Why Do You Call Yourself Pastor and Rev.?

’m interested in your ideas, but you’re a pastor, and I don’t like organized religion.

I want to recommend you and your programs to my friends, but they’ll see Rev. at the beginning of your name and that’ll scare them off.

You no longer have a church, so why do you still call yourself a pastor?

“Found this” was my first two-word phrase, recorded by my mother in my baby book. I guess I’m curious by nature. Throughout my life, I’ve sought and searched, trying to figure things out. Sometimes, I’ve been rewarded, such as with my sexuality and gender identity. I’ve also needed to explore “big questions,” such as meaning and ideas related to the divine.

Generations of family had a strong religious faith, and when I married, I joined another family that wanted me to believe and behave exactly as they did. Something inside me rebelled against uncritically following the path of others. I always planned on being a lawyer, but after working in politics and government for three years, I decided the world didn’t need another one. Also, my yet undiagnosed neurodivergent brain didn’t want to take the LSAT. 

I needed to make my relationship with the divine my own. Moreover, I studied communication and classical rhetoric in college, was good at public speaking, and enjoyed reading. I also wanted to make the world a better place with my work. I was curious about religion and its hold on me and the people in my life. Becoming a pastor made sense to me inside and out. I entered seminary to become a pastor in the ELCA (the progressive Lutherans), and when I was ordained, I vowed to be a “steward of the mysteries of God.” Those words were my favorite part of the service and continue to guide my life.

Serving churches for 25 years, I followed my hunches and questions, trying to grow in my relationship with a living divine, while adapting to a changing culture, and working on my presence with those around me. Eventually, I preached over 200 sermons based on song lyrics. I’ve also participated in groups applying Family Systems Theory to families of origin and leadership since 1998.

Yes, I often caught hell for being different. Here are a few examples.

A pastor serving on my Bishop’s staff scheduled a meeting with me. She was also the Dean of Students at my seminary when I graduated. We met at a coffee shop in a bookstore, and on our way in, we passed a large display for The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown, which was on its way to being a bestseller. I asked, “Have you read it?”

“Oh no, I’ve heard it’s quite scandalous. Have you read it?”

“Yeah, I read a review that said, ‘Read this book now because soon everyone’s going to be talking about it.’ I enjoyed it.”

“Now I remember you. You’re that radical!” she said as we ordered coffee. Touché!

When I still identified as a cisgender male, my mother-in-law said to our adult child, “What kind of pastor is he anyway?”

Some folks delivered parting shots while leaving the churches I ministered to. A woman sneered and asked, “Why did you become a pastor, anyway?”

I give credit to another for saying what he said directly to me, rather than going behind my back. “We stayed as long as we did because God called us to be a thorn in your flesh to prevent you from going too far, but we can see that didn’t work. You need to return to the faith you were raised in, to the faith of your parents. You’re leading people to hell!”

Needing to differentiate myself from the inflation, excesses, harm, hate, and an increasingly militaristic Christian Church in the United States, I stopped using the word evangelical and calling myself a Christian 25 years ago.

I resigned in 2019, three years after my spouse’s disabling stroke. Awakening one morning with the thought, “I am going to die,” it was no longer possible for me to lead a congregation, be a caregiver, and run a household simultaneously. I launched as a Spirituality Guide and Life Coach in 2020, hoping to work with similarly minded folks, who, like many of my friends, are unique and eclectic in their lives and spirituality.

I continue to follow my curiosity, trying to make sense of my life, such as the vision of darkness I had in the days before I tried to end my life, and the self-hatred I voiced internally for forty years from adolescence to finally knowing my transgender female identity in my fifties, or how Bob Marley’s song “Three Little Birds” with its lyric, “Cause every little thing gonna be alright” played on Ted Lasso exactly when I needed it, and how the three eggs in a bird’s nest on my front porch hatched the next morning.

Along the way, I stopped reading sacred texts literally and instead wrestled with them symbolically, as the ancient people did. I pay attention to my dreams at night and journal them, knowing they are spiritual messages from my soul and unconscious. I think nearly all of us know there is “something” beyond and greater than ourselves, whether we call it God, Jesus, Allah, Yahweh, the divine, the universe, the ground of all being, the source of all becoming, love, ultimate concern, or math, physics, chemistry, and biology.

I never wanted to save souls, judge sinners, or gain followers for Christ. I only wanted those who listen to me to catch a glimpse of the divine in their daily life, perhaps in their favorite song, a metaphor in their grandmother’s story, a moment of grace that comes as pure luck, and the intuition that rises when you make friends with your body. 

So why do I still call myself a pastor and use Rev. in my name? It’s my vocation, my calling, if you will. Everyone has a calling in their soul to find and live out in this messy, confusing, yet beautiful world.  Being a pastor is one of the things I got right in my twenties. It’s been my way of life for thirty years, and despite the criticism, most days I honestly didn’t know whether I was working or playing. Just as I did while serving churches, every time I watch a movie, hear a new song, go for a walk, or have a conversation, I’m hoping to find something – an image, a symbol, a metaphor, even a fact – that illuminates the mysteries of God. As a pastor, I’m also a mystic.

Finally, the word “pastor” means, in a sense, “guide,” and my life’s purpose is to explore the human relationship with the divine, coming alongside and guiding others as they live their callings and discover their humble participation with the divine.

I always knew I was weird, but it turns out I’m just queer. People like me, who have struggled to know their essence, see things at a glance, as Emily Dickinson advised. You could say that more than anything else, I’m a reformer, trying to be on the side of new life. I’m not hopeful that religion can change in our time. It’s too big, has too many assets, the lawyers are in charge, and theology, along with a literal reading of ancient words, are practically immutable. However, relationships with the divine can be transformed, especially when we turn to our inner life and befriend the divine forces and figures within. The mysteries of God in your life are without end and can be brought to light, and it would be an honor to accompany you.

Peace.

P.S. I also like how Rev. creates symmetry with the Vie of my name. Rev. Wendy Vie Trittin looks kinda cool, no?