Jumping Ship

Post Author: Erica Schemper

There are certain life markers and statistics that make me feel old: my ninth wedding anniversary is coming up, as is my tenth college reunion; I have high school friends with four kids. But the most remarkable one of these facts is this: I’m only 30, but I’ve already been a pastor in two denominations.

I was initially ordained in the Christian Reformed Church of North America in 2003. The CRCNA was my mother church: I was raised, reared, and nurtured in it. My father and grandfather are CRC ministers. For all its flaws, I love it as the family it was to me. In 2003, the denomination had been ordaining women as pastors for eight years under a local-option compromise after 30 years of debate. By my count, I was woman-minister number 23.

But there were few positions for women in ministry within congregations. Most women, like me, were working in para-church positions (I was the pastor and religion teacher for an urban high school). After one year of teaching, I knew that my calling involved congregational ministry. I had interned extensively in congregations, and I missed it desperately. But the options for congregational ministry were so limited that I knew I would have to take extreme measures to fulfill my sense of God’s call.

Two years later, after a complicated journey through regional committees, a second round of ordination exams, and church-polity rabbit holes, I stood before the Presbytery of Chicago and was accepted as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the PC(USA). I felt like a kid in a candy store when I looked through their on-line database of positions. I didn’t have to read the between the lines of position descriptions, looking for the coded language that meant, “under no circumstances will we even consider, or pretend to consider, hiring a woman.” Sure, there was lingering prejudice and there were glass ceilings, but I was in a denomination that was celebrating the 50th anniversary of women’s ordination. This was completely liberating compared to the place I came from.

Jumping ship, switching from one denomination to another in the Christian fleet, seems like something that wouldn’t happen until some sort of mid-life-minister-crisis. But the reality is that I am not alone in jumping ship so early in my career as a pastor. While I cannot quote statistics, I know of other young clergy women who have switched by moving from one denomination to another. We have sought ordination in a denomination other than the one we were raised in or who have sought ordination after having been raised in no particular Christian tradition. We have been forced to switch in order to seek ordination due to issues of gender or sexual preference. And we have served in a denomination other than the one in which we were ordained due to circumstances of position-availability, family location, or the professional needs of a spouse or partner.

I don’t know if it is more common for young women pastors to participate in the sport of jumping ship than it is for their male colleagues, but I suspect it might be. There seem to be so many circumstances for us where we face discrimination, polity loop-holes, or the cultural expectation of adapting career for family needs. How this will shape our ministry is another question.

Other women who have jumped ship agree that we have a broader view of the church, that we see beyond denominational lines more easily. Sometimes, we are able to see outside of the polity box, simply because we know there is another way. If we have made a switch from  “conservative” to “liberal” camps, there is sometimes an ability to see both sides of an argument (even when there is one side you clearly agree with). For some, there is a sense that this denomination is the place where they fit best. For others, there’s a feeling of compromise. Perhaps we ship-jumpers are folks who will be well-prepared for the huge, tectonic shifts that some predict the denominationally organized American churches are about to see.

On a personal level, there are days when I feel profound gratitude for my denominational switch. I’ll never forget the privilege I felt the first time I voted at a presbytery meeting, even as I sat alongside friends who pointed out that what we were voting for was a very silly little item on the agenda. I had female colleagues in the CRC who were prohibited from voting in regionals assemblies as ministers. But I also feel the sense of always being an outsider. There are things I simply don’t share with other PC(USA) pastors, aspects of the polity I still feel shaky about, and networks that I am not connected to.

There is a sense of profound loss as well. The CRC is truly my mother church. My closest pastor friends are seminary pals from the CRC. I cannot count the ways that it shaped me not just for ministry, but also for the Christian life. I am sometimes unsure how to be grateful to that denomination in the role of ship-jumper, at the same time that I am angry for it making it so difficult for me to stay. I wonder if, by leaving for the PC(USA), I’ve abandoned my sister pastors who are still working uphill for the full recognition and acceptance of their ordination.

A few years ago, I sat in a restaurant with two friends, both seminary students, both considering whether they should stay in the CRC or switch to the PC(USA). It was heart-wrenching. I wanted these wonderful women as colleagues in my new denomination. But I also wanted them to stay in the CRC, to keep working and striving for women in ministry. Today, one of them is about to be ordained in the CRC and one in the PC(USA). I’m cheering for them both. I’m also trying to remind myself that it’s really one big ship, the church, and Jesus is steering, so we’ll all wind up getting there together.