Faithful Fridays

Hello jello beans!

And happy (belated) Lent!

I hope you've all been doing well. This is a very random Friday of mine where I happened to have some downtime, and I wanted to be able to schedule in some time to simply rest - not be engaging in the hustle and bustle of weddings and work events. I genuinely wish I had the time and tenacity to be more active on this blog. It has been definitely a struggle though, especially balancing full time work and being a full time event planner.

Something that has come up recently was a guest preacher at the church I currently attend with my husband went viral for being a horrible husband. I don't know him personally, nor his wife - but they are close friends with a few people in our congregation. I know we're only seeing one side of the story: the 3rd parties who are raising red flags; and we don't really know the full story from them personally... but it does seem bad. The one thing that I will defend is that the sermon was taken out of context - he was preaching to a majority Korean-American church, and we all understood what he was saying about his wife making fun of his Korean as something a lot of us can relate to. He definitely dramatized it for comedic effect, and I genuinely don't think it was meant to humiliate his wife, especially as it was a clear joke that was followed up by further explanation about how language is important in our faith journey. The context made sense for the present congregation, but I definitely think it was an unwise story and joke to tell for a sermon that would be streamed for the world.

I can't speak on anything else as I don't know him or his wife personally, but this did make me think a lot more and ponder things (overthinkers, unite!). Have you ever seen the strange imbalance of how so many pastors marry women so much younger than them? I feel like I see this particularly in conservative churches. I have quite a few pastors that I love as pastors, and I respect them as my pastor, but I have definitely questioned their discernment, especially about marriage. It cannot just be a coincident that so many male pastors are getting married at around 30 to much younger girls. It happens - people fall in love, and "love is just an age", and one can argue that a decade isn't that big of an age difference in the grand scheme of life, but it is different when these girls are getting into these relationships in their late teens/early twenties when they're literally baby-adults and it is a vulnerable time of exploration and learning how to be an adult. I know a lot of Christians get flack for getting married super young so they can finally have sex, and then stay stuck in a bad marriage because they don't believe in divorce, but at least you're both young and naive and figuring out life together, for better or worse. I think it is something so different when we see pastors who are around 30 dating these young girls.

I reflected a lot on the teachings of the churches I've been a part of and why this may be. I want to preface this with no church is ever perfect, as it's made up of sinful, broken people. We are all imperfect, and I am not bashing my previous churches. I've grown a lot through them, but people inherently do not all see and receive things the same way. I am pointing out a flaw that I think is a huge one: more conservative churches have a tendency to teach “spiritual maturity" as discipline, and a lot of pastors who come out of these teachings have a tendency to continue teaching disciplines on how to be a "good Christian". These pastors usually begin by preaching in youth/college and unintentionally grooms younger girls that he is the ideal type. But in reality, these pastors haven’t grown their emotional and social maturity yet, because it’s all been stunted by the spiritual disciplines they idolize, rather than understanding the grace and love of God. Many of them have been in a Christian bubble, and have not had a lot of interactions beyond it (outside of mission trips, of course), so their worldview is very skewed. It seems a lot of these pastors ended up marrying very pragmatic wives, and I think that kind of bolsters the point of how a lot of these young girls saw a checklist of a "holy man", and accepted their advances. It is so easy for a young girl who is in a conservative Christian bubble to believe that this must be God's calling for them to become a pastor's wife. There is also a high imbalance of the pastor being in a place of authority AND a person that you're taught is safe and holy. These young girls then idolize the thought of what a holy marriage and being a holy wife are in submitting to these emotionally and socially inept pastors, who have no actual relationship with God, just Scripture as a rule book.

I have heard a couple of my pastors who married young girls share about their struggles, and how they've grown as a pastor in learning empathy, grace, and acceptance. I think it is very refreshing to hear that these pastors who came from very conservative religious upbringing realizing they need to foster a relationship with others, and that their relationship with God isn't based on how many times they've read the Bible, did QT, or told someone to believe or they'll go to Hell. A couple pastors have even shared about how their marriages have taught them about how to love and treat a woman. To be honest, I find the last a huge red flag. While imperfect, your husband should know how to love you, respect you, assist you, support you, and treat you well before you accept that proposal! If you need to teach him to help you out with chores when you're busy, or to give you a ride at night when you're working late, you're not dating an emotionally or socially mature man. Honestly, they’re too comfortable being protected by their parents to protect you and your family. Best case scenario, you become his mother - worst case scenario, you will always be second to his parent(s). While that may be okay when you're 18 and figuring out life together, that should not be a trait of a 30 year old man who should at the very least watched enough of FRIENDS to know how to be a Chandler to Monica.

I've had conversations where I've heard of horror stories for how my friends were treated - even by someone around the same age - and they felt being a good Christian wife meant sucking it up to honor her husband. Newsflash: honoring your husband means pointing him in the direction of Christ - which means reminding him to love. If he is being unloving, violent, disrespectful, etc., remind him that the Bible says:

"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" - Ephesians 5:25

If this is the kind of imbalanced dating/marriage life that my friends in their mid twenties to early thirties are dealing with due to inadequate teachings in the church about maturing beyond legalistic measures, I can't imagine how these younger girls dealt with dating and marrying a pastor a decade older than them.

It's not that as Christians, we shouldn't have discipline - we do need it - but discipline should not be a basis for how strong we are as Christians. Christianity is about following Christ, not following rules. That was the way of Judaism, and Christ has replaced that covenant with His blood (Luke 20:22). And it is so unfortunate that a lot of times, I feel like that message gets drowned out by the necessity to be seen as "holy". I remember during membership at my previous church, my pastor asked me to share the Gospel message. After I shared, he commented, "Okay, good! A lot of people actually can't say the full Gospel message, a lot of people leave it at Jesus died for us, and forget about the resurrection." JELLO BEANS, this is so sad! Can you imagine if your faith is rooted in the guilt of "This 33 year old carpenter who said He is God died for us, so now we try to be like him", and that was it? There needs to be a message of how Jesus rose from the grave and overcame death and sin, so that we can be forgiven and have a direct relationship with God. If Jesus died and that was the end, it would mean sin and death won, and there is no redemption. Without that part of the Gospel, we're still a works based faith striving to be good enough to go to Heaven. And it's sad, but I feel like a lot of conservative church members still operate like Jesus never rose again.

Like I said, I don't know the full story of the pastor and his wife. It looks really bad online; I did see some people say that the TikTok had highlighted issues in their past, and they've worked through it and he's now a better husband, and there could be a reason why he recently missed the ultrasound appointment. Who knows, but them? I do see an issue with so many pastors marrying women so much younger - not so much the age gap itself, but the age gap in comparison to her age. I do definitely hope that all of the problems highlighted in the TikTok have been resolved, and if they're happy and genuinely doing well, I pray for them nothing but the best, and a very healthy baby.

What are your thoughts on this?