I am unchurched. I have dissolved my membership with the Presbyterian Church in America.
I feel untethered, aboard a boat in uncharted waters. I love stability and safety. Why would I willingly choose to leave what I have known for 30 years? Why would I choose to uproot my family and leave what I thought would be my home for the rest of my life?
My marriage and my daughter.
I was born and raised in the PCA. More specifically, I was born and raised in the most conservative presbytery of the PCA: The Mississippi Valley Presbytery. I knew what Calvinism was and could recite and defend TULIP before the age of 10. My father was a ruling elder for almost 40 years. I was homeschooled, went to church at least 3 times a week. I attended every youth and outreach meeting. I served in the nursery monthly, led children’s church as early as a teen, served on a pastoral search committee. I was so involved that being Presbyterian was part of the way I introduced myself.
I was born and bred to follow the evangelical formula: of course I would get married, have children, be a doting and dedicated wife and mother. Be smart, but not too smart. Support my spouse. It was my Christ ordained destiny. Be involved In my church. Make sure my family goes weekly and my children participate. My husband will be my spiritual leader and guide my family. These are all the Right steps. If the Right steps are followed, life will be good. God will be happy. Everything will work out “for the good of those who love God and keep his commandments.” Right?
At the age of 6 I begged my eldest sister to pray with me in our back yard to ask Jesus to be my savior. This was a Monday afternoon, after a Sunday sermon about hell and damnation. A sermon about how God was an angry judge on a throne who would throw those who didn’t know him into a lake of burning sulfur. (Yay for literal teachings on Revelation! /s) As part of the sermon, I remember Pastor Bill Dan* using the story from Matthew 7 about God turning away those who did not actually know Him, but thought they did.
I was terrified. So Elena* prayed with me. She held me in her arms, and prayed over me. Elena made me feel safe, loved, and heard. She held no judgement in her words, just love.
The God I was taught to obey was a vengeful, judgmental God. A God who ordered his people to slaughter people who were sinful, not his chosen. A God who chose at random the people he would save. A God who demanded righteousness and self-control. A God who got to be angry but I did not. A God who killed his son because he demanded a blood sacrifice for the mistakes of his creation.
I spent most nights, as a child and into my teenage years, begging God to make sure I was saved and followed him. I was consumed by the anxiety that I would die and stand before a throne, and be told that he didn’t know me at all. That I was not predestined. That I was foolish and not foreordained.
I read my bible and prayed out of fear. I attended church out of fear. I believed out of fear. I memorized the Westminster shorter catechism and scripture out of fear. I did the Right things, and followed the formula- out of fear. Because that was the Right thing to do. Right?
The church taught me that I was an awful worm. A sinful being. My righteousness was as filthy rags to God. I was totally depraved- nothing good in me. The judgement of God was going to come, and the only thing that would save me or give me the least bit of hope would be if Jesus acknowledged that he knew me. I was not safe in the presence of God- he was an angry old man on a throne. I had to have his son to have access to him. To make matters worse, I was female, and in an evangelical church. This meant that my body was sinful and all of my actions and clothing was scrutinized. In summary (to be covered at a later date): Purity culture sucks, and it fucked up my brain. I learned to hate myself.
My father (read: my father strong-armed by my mother. The neck that turns the head, am I right?) was my spiritual leader at home. I was taught to expect my future husband to be my spiritual leader, because no woman could have her own spiritual journey with God, alone. I pushed my first serious boyfriend (now my husband!) to go to church with me, pray with me, read the bible and devotions with me. I expected him to guide and lead me. I put expectations on him that were undeserved; I realize now, many years later, that I wanted him to be my mediator to God. Because as a female, I had to have an authority. Right?
Then I got married. And I was treated as an equal. And my world flipped upside down.
My husband and I may have called ourselves Complementarian when we got married 9 years ago, but the reality is that we had an Egalitarian marriage from the beginning. *Anagen is my best friend and treats me with respect, something for which I am incredibly grateful. In our first year of marriage we navigated the loss of a grandparent, a period of severe depression for Anlagen, loss of our first child, a period of severe depression for me, job loss and change for Anagen, job loss and change for me, and the continued responsibility of daily caretaking of a grandparent. We faced a lot more than we thought we would in one year, and we met each challenge as partners: together. In each low and high we were together, as partners. Supporting one another. I ran point for our family when he was not able to function. He ran point for our family when I was not able to function. We worked as a team.
During 2020 (the great year of COVID-19!) we read the book “The Great Sex Rescue” by Sheila Wray Gregoire (GSR), at the recommendation of two therapists who led a sexual addiction recovery group of which we were part. GSR gave us the language to recognize and identify just what our marriage was: one of equals, working as partners- Egalitarian. We parented as partners. We ran our house as partners. We made decisions for our family as partners. We owned our property and assets as equals. This may seem simple, but I didn’t realize how radical it was that Anagen respected my opinion and valued my partnership until we saw the marriages and families around us at church and in our families of origin struggling. I was treated as a person, not just a woman.
