A Conversation with Paige Allen: Journey, Challenges, and Legacy in Ministry

Twanna Henderson: Welcome to T Time: Spiritual Conversations For, With and About Women. I'm your host, Twanna Henderson. And as always, I want to remind you to like this broadcast and to definitely share it with someone in your life. Well, I'm excited about today's guest. Our guest is Paige Allen. Paige is an executive pastor at Church on the Rock in Lubbock, Texas.  Paige pastors a staff and gives oversight to global missions, the new legacy home for women, and Bloom Women's Ministry. Paige also co-hosts the Bloom podcast, "Bloom Talks". And as the author of her new book, "He Knows Your Name," Paige travels internationally to speak and teach. And she and her husband, Josh, have two incredible daughters. Paige, Welcome to T Time.

Paige Allen: Well, thanks for having me. Twanna. I'm excited to be here.

Twanna Henderson: I'm so glad that you are here. You know, I thought that I had a full plate, but you're doing some amazing things.

Paige Allen: Well, when you list it all out, it sounds like a lot, you know, but I think honestly, most women, if we stopped and we asked them everything they did, we would all have a long list. I don't know if I know many women who don't have a lot on their plate.

Twanna Henderson: We all need a long vacation. I really love talking with women leaders, because there's always so much insight that comes with just walking in those shoes. But I really want to go back to the foundation, because I know and I understand that you grew up as a pastor's kid, a PK is what we call them.

Paige Allen: Yes, I did.

Twanna Henderson: And you planned to kind of stay as far away as you could from vocational ministry. And here you are as a pastor.

Paige Allen: Yes, this was not the plan. I did grow up as a PK. And that meant I saw a lot of great stuff. But I also saw some behind the scenes things that were just hard. I saw difficult things that my parents had to walk through. I saw just how people can be mean, especially when they're hurt. And I am so blessed. I really did have a true relationship with the Lord. Especially started in my teens just for myself. I loved God desperately. But I made it very clear to him. I really did not want to have much to do with the local church, and I definitely did not want to work for the church. And yet, you know, the way God works. I always say be careful about saying "never."

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Paige Allen: There was such a special sweet time. I actually left my hometown for college, and during those four years, the Lord really began to deal with just offenses that I had taken up and real wounds that needed to be healed.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Paige Allen: And, about five years after I left home, I came back to visit my parents one weekend. And I was in a church service. I was sitting on the front row next to them, like they always did. And I just started weeping. And I don't know if you've ever had one of those moments, like I didn't even know why. It was during worship and I just was like, "Lord, what's happening here?" And I really felt like he just said, "Look around." And I began to look around all these people, and he just kind of said, "how do you feel?" And I realized I just felt so much love. And he just kind of said, "You're healed. You're healed from the hurt. You're healed from the offense. You've walked through forgiveness." And then he said, "these are your people too."

Twanna Henderson: Wow.

Paige Allen: And so, I really felt like he was saying, "Okay, you're supposed to be connected again." I had just gotten married. I was newly married and I said, "Well, if this is your God, you have to tell my husband," because he had always said too when we got married, he said this, "I love that your parents are in ministry. Just promise me you're not going to drag me back there and we're going to do it too." So, I thought that was kind of my place before the Lord, I think. And, in the way God does, about four months later, my husband came to me and he said, "You're not going to believe me. But when I'm in prayer with the Lord, I keep feeling like he says we're supposed to go back to your hometown for a little while," expecting me to say, "Oh, no, that's not happening." And I just burst out in tears and said, "Yeah, he told me four months ago." So, we ended up back in the town where I grew up. And now I am on staff at that same church that my parents founded almost 40 years ago.

Twanna Henderson: Oh my goodness, that is so amazing. And I love how the Lord just kind of brings us around like that. And also just how the church really parallels family. Family, you love them, but like they make you sick at the same time. And, you know, and that's kind of how the church is, but you need them and there's so much there. What does your role really entail at the church in Lubbock?

