From Baptist Roots to Methodist Fire (Part Two)

Trading Symbols, Finding Grace:

This is part two of how an ordained Baptist minister became a United Methodist Pastor. It may shock you, but I get asked about that transition quite often. To catch up, part one goes into my childhood and my first inward shift away from the Baptist tradition.

A New Church, A New Kind of Love

The new Baptist church I started attending at age 12 was certainly different than my earlier childhood experience. The people were down to earth, loving, and the services had more of a personable feel than I remember experiencing prior. The next 8 years at this church would transform my life and is a large part of why I am a minister today. The love, grace, and care I saw from this congregation still brings me a warm feeling.

It was at this Baptist church that I felt like I was introduced to a God that loved me and cared for me. By this point, the Southern Baptist Convention had split, and the newly formed Cooperative Baptist Fellowship was getting its feet underneath it. This church was firmly SBC, but they also acknowledged the complicated relationships within the denomination. It would not be until later that I would truly understand the complexities. For the most part, I experienced this SBC church as loving and caring.
I followed the SBC path at this point because this was the relationship I had. It was my first lesson that many of us, especially when we are young, follow people we trust and rarely question. The good news is those who I followed were good people. Looking back, the doctrine they carried I don't completely ascribe to now, but they were well-meaning individuals. They brought me so much of the good I carry in my life to this day.

A Call to Ministry

It was in this environment that I was able to feel that perhaps God might use me in full-time Christian ministry. I was allowed space to grow, to lead, and to develop. At the age of 16, I was feeling certain that ministry was the path I would take. At the time, I did not know of any full-time Christian service but that of pastors and missionaries. I didn't feel called to be a missionary, so pastor was the only other option I could fathom. I spent a lot of time thinking about this and trying to discern if indeed this was the path that God would have for me. A little over a year later, I would become public with this calling. At that time, I meant coming before the church and professing what I felt God was calling me to do. The church was nurturing and so supportive.

It was my senior year of high school. I had taken no upper-level courses in high school. I had no plans of attending college after high school. I had become a trained machinist; as a matter of fact, I had a job in a machine shop. I left school every day at 11:30 AM and went to work. I was making great money for a 17-year-old. I had a future that was lucrative, and I was well on my way to moving up in the trade of machinist.

I felt so frightened. I knew that I needed formal education, and that meant going to college and then on to seminary. My last semester in high school, I enrolled in college prep courses, and I was off to the races. Off to the races might be too enthusiastic—I was off on my tortoise-like journey. School was not easy for me, and I had to work so hard to make decent grades. I was thrust into upper-level courses, and to say the least, I was off-kilter. I am convinced to this day that my wonderful Chemistry teacher had mercy on me and must have given me an A for effort, for there was no way I could have passed that class without some participation grade.

Oh, and I almost totally forgot about the fact that when I went to enroll in college prep courses, the guidance counselor—who happened to be from the first SBC church I attended as a child—told me it was a bad idea. I know she was trying to temper my expectations, but she said I was not ready for college and that I needed to really reconsider my path forward. I was two things that day: pissed off and determined. I guess I have a little of that spirit of Hank Jr. in the song "Born to Boogie", “If you think I won't, then believe me I will.”

I went to college, and I did. I was accustomed to having to work for my academic grades, and that was a saving grace in college. I was accepted to a Baptist university and enrolled there. I majored in Religious Studies and graduated in the winter of 2001. I went directly into seminary at the same Baptist university. I would later graduate with a Master of Divinity. During these years, I pastored my first Baptist church and also took steps further away from the SBC lineage.

The Baptist university and seminary I attended had a strong connection to the CBF, and that is when I got acquainted with the split off of the SBC. The CBF were much more open and less theologically conservative. Even prior to college, I had a lot of questions about staunch SBC teachings around concepts such as women not being allowed to be pastors. If I had to say if there was one thing that at the time opened my eyes to where my path and understanding deviated from the SBC, it was as early as 19 years old when I could not understand why women were not being allowed to be pastors of a church.

I looked around, and it seemed that the SBC was happy for women to be missionaries who, in all reality, functioned as a pastor. It seemed that the SBC was fine allowing a woman to preach to people in Africa, but they could not have that role in American pulpits. Not to mention, as I began to learn much more about the Bible, one is hard-pressed to argue that women were not given roles of leadership in the early church. I am very aware of the passages that are used against women being recognized as pastors, yet those are circumstantial and do not seem to be edicts for the entire church. The CBF was and still is much more open to women clergy.

