#candidacy

(CW: emotional abuse)

I used to be a pastor. Let me explain.

I grew up in the United Methodist Church, and when I received a calling to ministry, that's where I decided to get ordained. To do that is a long, involved process called "candidacy." There are a LOT of requirements to getting ordained, the biggest hurdle usually being a Master's degree in Divinity, or an M.Div. While it was difficult, getting my M.Div. was perhaps one of the most fun, life-giving and enjoyable years of my life. It also gave me a lot of hope for the future.

During my time as a student, I decided to be a part-time student pastor. I got my license, and become a lay local pastor, and worked at a small-town congregation about an hour from my seminary in Texas. Honestly, if I could have chosen to be their my entire career, I would have. That church was the most loving congregation I think I have ever been a part of, and you could not ask for a better church to be a part of going through ordination processes.

However, as all things go, my time there ended. I finished my M. Div., and I began the next step in candidacy: being a Commissioned Elder. This means that I was a pastor in a probationary period of about 2 years in which I get to do ministry in a more expanded capacity. The way it was supposed to work --the way I was TOLD IT WOULD WORK-- was that I would receive interviews from three different churches to see which was the best fit, and I would be able to have input into where I would go. Sounds wonderful! That is not what happened.

I was given (1) interview with a potential church, and that one went very well. I loved the location, loved the potential senior pastor, and all of it looked great. However. The Cabinet--a group of district superintendents and the Bishop-- decided otherwise. That church I interviewed for? They gave it to another guy, because he was from the same area as that church.

Me? I was assigned to [Redacted] First UMC.

I received a phone call from the District Superintendent that I was under, and she told me to expect a call from... let's call him Pastor Dick. Pastor Dick was the senior pastor at [Redacted] and the bishop had appointed me to him.

"Why?" I asked.

"Listen," she said. "Sometimes... things don't go the way we plan. But I promise you'll be okay at that church."

Friend, I was not.

Pastor Dick used to be a District Superintendent and was KICKED OFF the Cabinet by the current Bishop. The two were mortal enemies. He had an axe to grind. He did not want an associate. Pastor Dick, I would go on to find out, was an inveterate narcissist, toxic and emotionally manipulative in every way. He was a Good Ol' Boy, and didn't much care for our Woman Bishop and her more progressive leanings.

I was to be his associate pastor. I had to make this work.

The next year and a half under Pastor Dick was, to that point, the most difficult time of my life I had ever experienced, rivalling High School, in which I was mercilessly bullied. Dick was a technophobe--man had a flip phone, and didn't even have a computer. He had his emails printed out by his administrative assistant EVERY MORNING. I do not actually know what he did during the days. I assume it was mostly phone calls with parishioners or his buddies. The man had as a part of his pay package a MEMBERSHIP IN THE LOCAL COUNTRY CLUB. There was nothing the man loved more than hearing the sound of his own voice. It was a constant barrage of hot air from him every day, all day.

At this time, I was just being diagnosed with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. Being under Pastor Dick made my anxiety, vertigo, and depression spike as well. I called out frequently. I did what I could to not be in the office. Pastor Dick did not like this, not one bit. I needed to be in the office! Why? I honestly don't know. I tried writing a sermon once in a coffee shop, and he threw a holy fit.

Most pastors, when they are an associate, usually get a worship service of their own to coordinate. At a church that size with almost 2000 members, this seemed obvious. But Pastor Dick thought otherwise. He did not want me to have a Sunday Service. No, he wanted both of those to belong to him. Never mind that people usually liked my sermons better. Never mind that I needed opportunities to preach for my candidacy.

So he thought around the issue. He told me to create a Saturday worship service--you know, like a lot of big city churches with lots of people have, to reach a new kind of crowd!

Hey gang, do you know why those big churches have Saturday worship? It's because their Sundays are overflowing with people, and those are the overflow services. Our Sundays? They were pretty well attended, but FAR from overflowing.

Still, this was my chance. I coordinated with my worship guy. We crafted an ancient-future worship service, with stripped down acoustic music and really challenging theology. We were going to be dynamic! Interesting! And we had a blast. We had a solid group of people regularly attending, having communion with us, becoming a community. It wasn't gangbusters successful, but it was OURS. And we loved it.

Until a "consultant" came, and killed it. He saw what we were doing. It was intentionally different from "marketable" church worship experiences. No big lights, no loud music, just a group of people, singing to acoustic guitar, an academic sermon, using new versions of ancient liturgies... and he hated it. He said it was a waste of time and energy.

The next week, Pastor Dick cancelled it. We didn't even get a final worship service to send it off.

The superintendent, different from my previous one, saw my time there as a failure. He decided to move me mid-year to a two-point charge, deeeeeeeeep in the piney woods. In the second poorest county in Texas. Two small, struggling churches. I would be the only pastor. No mentors to help me. I was failing, and he wanted me shoved off to a corner to rot.

I languished in those churches for three and a half years. I did my damnedest. I built connections. I tried to be a good pastor. I started initiatives. I did what a pastor ought to.

But here's the rub. I was a twenty-something pastor in a church entirely filled with retirees. I was an urban-suburban-leaning young pastor, who would ideally have been best suited to a larger church in the city and given a mentor pastor who gave a damn. Instead I was given a narcissistic abuser, and a sabotaged shot at success. These towns I was sent to? They were dying. <2000 people maximum. And they wanted me to get a massive growth of attendance? I barely spoke these people's language! I tried, though. I did my best, walked with them all through all kinds of difficulties. I did funerals, went to the hospital regularly. But there's only so much I could have done. The die was cast.

The truth was, the bishop had found in me an acceptable loss. I didn't look like what a pastor should look like, talk like the kind of marketable pastor-talk they wanted, and generally did not fit in the box the church had for me. I fought it. I fought my failure tooth and nail. But I was isolated. Alone. My partner and I were the youngest people in those churches, and we didn't have any friends. She put her career on hold for me. She had no prospects for her career out there. We both were miserable, but dammit, I still showed up every Sunday.

Yet the church did not see this. They merely counted my mistakes as failures, and called me ultimately responsible for not single-handedly saving two dying churches in dying, impoverished towns. The church denied me. They gave me the choice of either voluntarily discontinuing and leave the ministry, or proceed to the Board of Ordained ministry and have them discontinue me. Either resign, or be forcibly removed.

I gave up. I had weathered ten years of the candidacy process. I had given everything I had to the church. I was more depressed than ever. I was heartbroken. And they hung me out to dry. Told me that "many are called, but few are chosen."

I call bullshit. They knew what they had done by sending me under Pastor Dick. They knew that no fresh-faced seminarian would survive under him. They knew that he would take me down with him. And I still managed to last three and a half years after him, clawing for every inch of ground I could.

But the church did not care. So I picked up my things and left. I had thankfully seen the writing on the wall beforehand. I applied for PhD studies and was accepted within a week of that meeting which defrocked me. I left my home in Texas, and headed west, to California, where I am now.

I'm writing my dissertation now. Academia is far from perfect, but it's a damn sight better than being in the ministry, at least for me. I might actually have a future as a transfemme theologian, one I would NEVER have as a pastor in the UMC.

The church needs good pastors. I would support anyone who wants to take that calling on.

It's just not me. I'm done with fighting the ministry. I can answer my calling in Academia.

So what was this? Just a release on the pressure valve of my anxiety, anger, and frustration. But it's also my story, more or less. There's more to it. I could tell you about how gaslit I was. I could tell you all the times Pastor Dick was a dick. I just might! But for now, this will do.