Paige Allen: So now, my role is, I get to just oversee several areas. Our church has grown a lot in the last probably 10 years or so. And so, I get to oversee a lot of things that are outward focused. And so we have a global missions department, where we support full time missionaries. We actually train and send full time missionaries, and then we do a lot of short term trips. So, I have a team actually that works there, but I kind of get to be the visionary for that. And then, at just five years ago, we started a home for women that needed a second chance. And we have an outreach center where we do GED testing, we do food, we do clothing. We just do a lot of basic needs help. And we kept seeing women come through our doors. Some were coming out of incarceration. Some were coming out of addiction. Some were coming out of unhealthy relationships really wanting to change, but what we found was that it was mostly a financial component. If they could not figure out how to do that on their own, they would go right back to really unhealthy, toxic and abusive addiction type relationships. And so we kind of had this idea of if we could create a space and time, and so we've created this program. It's a 15 month program where women have a safe place to live. They kind of go through this program where the first three months they don't work, but then we really help them find good jobs where they're surrounded by good people. We have a financial coach that helps them get out of debt and that helps them just kind of get things into place. A lot of our women have kids in the system with CPS or family members have them. And so we really work with them over those 15 months to see if they're at a place where they can get back custody. And anyways, I'm going into this a long time, but I'm passionate about it. And so, I get to help run that. We have a full time staff that runs the day-to-day operations. But I raise a lot of money for it and cast vision. And I'm actually there one day a week, and it's probably my favorite day of the week. Because there's something about women who, well, they don't have anything to hide at that point. And they're just really honest. And it's really refreshing. So I get to oversee that, too.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, that's good. I mean, we need to talk to you offline about that.

Paige Allen: Okay.

Twanna Henderson: Because I'm getting ready to start something similar to that. And so, as you were talking, I was like, "Oh!"

Paige Allen: Yes, let's talk offline, because I've learned some things.

Twanna Henderson: We'll have to do that. So let me ask you, is your dad still the pastor now?

Paige Allen: That's a great question. We kind of had a transition three years ago. My dad is still here, though. He's the founding pastor, but actually, my brother-in-law is now the lead pastor. So you said something about family a while ago and I was like, "Yes." I understand family dynamics. And I'm so pleasantly amazed at how the Lord has walked us through it. We walked it out very slowly. That whole transition process took about two to three years. So really, it's been about a six year process. So he's still here. He's still involved, but he gets to do what he wants to do. He doesn't have to do everything.

Twanna Henderson: He's earned it by now.

Paige Allen: That's right. That's right.

Twanna Henderson: So I want to go back to your role, and I think I know the answer to this question, But, have you received much pushback as a female in vocational ministry? And have you dealt with it if you have?

Paige Allen: Yeah, that's a great question. Yes and no. I have for sure, especially early on. I've worked full time at a church now for 20 years. And when I first started, people were kind of feeling it out. What was really healthy was it forced our church to really look at what we believe scripturally, what we believe theologically, and come to a place of belief. So then it got easier to say, "Well, this is what we believe. This is what we see in Scripture, and I invite you to look for yourself and seek the Lord." I have had some pushback, and I've finally come to the place where I am confident in what the Lord has asked me to do, and it's not my job to change people's opinions.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Paige Allen: What my job is, is to serve the Lord with my whole heart and work as diligently as I can. And what's been really fun is people who maybe initially were a little bit skeptical, yet have stayed in the church, a year or two later have come around and said, "You know, what? I wasn't too sure about you, when you were preaching that Sunday" or whatever. But it caused them to seek out scripture for themselves and to ask some hard questions. And to just come kind of full circle. So, I've had some pushback, but I think, because I haven't made it my cause to change everyone's mind, I've just let people take that journey themselves. It hasn't been too bad.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, that's good. That's a good answer. I know that you have traveled with speaking at conferences and different events, internationally and nationally, and I'm sure that you've probably encountered women from just various backgrounds and various walks of life. What has been one of the most impactful experiences that you've had with that?