Summer of 2024 my church held a combined Sunday school class to discuss the roles of women our church. The class covered a study that was conducted by the PCA in 2017 of the roles of women in the PCA, and then reviewed a follow up statement produced by the MS Valley Presbytery outlining their stance based on the Report produced by the PCA. The final portion of the class covered the “opportunities” and roles of women serving in our specific church. There was a long list of all the things women weren’t allowed to do, but a beautifully typed list of things women could do (mostly dealing with children’s ministry, hospitality, and women’s ministry). Two of the three pastors for my church led the class, and even opened up the last three weeks to questions/comments from members. At the crux of the class, most of the limitations placed on women centered around the verses from 1 Timothy 2 (women are to be silent), and the fact that when the position of elder is discussed in Titus it refers to a “husband” and not “wife”.
I left the classes and discussions feeling less than my Christian brothers and discouraged. Originally when the class was introduced, I was excited and hopeful. In the end, I felt that the focus was wrongly placed on letters Paul wrote to specific churches (at specific points in history) and not on the actual teachings and life of Jesus. Not on the way Jesus treated and uplifted women. The great women of the New Testament (including those who served alongside Paul) were omitted entirely.
I reached out to the two pastors who led the class by email and thanked them for their vulnerability and willingness to facilitate what eventually became a heated discussion. I tried to highlight their courage in standing before their congregants and handling a topic that was heavily charged with poise. In the email I noted that while I did not fully agree with the MS Valley Presbytery’s stance (or our church’s), I was thankful that we could all worship at the feet of Jesus.
The response I received from one of the pastors was shocking. He let me know that he understood that this was a hard topic and that if I needed to leave our church he understood.
I was confused. That was not what I said in the email at all. Where was this coming from? Was I not allowed to be welcome and a member simply because I acknowledged that we may not be on the exact same page? I was trying to validate their experience and courage to facilitate such a hot button discussion.
But I found that I was not alone in my discouragement created by the outcome of the class. A dear friend introduced me to Lucy Peppiatt and Phillip Barton Payne. Oh boy did the flood gates open wide. I devoured as many writings as I could in the year that followed about women in the Bible and the Church: Beth Allison Barr, Nijay Gupta, Dorothy Greco, Andrew Bauman, Kristin DuMez, Rob Bell, Rachel Held Evans, Aimee Byrd, Zach Lambert, Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Lindenbach, Beth Moore. And, most importantly, I turned to the Bible. Following the podcast BEMA, I studied scripture to see who God really is, and how he views his creation fully: humankind.
What i found was juxtaposed to what my church was teaching. I saw “half” of the body being hamstrung because of their gender. Placed in a box of restriction due to a few verses taken out of context.
How can I fully serve this loving God who loves his creation so ravenously (not in a hateful, judgmental way) when I am told by a man-made (emphasis on the man) institution what I cannot do or how I and the women around can be gifted. I was consumed by doubts and wrested with scripture, begging God to see me and give me guidance.
These wrestlings grew over the next year, until the final straw fell in February 2026. My 5 year old daughter, Sweet Pea*, began reading voraciously around Christmas 2025, and I gave her the Kingdom Girls Bible as a gift. She began reading out loud to our family daily from her bible at the breakfast table. In February, she announced that she wanted to be our pastor. My heart fell.
I finally had to face the crux of my wrestling: if my family stayed in the PCA, and Sweet Pea truly felt called to be a preacher of God’s word, there would be no future for her gifting to grow.
Anagen and I had many conversations and prayed fervently; we ultimately felt moved to visit another local church who happened to have a female pastor (insert gasping and pearl clutching here). The first visit felt like going home.
Jesus touched my heart and made it clear that this was a safe, Right step forward for me and my family. I felt at peace. God held me and i felt his assurance.
Months later Sweet Pea is still saying she wants to be a pastor. Even if this is just a phase, I recognize that if this is her gifting, I want her to be in an environment where she has the potential to grow in acceptance and treated as an equal to her male counterparts.
So, three months after beginning to visit new church, Anagen and I requested to have our membership removed from our PCA church. It was time for us to make the step we felt convinced to make. No sense in delaying. When asked for further clarification, we laid it all out there. The response? Not great. The same pastor who two years earlier told me “see ya later if you want to go!” said that while there were some compelling arguments for female ordination and pastoring, it wasn’t convincing enough to be right. Did I receive a response from the pastor I’ve met with dozens of times over the last year and built a relationship with? The pastor with whom I’ve shared these wrestlings and validated my changed stance? Nope. Nothing but silence.
Today I sit in the hard feelings of feeling cast out, untethered. I know this is the safe, Right choice for me and my family. Anagen and I are praying and slowly navigating the path forward as we continue the process of deconstructing the damaging evangelical teachings we have been steeped in for 30 years. These are the first steps forward on what is a long path ahead. But you know who’s right there beside me, holding my hand each step? Jesus. His patience is bigger than my doubts and hurts. He’s holding me as I mourn the impact of decades of wrong teachings about who he and God is.
I will be ok. Because I am not alone.
*Note- all names have been changed to protect the identity of those described.
Author’s note: I wrote this while listening to The Beautiful Letdown by Switchfoot (2003).