Pastoring with Purpose—and Disillusionment

It wasn't until after seminary that I was able to pastor a Baptist church that had affiliations with the CBF. In the Baptist world, churches are autonomous, meaning they can be associated with who they choose—well, at one time they could. In recent years, it is much more complicated for some Baptist churches to be dually aligned with the SBC and CBF. I enjoyed being able to pastor a Baptist church that had women in the role as deacon and had no problem allowing women to fill the pulpit. I realize how absurd this is now—that any of this would be an issue.

Looking back, the greater church was in crisis. Baptist churches, like many other denominations, were plateaued and then declining. Instead of focusing on the reality of what was/is happening around them, they were concentrating on trying to decide who was in or out. It was like debating which color drapes we should buy all the while the entire house is being engulfed in flames. Not to mention the pain and exclusion that was brought on our sisters in ministry.

I might have stayed in the CBF, but the reality was, the opportunities were not extensive. Many of the churches in the area were not CBF, or if they were, it was a marginal alignment. In other words, opportunities at that time were few. I also explored the Alliance of Baptists, another group formed out of the SBC schism in the 1990s. The Alliance of Baptists and I had a lot in common in terms of beliefs, yet there were even fewer opportunities among this group than the CBF.

I am rarely ahead of the curve, yet I was on point as to what I was saying in religious circles in the early 2000s. I saw that the traditional structure of the church in America was changing fast and we were heading for a crisis of finances and buildings that we could not afford to upkeep. There are many factors, but the traditional church had caused harm, neglected, and turned their back on entire groups of people. We were now reaping in the whirlwind what had been sowed. Almost all of the things I was sounding the alarm bells on in 2001 have come to pass. I seemed to be yelling into a void in many Baptist circles.

I was disillusioned and felt that I did not belong. The denomination that had raised me continued to shift further and further away from the message of grace that I heard as a child. I often say that I did not leave the SBC—it left me. The opportunities at the time for a Baptist minister were few, and then there would come an event in my life that would change everything.

I felt lonely and separated from my peers. I honestly felt like a stranger in a strange land. I loved the local church. I had thought that I would serve continually in the role of church pastor my entire life, yet here I was, not able to make a full-time income in the work I had been called to. Then on top of that was a huge flaw in the Baptist system that bothered me: there was no provision for clergy. You were at the mercy of a congregational system. At any given time, you had many different people who thought they were to tell you what to do and when to do it. If you did not, then you were faced with the possibility of being forced out of the church, which would leave you vulnerable.

A Crossroads: Stay or Go?

My Methodist brothers and sisters had a connectional system and had a denominational structure that provided some sense of organization and protection for clergy. I had nothing like that. Instead, I felt estranged from my denomination and at times afraid of it. It was here I knew I had to make a decision: stay Baptist and figure out how to exist in this system, or leave and move toward another denomination. Even if I did move toward another denomination, I was very aware that the traditional church systems were changing rapidly, and it was a precarious future.

So this is the point where I leave the Baptist denomination and become UMC, right!? No, I take a new turn. I was very aware that professionally I was not worth much outside of the church. I have a BA degree in Religious Studies; I have a Master of Divinity—there are not many Fortune 500 companies itching for us theological nerds! I decided that healthcare chaplaincy could be my best chance. This would allow me to be affiliated with the CBF, yet find work in a non-church setting where I had one boss! After a year residency in CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education), I was offered a job at a hospice in Western NC.

I embarked on some of my most meaningful years in ministry. For the majority of the next 10 years, I helped a small church out on Sunday and spent the rest of my week in healthcare ministry. It was a good time. The 7-day work week got old, so I eventually stepped away from the small Baptist congregation I was serving and focused on healthcare ministry. It would be 7 years before I worked in a paid church position again.

Within this time, I had one more significant shift that would define the future of ministry for me. I went through a divorce, and for the first time, I felt completely cut off from the church. This was not something that the church did—in many ways, it was my own movement toward spiritual isolation. Divorce in many Baptist circles is a death sentence when it comes to spiritual leadership. That is a shame. Many of us have so much left to give, and God is wanting to use us, yet for some circles it is so taboo you don't even bother to show back up. I now was in a wilderness, one that I was not sure I could find my way back out of.

Stay Tuned for Part Three...

There’s more to this story—about how grief, grace, and new beginnings led me eventually to the United Methodist Church. That part’s still coming.

So, I dont publish frequently enough to have compensation but I have decided to add this option, Buy Me a Coffee. This is a small way to contribute to some creative projects I have in mind. Feel free to contribute or ignore, you are loved either way :)

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Of Course I have to leave you with something!

A song that became meaningful for me post 2011, during my own spiritual isolationism, was “Shake It Out” by Florence and the Machine. Perhaps there is not a better song to poetically describe how I felt in this period. If you need a little catharsis and a way to begin to work on some spiritual pain, I highly recommend this song.