I picked up the phone in the church office today, and answered it the same way I always do, first stating the name of the congregation and adding a cheerful "This is Pastor Katherine." I know that my colleague on the other end of the phone didn't mean anything by his bemused response. He is a good colleague that I respect a great deal.
"Do you actually go by Pastor Katherine?"
Yes and no.
I go by Katherine, and have seldom been addressed with any formalities (Ms., Rev., Pastor). This is what feels comfortable to me. I have female colleagues who feel differently, a decision I totally understand. Sometimes I wonder if it would be beneficial to my ministry to adopt a more authoritative pastoral title, particularly when I encounter new people when I'm not in my clerical garb (which is all but one hour per week). No one ever assumes that I'm the pastor, not in person, and certainly not on the phone. Rather, the immediate assumption is that I am the secretary. I don't have a problem with that; I don't have any latent anti-secretarial bias. But inevitably, when it comes out that I am in fact the pastor of the congregation, there is this totally awkward moment in which the person who mistook my identity is embarrassed and/or confused. It's ever so much easier to lay it out there in the first place.
I'd bet the farm that my colleague has never been taken for anything other than the Pastor. He looks and sounds like a Pastor, a quintessential, prototypical Pastor. And so I forgive the amusement I detected in his deep and preacherly voice when his girly-voiced younger colleague copped the title.
Yep. I'm right there with you. This afternoon I answered the phone with my standard greeting -- name of the church, and pastor first-name. The sales person on the other end asked to speak with the pastor. Love that.
ReplyDeleteI totally know where this is coming from...especially being young and female. My latest post is about how one dresses relates to the same issue. On a bright note, I was teaching a class about Church history the other night and one of the students said, "You mean women have not always been pastors in the UMC? I've only known women pastors in my life."
ReplyDeleteSome day....
Remember Katherine...the issue is with them, not you. Your pastoral idenity is not dependent upon what others think.
ReplyDeleteFearless Joy,
Guido
I was hoping to come up with some witty reply that you could have used but, really, I got nothing.
ReplyDeleteBut, I can say that there are some of your male colleagues that are in the same boat as you, because people think that someone with such youthful good looks could not possibly be a pastor. Although, eventually I'll probably physically mature to the point where people don't doubt that I could be a pastor. Unless you have a major life epiphany, and pay big bucks, you'll always be a woman. Hopefully, since that probably won't change, people's attitudes and ideas of what makes a pastor will.
Sigh...I hear you!
ReplyDeleteNow, see, I'm just wicked enough to actually enjoy knowing the person who assumed I was the secretary is squirming with embarrasment at the other end of the line.
ReplyDeleteI get that with being a young professor too so I'm glad I'm not the only one :)
ReplyDelete