Paige Allen: Oh, I've had a lot of impactful experiences. There's something about when you step into a different culture, and yet, that culture, especially within the church world, still are just praising Jesus. You see God from a different perspective. But the thought that's coming to my mind, I actually share this story in my book. I've gone to the nation of India five times. And one of my very last trips, I had the privilege of speaking within 24 hours to three different groups of women. And all three groups were completely different socio-economically and demographically. India is so vast, so like the first group, it was a small group of young moms. They actually predominantly spoke English. I kind of felt like I was sitting down with a bunch of my friends. And we had we had tea and biscuits, and I ended up speaking on worry. And it was just so good. They opened up and then right after that, that same day, I went across the city. It took about an hour to get to one of the slum areas of India. And this group of women, I mean, you know in India, there's castes of different levels of people. So this was kind of like the lower caste. You could just see the poverty everywhere. And yet, these women came to this women's meeting, and I was in this concrete room. I remember my back against the wall, because there was there was no room. The ladies just crammed in every space. They were so hungry for the Lord. And I found myself speaking on the exact same thing again about worry. And then the very next morning, I got a call and they said, "Hey, could you come do one more event?" And they said, "But your team can't come with you, because this is  an elite group of women," which I didn't know what that meant at first. But I said yes, and I found myself in this room with 20, I'm not kidding you, of the most gorgeous women I've ever seen in my life. And I found out they were all Bollywood actresses. And they worked in India's version of Hollywood.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Paige Allen: And I spoke on the same thing: worry. And I walked away from that realizing two things. The first thing was just this realization of women. It didn't matter if they were the women who had everything. They were still facing worry. They were still asking the same questions as these moms who were just trying to get food on the table for their kids, you know? But personally, one of the things that really messed with me was when I came home. When I had jet lag, and I couldn't sleep, and so I got up, and I did something I probably shouldn't have done. I got on Instagram, and I decided I would try to figure out who those famous girls were. I didn't know who they were. I don't really watch Bollywood films or whatever. And so I started scrolling through, and I knew enough people to make connections. And the first girl I saw, I found, she had 3 million followers on Instagram. She was a famous actress. The next one I found was Miss India. I didn't even know that but she actually was Miss India. And what happened was the next day, when someone asked me about my trip to India, instead of telling them about how God was so real in all three of those moments, my narrative changed and I started telling people about how I had gotten a minister to the famous women. And probably about three weeks later, I was actually preparing to preach a sermon, and I was gonna share that story when the Holy Spirit just convicted me and said, "Why are you only highlighting a part of that story when you felt my presence in all three places?"

Twanna Henderson: Wow.

Paige Allen: And I just realized, I think I do that if I'm not conscious of it. There's this tendency where we elevate so many different things when it was so clear to me God desperately loved those women in all three scenarios. And so, I think that's a story that sticks with me. Both just the universal questions that women are asking. But also just this kind of question to me, as a woman in ministry, that you need to be so careful that you never highlight or choose or put one group above another. Because that's not how God works.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I like that, how our needs and our desires, they do transcend. And we all, at the end of the day, just need and want more of Jesus. Now, I know that you have a book that you recently wrote for women entitled, and I love this title, "He Knows Your Name."

Paige Allen: Yes.

Twanna Henderson: And it's based on conversations you've had with women in your church and speaking events. Tell us how the book came about and how you came up with the title, because I love that title.

Paige Allen: Okay. Well, it came about while I was teaching a Bible study here at the church, a women's Bible study. And this lady came up to me afterwards and was telling me that she had been studying. She was talking specifically about a woman in the Old Testament, and she said, "There's something about the nameless women in the Bible that intrigues me." And she left that day and that phrase, "nameless women," just got implanted in my heart. And I realized that a lot of stories in Scripture that I'm drawn to, they are the stories of women that we don't know their name. The woman with the issue of blood. The Samaritan woman at the well. The widow with two mites. And so I just decided to kind of go on this deep dive and start studying nameless women in scriptures. And as I was studying them, I just kept thinking about women in my own church, and that I talked to around the world, that I think underneath a lot of their questions, or struggles, it boils down to this thought of, "Does anyone actually see me?" Is what I'm doing bringing any value to anyone? Because I think we all have a desire for significance. We have a desire to make an impact. But honestly, a lot of times, especially in certain seasons of women's lives, nope. We're taking care of toddlers or we're making Excel spreadsheets at work, or we're doing things behind the scenes that doesn't get any praise. And as I was studying them, and I specifically started studying the nameless women in the gospels, and just how Jesus went out of his way to make them feel seen and known. And so that was kind of the thought of the book. And then, the "He Knows Your Name," I think I just ended up writing that at one point. And actually, my editor was like, I think that's the title of your book. And I had actually suggested another title. And she was like, "Nope. How about this one?" And as soon as she said it, I was like, "Oh, yep."

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, I think we do have a need for significance. We want to be significant. We want to feel a sense of significance and identity. I like how you talked about when you were getting ready to get married, and you came to the realization that you had to give up your name. And it was like, "I didn't think about the fact that I've got to give up my name. I'm no longer going to be White. I'm going to be Alan." Talk about that. Just what you were feeling.

