Monday and Tuesday of this were the Missouri Conference Board of Ordained Ministry interviews. We had five from our district going before the board this year. Two were told yes this year; one was told "please come back and interview with one team again before Annual Conference"; and two were told to rewrite some of their material and come back next year. I also know well several of the others who interviewed--I was a district committee chair in Heartland Central District for several years, and have been proud of the number of student pastors I have had under appointment here in the last five years. No matter how we try tell persons that being asked to come back next year does not mean that they are a failure, it still feels that way. There were several who did not "make it" as these folks are saying. I am glad that those who are coming back next year are not going to be alone; I am sad that there isn't some other way to help those doing so to understand that feels more like "yes" than "no." Yes, you did well in these two interview teams, and we know you can do better on the other two. Come back next year--you are given another chance to show us your best work; Yes, we love you enough that we want you to give your utmost for His highest--you can learn more about baptism or the sacraments, you can, and we all want you to do that and tell us what you know: Yes, you have many gifts for ministry and we want you to grow into the others this next year that may not be as instinctive or natural to you.
I have been on not just both sides, now, but all three. (interviewed, interviewer, supervisor-ds). In 1977 I came before the Southern Illinois Board of Ministry. In those days, no mentor was assigned,to those coming for the old-style deacons' orders, and I was attending Vanderbilt University Divinity School. There was no one else from my conference attending there. I really did not know I was supposed to write more than a brief paragraph on each of the questions. I waited in a room outside where the entire board were meeting. I was 22. At the time appointed for my interview, the chairman (actually they were all men) came to tell me that they were going to take a few minutes and go over what they had been sent from some general board that told them how to be sensitive to a woman coming for an interview. After about ten minutes, I was asked to come into the meeting. I quickly realized that I was being judged as unprepared and light-weight intellectually because of my short answers. Some of the men in the room had known me a long time--like Jack Adams (he ended up at Salem in LaDue a few years later)..."I remember you when your hair was down to here"--and he poinmted to his derriere. (My hair was very long until I was nine---he had been at Grace UMC in Carbondale when I was a child and even though our family attended out in the country, he knew who were were and obviously knew how long my hair was.) In fact Jack said that thing about my hair to me every time he saw me after I came to Kirkwood as associate--when I was 29 yeas old. Since there were those who knew me, they let me in, but had me redo all my questions the next year.
"Because they knew me" they let me in. And besides I don't think that they wanted to be accused of gender bias, since I was the only woman coming for deacon's orders that year...in fact I was only the third woman to be ordained in Southern Illinois. But I wonder, if I had not had an in" with some of those guys, would I have been told to come back next year? Did I just get in that year because they knew me? Maybe so.
I really would rather have a BOM that doesn't let us get in because they know us. I'd rather have my work and my pastors' work judged on merit and not on good connections. It really is supposed to be our utmost for His highest. I shoulda probably been made to come back the next year; to wait another year. I was young. I was inexperienced. Although I was ordained in 1977, I did come back the next year with sheaths and sheaths of pages of answers to the questions.
This account of my own experience and my reaction to it does not equate and is not the same as each of those who were asked to come back next year this week. Everyone has his or her own stories and their own feelings, I know that. Sometimes boards of ordained ministry may judge wrongly, but not very often. They are gatekeepers, yes, but the Board is also a portal that sometimes points us upward to that higher place. But sometimes the news after the interview feels unfair and incomprehensible.
I discovered early on, that with all the steps and structures, with the itinerancy system and appointment making, it is hard to swallow sometimes. Everyone has their own stories to tell. So I decided this---I will trust that the Lord is working in it all, even when what happened to me may be a product of an imperfect system and a d.s. may not really know me very well. I will trust and I will walk the way ahead of me, sometimes grudgingly draggin' my feet, sometimes with a bright smile on my face and a bouncy skip, but I would trust and I would keep people close by who would remind and reprimand me with I was tempted not to trust. Cynicism can be a very ugly thing to look at and uglier still when it makes a home in our soul and lead to skepticism about all that is given as a gift.
That is where I am with it all. My heart goes out to all those who were told to come back next year. It is disappointing. You still will get up Sunday and preach and teach; you will still listen and care; you will study the scripture and pray for yourself and others. I hope that when the disappointment lessens, you will find some way to trust it all to Jesus, to allow him to take your hand and move hopefully into the future.
