CONFESSIONS OF A FORMER CHURCH GIRL

I was not raised a PK. I knew about pastor’s wives, but I did not know any pastor’s wives personally. The pastors and wives we had in my small town church did not live in that town. They came to town on Saturday and usually returned to their home in the city on Sunday afternoon. The members of the church rarely had a chance to get to know the wife. I was not acquainted with any ministry families. In fact, I thought all pastors were rich because their wives were classic and elegant dressers to my small town eyes.

A few years after I moved to California, the pastor of my church in Oakland ran into some difficulties with his music staff. Suddenly, the musicians could not remember how to play any of the choir’s repertoire and the choir director allegedly lost his list of songs, songs he could not remember how to teach. The pastor thought of a young man from his home church who had directed and taught the adult choirs from the age of twelve. The man, now a young adult just coming out of eight years with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, became the minister of music at the church. I was the president of the choir. Can anyone say divine providence? We eventually got married. One year after we were married, my husband announced to me one week before he announced it to the church, “I have been called to preach.” He admitted to me he had known about this call for some time, but he had been “running from it.” What did this simple statement, “I have been called to preach,” really mean? I had no idea how this announcement would impact my life, but I did understand that this declaration was between my husband and God, so I got out of the way.

I became an associate minister’s wife for almost six years, which was not too worrying. But, somewhere around the sixth year my husband began to believe God was calling him to pastor, so he began to “court” churches. Sure enough, a church decided he was the man for them, the man God had called to be their under-shepherd, so he packed up the family, his one wife and three daughters and moved them, not to Beverly, but to a church on the corner of 8th and Peralta in the heart of West Oakland, California. I was not clear on the concept of First Lady, but once again, I did not balk. This business was between my soon to be pastor-husband and God. I was so innocent, So trusting. So unclear on the concept. So without a clue.

When my husband was called to pastor the Trinity Church, he had two concerns. Actually, he had one concern that manifested itself in two persons, his youngest daughter, who was almost two years old at the time, and his wife, who was just a little older than two. Neither of us seemed to like people. We were not friendly. Now the almost two year old could be forgiven for this proclivity, but the wife who was just a little older than two, well that was a horse of a different color in another story (sorry for the mixed metaphors). The heart of the matter was not that we did not like people, but that we were both introverts, and we two introverts just had a hard time figuring out how to talk to strangers. How do you talk to someone you don’t know? What else is there to say after, “Hello” and “How are you?”

Extroverts will not understand our dilemma. Extroverts are startled by the idea that there are strangers in the world. Certainly my husband did not understand. He was an extreme extrovert. He could talk to a rock rolling down a hill on a stormy day. We were on a beach sitting on a blanket in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and my husband struck up a conversation with a couple next to us who were from England. The husband wound up giving my husband his recipe for Yorkshire pudding and tips on how to get it just right (the oil has to be really hot, or something like that). Now if any of you know Yorkshire pudding, you will understand it is not a dish I am going to serve with my fried chicken, collard greens, blackeyed peas and rice. But my husband, the extrovert, acted as though it was the best thing that could have happened to him on that sandy beach in Mexico. I must hurry to give props to my husband in that he also engaged the gentleman in a salvation discussion, as well, so it just “shows to go you” how creative these wily extroverts can be when it comes to sharing the gospel.

Yes, my husband was concerned about taking his wife and his youngest daughter to his new parish, especially since he was taking us to a church full of strangers. But, as we all know, our God is a God of miracles and my daughter and I went into that setting actually talking to and interacting with those strangers. Today, I am (as the comedian Mike Myers puts it) a site-specific extrovert. I am so much the extrovert today that people who have only known me as “our pastor’s wife” scoff at the notion that I am an introvert.

My husband was concerned about my introverted ways, but what he should have been concerned about was the fact that he was married to a CHURCH GIRL!