Paige Allen: You know, it's so amazing. Since I put the book out so many people have come to me and said, "Oh, I get that. I felt that too." And I think that's something that, especially as good Christian women, we rarely voice that. But it is. It's like our identity has been connected to a specific name. And then in one day's time, and I wasn't even opposed to taking my husband's name, but it was this feeling of like, "Oh, I like who I am as Paige White." That was my original name. "Oh, I don't know Paige Allen. Who is this going to be?" And you think there's so many times that women feel that way. Our names are important. You look in Scripture, how many times does Jesus change people's names? And, there's something to know about. He knows my name.

Twanna Henderson: Whatever it is, he knows exactly. He knows how to find us. He knows how to call us, and we can hear him. I know you also talk about legacy in the book and influence and the pressure of being known on that bigger stage. How have you felt that your platform as a woman in leadership contributes to everyday women feeling seen and known around you?

Paige Allen: I am more passionate right now than ever about trying to tell women and encouraging them that I think sometimes we define legacy in the wrong way. Legacy, in and at its core, it's the thing that remains. Even when you walk out of a room, if something remains because of whatever you deposited in the conversation or even just your presence, you're leaving a legacy. And what I realized, even these unnamed women in the Bible, we still don't know their names. I have no idea who the one with the issue of the blood is. But we're still talking about her centuries later. And so she's left a legacy. And so I kind of want to encourage women and men alike, is it enough that God knows your name? And to know you can leave a legacy even if it doesn't look like what culture says a legacy is. The legacy you leave with your children, the legacy you leave with your neighbors, the legacy you leave when you leave rooms. That is valuable. And it actually may be more lasting than making a big splash on a stage or, in some way that is, quote unquote, famous.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, I love that. That legacy is what remains and what we remember. How does Paige want to be remembered?

Paige Allen: Hmm. I think I want to be remembered as someone who made space for other people for their voices to be heard, actually. I really do. I want to be someone who calls people up, because I saw what was inside of them. I think that's how, I think that's how I want to be remembered.

Twanna Henderson: Wow.

Paige Allen: What about you, Twanna? How do you want to be remembered?

Twanna Henderson: Oh, my goodness.

Paige Allen: I know I'm turning the tables a second, but I would love to know.

Twanna Henderson: I would say as someone who made an impact or impression on someone that hopefully made them feel better. And I think, in some ways, it resonates with what you said, but just feeling that you're enough just the way that you are. I think a lot of times we feel like we have to be something else. But to hopefully be able to share and make someone feel like "you're enough just the way that you are," which means that you don't have to be like anybody else. And I think, in our culture, we always feel like we've got to look like somebody else. We've got to be like somebody else. But that's not how we're made. And we're enough just the way we are. This has been so good. You have imparted some really, really good, impactful nuggets today. As we prepare to close, I really would like for you to pray for our listeners, and to offer encouragement, specifically for women who want to live with purpose and who may doubt that God knows her or who may feel unseen whether in her home or her job or her church or whatever it is. But, will you just pray and just encourage those who are listening.

Paige Allen: Yeah, I would love to. Father, I thank you so much for this time and this conversation. And Lord, I pray right now for those listening. Jesus, I thank you that you see them, and God I pray even right now wherever they're listening, if it's in their car at their house or at work, I pray they would have a moment where they literally feel that. That they know and they feel that you see them and you know their name. Father, I pray today for our listeners, and God I just ask that you begin to give them a new understanding about what it means to live with purpose and to leave a legacy. God, I pray that you would show them purpose in today. I pray that you would show them how the things they are doing even behind the scenes, that those things are contributing to greatness and to the things that you have called them to do. Father, I pray if there's any changes they need to make in their lives, to get into alignment with the purposes that you have for them and pray that you would show them how to do that. Father, I pray that on the days where they feel overlooked or overwhelmed, I just pray, God ,that you would give them the nudge to take a step back and to take a deep breath and to remember, God, that you are with them and you see them and, therefore, they're not unknown, but they are known. So Father, I thank you for that. I pray in Jesus' name, that every lady listening, that she would know, God, that her name matters, and that her life matters. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Twanna Henderson: Amen. Thank you so much, Paige. I so enjoyed this, and I'm just excited about how the Lord is going to continue to use you and use your book. To all of our listeners, thank you for joining us today. I'm Twanna Henderson. Be blessed of the Lord.