Dear Highlands College,
It’s come to my attention that you need something from me, a former student of yours. A slew of us alumni received a text message that you wanted our help in celebrating a milestone for the college — 1000 students placed in ministry jobs.
You were hoping to celebrate this achievement by sharing our stories. You asked us to tell you all the ways that Highlands College prepared us for ministry and being “placed.” (Just to really spell it out for non-ministry school folks reading this, “being placed” means Highlands College finds you a job or internship in a church or para-church ministry.)
I think you’ll be sorely disappointed by the number of people who opt out of this, at least for the year I graduated and the years surrounding mine. You might see this as no big deal, these former students not wanting to share their experiences for whatever reason. Perhaps you think it’s because we’re busy and we don’t have time to send a video on such short notice. Maybe you think we can’t put our experience into words or we aren’t comfortable on video. Maybe you don’t care to know why so many former students don’t want to share.
Allow me to shed some light. You did ask me to share my story, after all.
Though I know there is a larger community that will relate to this letter, I’m only going to speak for me. It’s important that we all tell our own stories on our own time.
Let me start here: Highlands College DID NOT place me. I got a job in a church in Delaware through a connection I made at a church conference. I allowed Highlands College to claim this credit because the placement program was still new and it was mostly on a technicality. At the time I was proud to be a Highlands College graduate going so far from home base. You put my face on your fliers! I was a success story!
You did prepare me for ministry, Highlands College, but maybe not in the ways you’d hoped.
You prepared me for ministry by teaching me that the Pastor is the ultimate authority, and if I disagreed with something the Pastor said, I needed to get my heart right, because I was the problem. And when things happened at my church that I disagreed with, I would keep my mouth shut and remind myself that I was the problem. I did this until I no longer trusted myself to make decisions, to speak up when I wanted to or needed to. I lost my sense of self by shoving down anything that didn’t align with the teachings of my pastor.
You prepared me for ministry by telling me endlessly how hard it was. And you’re right, it was hard. So when things got hard, like REALLY hard, I said to myself “this is normal. It’s supposed to be hard.” And when things got overwhelmingly, unbearably hard, and I pushed myself past my limits over and over again, I told myself this was normal. When I pushed myself to burnout, I convinced myself it was supposed to be like this and I couldn’t cope because I was weak. For years I worked on empty, believing I was the problem.
You prepared me for ministry by teaching me the systems that worked in a church. You told me the systems WORKED, and nothing was wrong with them. So when I went to the church in Delaware and tried to implement those systems and the systems failed, I believed that I had failed.
You prepared me for ministry by pushing me past my physical limitations with half marathons and extreme camping trips. In my own ministry experience, this gave me permission to work my body to death, to develop disordered relationships with food and exercise because you told me, “if you can’t take care of the body you have, how will God trust you to take care of his people?” and I believed you.
You prepared me for ministry by teaching me that it can be lonely, and you promised that the friends I made in ministry school would be my support system. You promised that you would support us after we went into our churches to “change the world.” But you lied about that. I moved to Delaware and I didn’t hear a peep from anyone in Highlands College. I had no one to call, no one to ask questions, no one to guide me. Where were you when ministry got so hard I’d spend my free time crying and praying that God would give me strength? Where were you when I didn’t know why no one would listen to my ideas? Why didn’t anyone call me? Why didn’t anyone check up on me? And why are you calling me now asking me to sing your praises when you weren’t there when I needed you?
I want to correct myself here because while you lied about the support YOU would provide us, you didn’t lie about my friends. The friends I made in Highlands College were and continue to be my support system. During my years in ministry and even after, as I’ve begun to loosen the chains of your toxic beliefs, we’re holding tight to each other, laughing and crying at our shared trauma.
These friends are the reason I’m writing to you now, because I have been witness to their pain. I have been witness to their questions and their hurts and their anger as they have bore witness to mine. We share these things in our small circles, never speaking any louder than a whisper because you taught us that silence is honoring.
But Highlands College, I’m done whispering. You cut my vocal cords, but they healed. You tied my fingers, but I broke the rope and I’m writing to you now to let you know that there is nothing to celebrate. You sent armies of students out into the world unprepared for the spiritual abuse they endured and now you ask us to declare all your good works? You’ll receive no such thanks from me, nor the hundreds of individuals who were sent into the lion’s den with nothing but a piece of paper and empty promises who emerged bloodied and battered.
Some of us are still healing years later.
I certainly am.
You may overlook this letter. You may write me off as a bitter, former student who got dealt a bad hand. And that’s okay, I’m expecting that. You see yourselves as untouchable, and why shouldn’t you? Empires don’t fall because one person had the courage to speak out, to flip tables, to say things that no one else is saying, to call out the abuse and the hypocrites.
Or do they?