Why PKs are leaving the church

"...when ladies in the church asked if everything was okay (because they could see it was not) he said it was. Because as a pastor, it was more acceptable to lie than to need someone."

By Emily Wierenga and ChristianWeek | October 23, 2014

I stopped speaking at one and a half years old.

I stopped speaking when I moved with my missionary parents from Canada to Nigeria. I just stood by a fence staring across the wire at my beautiful neighbours, at the way their laughter sprung from their faces like exclamation marks.

I learned how to listen. I listened to the stories which swung from the hips of the African women as they danced, and poured from their lips in rich spirituals.

But I also heard Mum crying. Because she didn’t want to be there. She didn’t want to be a missionary’s wife.

Because she knew what I didn’t.

She knew that being in ministry meant living in a glass house.

And when that glass breaks for all the pressure, it cuts everyone who lives inside.

We moved back to Canada and Dad went to seminary by day and worked at skim milk factory by night and soon I had a brother and two sisters. We moved 10 times before I turned seven and I didn’t know my cousins or grandparents or have any friends.

Dad was gone all the time visiting this person or that and we were homeschooled and taught to say please and thank you and we weren’t allowed to miss a Sunday at church.

The glass house cracks for all the pressure and the kids, they take pieces of that glass and they start to cut, or they get eating disorders, or they just inwardly turn numb and refuse the faith because it’s not a story they’re a part of; it’s not a relationship. It’s a bunch of rules to keep the family looking perfect.

And the pastor’s wives have to keep silent and smiling. When my Mum’s mum committed suicide (and Mum found her), Mum wasn’t offered therapy or anything. Just told to keep packing up the house because they were moving to the next parsonage. A little while later they discovered a tumour on Mum’s brain.

And the pastors feel they can’t depend on anyone because that would be letting everyone down. When my Mum got brain cancer, Dad spent months trying to juggle everything—bathing her, clothing her, cooking for her, while still preaching and visiting—and when ladies in the church asked if everything was okay (because they could see it was not) he said it was. Because as a pastor, it was more acceptable to lie than to need someone.

And so Jesus can’t reach anyone because we won’t let Him. We won’t let ourselves break enough to let Him in.

Church becomes this place of pretend saints, while the sinners party with Jesus in the streets.

And this, why pastor’s kids are leaving the church in hordes.

There’s no secret sermon.

There’s no fancy worship show that will attract our kids back to any kind of building with a cross on it.

No, there’s only the age-old story I heard on the lips of the African women, in the sway of their hips.

The story of an Abba Father desperately in love with His people who wants to meet us in the very brokenness of our lives, who wants to pour His light and love through the cracked glass of our hearts.

I go to church. I love the church, I ache for her, and I ache for its pastors. Because I know. I know our potential, and our pain, and I long for us to join the party with Jesus and the sinners in the streets.

Let’s make way for the broken. Let’s make way for our children. Let’s make way for God.

Emily T. Wierenga is the author of five books including the newly-released memoir Atlas Girl: Finding Home in the Last Place I Thought to Look (Baker Books). She lives in Alberta with her husband and two sons. For more info, please visit www.emilywierenga.com.