my concern was for the ministry.
On the other hand, the pastor obviously had very different things in mind.
I was worried about everything. I was concerned about this poor naïve girl. I was worried about the ministry and the church, and I was just plain old upset. I was worried about the Children’s Ministry. The ministry the pastor and I had agreed on was ready for a full-time qualified person. What was going on?
I didn’t sleep much that night. I couldn’t because my mind was racing.
We left early the following day for court. On the way over, I started texting my friends in our group message. They were very anxious to hear how the phone call with this girl went.
They were stunned when I told them she was as good as hired.
They couldn’t believe that this was happening, that the pastor had hand-picked his good friend for a job she wasn’t qualified for. They seemed as angry and upset as I was.
I remember saying in a text that I thought I should call someone on the Personnel Committee and tell them what was happening. I felt very deeply that they should know. I didn’t leave the ministry because I quit loving it. I was still very much invested in its well-being.
I left the job in good standing. The pastor had asked me to talk to this girl. Me talking to her was not my idea. It was entirely his. I genuinely thought the committee would like to know my opinion and what was going on behind their back.
One of my friends, the most outspoken one, said this wasn’t my business and that the committee never asked for my opinion and I should leave it alone. She said she was protecting me and didn’t want me to get hurt. But it certainly didn’t feel that way.
Again, I was so confused.
And I was hurt.
We spent the day in court. Unfortunately, I couldn’t have my phone with me, and when I finally got it back, I had several messages. Many of them were from my friends. The outspoken one reiterated that this was not my business and that I should not let the Personnel Committee know anything. I should mind my own business.
If I was supposed to mind my own business, why had I been shown the doctored questionnaire, why had the pastor involved me, and why was I asked to call this girl and talk to her? It didn’t make any sense to me.
Now I realize that the only reason the pastor wanted me to talk to her was simply that he wanted her to be able to say that she spoke to me.
I remember crying that night to my husband. I didn’t want to be a snitch. But what was I supposed to do with this information?
He agreed that the committee should know what was going on. He said he would call our friend instead of me and tell him all about the phone call so that I couldn’t be accused of being a snitch. So, he called the person I talked to earlier about my raise and evaluation. The same one who we went out to dinner with to discuss my resigning, the friend we trusted…He was sitting on the committee as deacon chairman.
My husband called him, and I expected the conversation to last for a while… I was wrong. They only talked for a very short time. My husband tried to tell him about the red flags we saw, but he wasn’t interested in hearing about them. The committee was already sold.
They thought she was the best thing since sliced bread. The pastor couldn’t stop talking about how awesome she would be. She was full of energy, ready to learn and take on the world. They had talked to her once on FaceTime, and they would officially offer her the job through FaceTime that next night.
She would be the one they brought before the church as the candidate for Children’s Minister. This man said they were ready to get someone in the position. It had been without someone for too long.
I had been gone for a total of 6 weeks by this time. 6 short weeks. We were without a youth pastor for one and a half years. We were without a pastor for 9 months, but 6 weeks was too long to be without a children’s minister.
They hired her unofficially on the 18th, the night after I talked with her on the phone. I have no idea whether our friend shared my misgivings with the rest of the committee.
She would come to meet the members of the church on Saturday, February 29th, at a Wild Game Supper. This would give her the exposure she needed. This evening would allow the church the opportunity to get to know her and her family.
My husband and my son attended that night. I did not.
She would attend the service the following day, March 1st, to answer questions from parents during Sunday School, and the church would officially vote on her at the end of the Sunday morning worship service.
Let me just remind you of a couple of things… it’s important to remember that the Personnel Committee would take the pastor’s recommendation on who they should hire. Once the Personnel Committee agreed, the church would not question the committee’s choice.
Most of the congregation would have no idea how things went down. They wouldn’t be privy to the process.
The Personnel Committee trusted the pastor… the church trusted the pastor and the committee. So if they recommended anyone, the church would vote to affirm them.
Something inside of me told me I shouldn’t go to church that day. I couldn’t do it. I hadn’t been in service since December, and this didn’t feel like the best time to return.
My friends would tell me later that this girl used my name several times during the question and answer session, and she would use my name again when she spoke to the church as a whole that morning.
She told the church that she had talked to me as if I had given my approval. I would later find out that this is precisely the effect it had on the church. They thought that she came with my total backing. No one knew the turmoil I was in over her hiring, and to say anything then would make me look angry that someone/anyone had been hired to “replace” me.
The church voted that morning, but the vote wasn’t unanimous.
I know this because the 3 people in my family that were there voted no.
And just to be clear, it wasn’t because they didn’t like her. In fact, my husband said she was very kind and that he also thought her husband was a good guy. The reason they voted no was because of how things went down. It seemed shady, and they didn’t like it. And they knew she wasn’t qualified and thought the position deserved more.
