There is always a story. That is what the “Holy Bible” is—a collection of stories and remembrances. Jesus told stories. Stories that made people ponder, wonder, reconsider, reflect, and maybe even caused them to change.
It began at the doorway of the bouncy tent set up for the Spring Festival for the children’s ministries of an affluent suburban church where I served as the associate pastor. Standing at the doorway helping children in and out was the church pre-school director. Approaching her, as she was helping a four-year old girl out of the bouncy tent, I stopped to say hello. I was just getting down to eye level with the girl, and the pre-school director was smiling and asked her to tell me what she had just said. Looking into my eyes, she said, “you’re the girl that sits in the chair”. I acknowledged the smile and added some laughter along with thanking her for calling me a “girl”. Exchanging a knowing look, the pre-school director smiled and moved into helping the next child into the tent.
Here’s the thing about the way the four-year old girl described me. She and her family participated in worship on Sundays. In the sanctuary behind the pulpit were two large, upholstered chairs. One chair for the lead pastor and one chair for the associate pastor. He preached. I served as liturgist—opening prayer, offertory prayer, assisting with communion and baptisms—two or three times a year I would preach on “National Associate Pastor’s Days”. Let me explain, those are always the first Sundays after Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, Easter Sunday, and often include the Sundays that fall close to or are on Memorial Day, July 4, Labor Day, and sometimes the Sunday after Thanksgiving Day. Having keen observation skills, this young girl summed up the intentional visible role that the lead pastor wanted the congregation to see—I was indeed “the girl [who] sits in the chair”.
About a month before he became the lead pastor, the pastor he was replacing had retired after leading the congregation for 19 years, he and I met to “get to know each other.” He asked me how often had I been preaching. I said two to three Sundays a month. He said that was going to stop. I remember thinking, yes, there is a “new sheriff in town.” In the two years he was the lead pastor, I preached three times.
For over a year before he arrived, I had also led the “New Member Orientation Class” on Wednesday evenings for those adults wanting to join the congregation. He took that over after being there two months, and invited me to be there with him for the first group he led. While introducing himself he shared about the previous churches where he had worked, and specifically pointed out how he knew when he was an associate pastor that he could never be happy as an associate pastor because as the associate pastor “you have no power, you don’t lead, and you do what the lead pastor tells you to without question.” He said this as I was sitting in a chair in the room.
Now, full confession here, I asked him the next day if he had time to talk with me. He said he did. I sat down in his office and described to him the way I experienced his sharing with the group the previous night about his description of the role of an associate pastor. “My experience of hearing your words last night to the group was that you were letting them know your expectations of me as an associate pastor, and I did not agree with your description from having been an associate pastor in another congregation and in this congregation so far.” He feigned a confused expression on his face, and said that he never meant for the people in the group to think that he expected or would demand the same things of me that he experienced as an associate pastor. He was simply sharing his own experience. I was reading it all wrong. He then assured me that he would ask his wife, who was there in the meeting, if she heard it the way I heard it, and he would let me know what she said. He called her “the wifey”. I knew that I had worked to be kind, tactful, and to discuss my concern with honesty and face-to-face with him.
Keen and astute observation skills belonged to that four-year old girl. She saw what the lead pastor wanted people to see. I received her words as confirmation of what I had already discerned: it was time to move on from that congregation.
Here’s the sad ending: he was the lead pastor for about a year and a half before he was forced to leave the church because he was having an extramarital affair with a married woman and paid church staff member of a previous church where he had worked as the lead pastor. His hand had been slapped for that incident, he had mandatory counseling/therapy, and was assigned to another church as a lead pastor. Yes, he kept his clergy credentials, and he is the lead pastor of a church of another denomination in another suburb of the same city.
The Girl Who Sits in the Chair was not amused. It was the culmination of the ugly realization that I was ordained by an institutional system of church that had “Hijacked Jesus”, was really “Constrained Christianity”, and had very little resemblance to the radical Jewish Jesus who Christians say they follow.
The Girl Who Sits in the Chair has so many more stories of the good, the bad, and the ugly to share. Now you know why I am “The Girl Who Sits in the Chair”.