Congratulations Katie

My friend Katie was ordained this past sunday in her home church in Indianapolis.  Her church is one of the larger and better funded presbyterian churches out there.  Kind of the Fourth Church of Indianapolis, if that means anything to you.  She was ordained at their ‘casual’ service sunday evening, most people still looked pretty fancy.  I dont know if that was standard for the service or if Katie’s installation inspired formality.

The path for a young female minister does not seem to be an easy one.  Listening to my wife’s reflections and those of her roomates shows me some things that I would not normally pick up on.  Though I am also in seminary getting a similar education as what they got, I am not headed for ordained ministry, I am not looking for a church job, my view is a little different than theirs.  I have sympathy having gone through stressful and dissappointing job search times myself.  What I do not necessarily see is the sexism that they pick up on.

Churches (generally speaking) tend to favor older male leadership.  I can see this for myself.  The age part of it is not hard to understand.  I think that churches with a boomer+ age group tend to look to the pastor has a person of spiritual maturity who can be trusted to give wisdom and guideance through all of life’s challenges.  Nothing wrong there.  The dangerous assumption that I think boomer+ people make is that when they look at a young minister who might be their pastor they see their children and/or grandchildren.  They see one who they would expect to dispens life exerience to, not the other way around.  The young minister is the inexperienced minister regardless of what prior job experience they might have.  And relatively speaking, they have a point.  The grandmother with a tribe of 12 under her has more life and family experience than the young female pastor yet to have any children.  How can that pastor minister to young families that are struggling wih out of control teenagers?

And right there, I think is a signal of the underlying problem.  For many the pastor is supposed to be the source of all encompassing wisdom, advice and spirital care.  Many of my generation see the community as its own all encompassing source of wisdom, advice and spiritual care.  It is the pastor’s job to recognize the grandmother’s experience and desire to share it and pave the way for her wisdom to be a lifesaver for the family with teens or toddlers.  Such leadership is nuanced, it accepts ambiguity and leverages social captial to meet social needs.

This is a radically different paradigm.  Its not even top-down vs. bottom-up, its more like top-down vs. a web of connections and relationships.  Top-down leadership can be done very well.  But things have changed, especially among seminarians.  Ethno-cultural factors have a role in the change as well.  I know that I have seen this the clash in white churches.  It might be even more stark for a recently trained seminarian in an ALANA church.

I find it troubling that so many churches that see their membership numbers dropping and the median age of the congregation going up turn to a “contemporary” service to attract younger people but refuse to invest in young leadership.  If you want to change your churches direction then how is hiring the same person who has been in the church for the past 50 years going to make that happen?

Let us know when you are ready, there are a lot of talented young minister out their eating ramen while you open up your mind.