As I have shared some of my pastor search experiences as a female pastor, I have often gotten the response from colleagues, “But you wouldn’t want to work in that church, would you?”
“That” church is meant to describe churches that “aren’t ready” for a female senior pastor. At first when I was asked this question, I wholeheartedly agreed, “Yeah, you know it’s not really worth it if a church is not ready,” but recently I’ve changed my response.
The thing is I am not applying to Southern Baptist Churches who publicly announce that they don’t allow or call women as senior pastors and disassociate with churches who call women as pastors or associate pastors because they don’t believe women are called to that type of leadership. I am applying to churches who are affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a fellowship that claims as one of its founding principles support of women in ministry. These are the congregations who are supposed to have a place and a voice for women in ministry.
“You wouldn’t want to work in that church, would you?” Well, actually yes. I do want to work in a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Church. I want to work in a place that supports and affirms women in ministry and churches who affiliate with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship churches are supposed to be those places for women in ministry.
But they aren’t.
And even as this is openly acknowledged, the sentiment as I share my story is still the same, “You wouldn’t want to work in that church, would you?” And this sentiment comes from male colleagues. Male colleagues who don’t have to worry and wonder about whether they are being rejected from pastor positions because of their experiences or because of their gender. Now that I think about it, this response to the systematic discrimination that exists in our churches sounds a whole lot like mansplaining.
Yes, actually I would like equal opportunity to apply and work in my profession as you do as my male colleague. Yes, I would like to lead and guide a congregation to stop participating in spiritual abuse that oppresses and silences women solely because of their gender. Yes, I would like to work in “that” church because pastoring “that” church is what I have been called to do.