Something from my heart

You know, something happened to Kris and i a long time ago that we are still upset about. No matter how much i try to lay aside my bitterness, it keeps coming back in little spurts.

i was wrongfully terminated. By a church.

Churches are supposed to be places of understanding, love, and forgiveness, right? Well, there are always going to be people and situations that fall through the cracks. And i was one of those people.

The main pastor of the church had gone to another church about 6 months previous to the incident. The associate pastor was to preach full time until another head pastor would take his place. The associate pastor, about 5 months after head pastor left, announced his resignation.

The church was basically being run by an "Elder board": 4 men (men were the only people allowed to apply for the position) who were voted in by the congregation. These were all great guys, but they lacked leadership skills when they were confronted with Kris' and my situation.

Playing piano at church was my part-time job, and over half my income came from it. i loved the church, loved all the people, and they all loved Kris and i. Kris often played drums on Sunday.

We found out we were having a baby. It was a weird situation. i was nervous about telling my parents and my boss, the music pastor at church. My parents were great about it. My boss was great about it. He just said "You guys need to go talk to the elder board about what's going on." It kinda made sense. They were basically in charge of the staff, and since the head pastor was gone, they held more power than the other two pastors. So we went and talked to them.

One of the first things they said was "First of all, we are not going to ask you to stop playing here." That was a relief to me. i couldn't afford to lose my job, and i loved it and the people so much.

We explained that the circumstances that got us pregnant were not right for us. We felt like we had been completely wrong in our actions, and explained that we had prayed for forgiveness and discontinued any relations until our forthcoming wedding. The elders were glad to hear it.

Then one of them, the main elder man, said "Are you asking for our forgiveness?" And we said "Umm, no. We didn't do anything to you, and we feel like what we did has mostly to do with us and God and this baby. We admit we were wrong, but we don't owe you an apology."

Main elder man was not pleased with this. He seemed to be on a bit of a power trip, because he was new to being in charge of sensitive situations. He kept trying to convince Kris and i that we owed them, the elder board, an apology.

Kris was getting upset. He was so sweet. He showed a lot of courage and character, and stood up for me, because i was cowering away in a corner. (i'm very bad with confrontation.) They gave us a sheet full of Bible verses for us to look up.

The meeting ran out of time. They wanted to meet with us again the following week. Fine with us! So i played on Sunday and got to tell people the good news: my eggo was preggo, and we were getting married in 10 weeks. Everyone was really happy for us. Really. For a Baptist church, people were surprisingly non-judgemental.

The sheet full of Bible verses? Were all verses talking about how you're supposed to obey the elders of the church, and stuff about how people who sin must be punished and blah blah blah. Kris did a LOT of research, found out that the verses about elders were taken out of context, and the sinful people meant unrepentant people, not the ones who've confessed. Then he found verses about the people who confess and how they are 100% forgiven and God's forgotten about the whole thing.

The next meeting. Elder man said "Jessica, we've decided that since you're so busy with being pregnant and getting married, we want you to take a 'restoration period' away from playing for a while."

WTF.

They wanted us to stop playing until they had decided we were forgiven enough? They felt like "God would tell them" when it was time for us to play again. They wanted us to kind of go to receive counseling from a couple from the church who'd gotten preggo before marriage.

Kris was MAD. He started talking about all these verses and all this stuff. He mentioned how the board had said they weren't going to ask us to leave. Lots of backpedaling and excuse-making was coming from their side of the room. In the meantime, i'm bawling my eyes out because, newly pregnant and engaged, i couldn't afford to lost half my income for who knows how long, and i'd miss playing terribly.

Kris and the elders were arguing for a long time. We agreed to go talk to that couple. What else could we do?

We started meeting weekly with the couple. They were very friendly, and we got along really well. But when we'd start talking about the 'restoration period', Kris would talk to them about how out of context the elders were, and that if confession and change were good enough for Jesus, why not for the elders? He was very logical and gentle. He was not being confrontational, but at the same time, he wasn't just going to bend over and pretend to agree with the elders just so we could stay there.

The couple would bring back what we said to the board meetings. The elders kept feeling like we "weren't ready." Basically, until we agreed with them, my job was being held hostage. Someone new was playing piano, and we tried to keep going to church, but it was really too emotional for me. i couldn't handle being there and not playing, and watching main elder man listen to the sermons on forgiveness, nodding his head like he agreed.

The congregation was angry, too. A lot of them were really upset with what was being done. Someone i know from the church said "Jessica, there are two kinds of people. Those who are caught, and those who aren't." i have a feeling that quite a few people went up to bat for us, but the elder with the power just wouldn't give up his own pride enough to let us back. A lot of people left the church around the same time, though i think it also had to do with other weird situations that come with not having a main pastor.

We stopped going to talk to that couple. We were busy and had premarital counseling to attend, plus Kris was working two full-time jobs to save and to make up for what i was losing.

It wasn't worth the heartbreak and the frustration anymore.

We got married at that church. It was free, and we wanted my boss to perform it. (He was so great. Too bad his hands were tied with the whole job situation. He ended up leaving a few months later.) We got married there, and then i don't think Kris and i have been back. i went back once when David was new, so everyone could see him, and i've also been there because i played for someone's wedding.

i've got a new position in a different church. i'm glad to be some place where everyone is accepted where they're at. If someone screws up, the church embraces them more, not pushes them away until they're repentant enough publicly.

i'm not angry at the church. It's not the organization's fault that we fell through the cracks, or that we were put under the leadership of someone simply unqualified to handle our situation. But it saddens me that this incident might have made someone else leave the church, or think badly of Christ because of a human mistake.

i've learned a lot from this situation. The church is run by humans, and you can't blame God for the inappropriate actions of others, even church leaders.

i learned how great of a man Kris is. He stood up for me and studied and rallied for us no matter what. It made me very comfortable having him be the head of the family. i don't think it's necessary for the man to be the head of the family. But i know it's what i want for our family, because Kris fits in that role well, and i do not. i fell much more deeply in love with him during that time. No matter what hard times we have faced in our marriage, none of them have been as hard as what the elders of that church put us through. And Kris was such a mature, passionate partner through it that it made me even more grateful to have him. Many men would not have withstood half as much.

Christians: please love one another. Love people if they do things you don't agree with. Love them if they seem to be having a hard time. Care for them when they're going through tough circumstances. It's our job to be God's blessings in the world. Please love everyone, no matter what religion, and don't be quick to judge them negatively. You don't know where they came from or what they're going through. Remember you've got a log in your own eye, too.

Love each other.

Love each other.