My husband is such an easygoing man. His fuse is long. It takes a lot to anger him, but that Sunday morning, he was livid. When they brought her in front of the church, and she used my name, and then they announced that her starting salary would be $40,000 and they would also offer her free housing, it was all he could take.
In his mind, it was the worst “screw you” the church could give me.
For years he wanted to take up for me, to ride in on a white horse, to have conversations when the pastor hurt me, to talk to the church when he felt I had been mistreated… but I wouldn’t let him. It was important to me that I took care of things myself.
But this Sunday morning, my man had enough. He voted no, and he left, never to return.
He had been texting me throughout the entire service. He called me immediately when he got in the car.
He couldn’t get over this hand-picked friend of the pastor coming in, making more than twice as much as I did, plus housing, having zero experience, using my name to convince the church that she had my approval… he was done.
D.O.N.E.
My husband came home from church that morning angrier than I’ve ever seen him. He was more than convinced that the pastor had set this up from the very beginning.
From the unexplained “invitation” to Tree Town in January when they had visited, to the “Timothy followed Paul,” also the “I’ll get who I want for this job” comment the pastor made early in the game, to the “she’s a blank slate” statement … to helping her doctor her questionnaire to better impress the personnel committee…I could go on and on, but you get the idea.
For even an amateur detective, this seemed an open and close case.
One could assume that the pastor wanted to bring in a built-in best friend with her husband, that he would instead rather work with someone who worshipped him instead of someone that challenged him, that possibly unqualified people weren’t a threat to him, or maybe he just got in too deep by giving them the advice to move to Tree Town and then had to figure out how to get them a job and a house.
I may never know the complete story, but it seems evident that he hand-picked this girl. He hand-picked the Youth Minister and the Worship Pastor… this was no different, except that the other two were qualified.
One of the things that bothered my husband the most was the starting salary of $40,000.
I’m just going to be completely transparent here. I didn’t think $40,000 was enough for a qualified Children’s Minister. In fact, I knew that when the pastor was working to get me to work full-time that at best, they would have doubled my salary. I would most likely have started at $32,000.
There’s no way one of the men in the office would work for that.
In fact, they weren’t working for that. Their starting salaries were all well above $40,000.
The permanent part-time worship pastor worked one day a week at most, only making $13,000 less than this.
It shows a fundamental disconnect between how the church feels about women and how men are treated and paid in this church environment.
So, the issue for me wasn’t the pay. I thought she deserved more if she was qualified.
The problem for me was she wasn’t qualified. And I truly believe they could have found someone who was. They only looked for a very short time, and because of this, there’s no way they looked at all the options. There wasn’t time. This was planned.
My other issue was that I felt used. So many people later told me that her using my name led them to believe that I not only agreed with this hiring but also encouraged it. I felt like a pawn.
So, was the church so desperate to fill this position that they had to lower their standards, or was the pastor just desperate to have a built-in friend or someone that worshipped him so he could lord over her and get done what he wanted without anyone questioning him?
I’m the first to admit that these are all speculations. Still, I have speculations based on my relationship with the pastor, knowing how he worked the system, how he liked to control people, and remembering how the pastor planned to get who he wanted in this position.
None of my family stepped foot back into that church after that day. And something hard to come to terms with is that we didn’t know we wouldn’t go back. Would we have soaked it in a little more if we had known? Would I have gone that day instead of staying home?
I don’t know what I would’ve done differently. I’ve often said that I might never have resigned if I had known how the story would end. If I had known that I would lose my church, my friends, and my sense of belonging, I’m not sure if I would have had the strength to follow through.
God knew that I could only handle things in small doses. He wanted me out of the toxic environment, and one step at a time, He led me out.
And before I get carried away and make this entire post about myself, let’s stop and think about what this girl might have been going through.
She decided to move her entire family to a new state. She willingly followed her hero pastor. She left her family and friends for one man. When she and her husband made the decision, things didn’t go as planned. They had to find a job. They had to find a place to live. And the pastor stroked her ego just enough that his plan came together. And she had no idea that the only reason he really wanted her to have the job was that she was a blank slate.
She would do his bidding; she wouldn’t question him… he hired her for him. Not for the position, not for the benefit of the ministry, not for the church… for him.
He was using her, and she had no idea, and she probably doesn’t have any idea to this day.
Would you want to work for someone like that?
If churches operate like this, can you see why people are turned off?
I’ve seen a lot of things in churches over my lifetime, but this one took the cake. It was the most underhanded, self-serving thing I had ever witnessed from a pastor.
He played with people’s lives; I can’t imagine he changed overnight. I would think he’s still doing the very same thing.
Are pastors perfect? No. Do they make mistakes? Yes
But there’s a difference between mistakes and premeditated decisions.
Until Next Time,
Whitney