One year ago today (June 11, 2021) I submitted my resignation and began my transition out of ministry. I did not want to transition out of ministry and hope to someday find a position in ministry again. For now, though, this is where I am.

After a year of processing, a year of struggle in more ways than one, I have decided to go public about some of the details of my resignation and transition out of ministry.

Now, from the top, I want to be exceedingly clear that this is not a smear campaign. Or an attention grab.

It is because I have had conversations with others who were in similar positions to mine and the common theme is always staying silent.

Churches don’t like to air their dirty laundry. 

They don’t like to tell the whole story for fear of people leaving. Whether they acknowledge it or not, it comes down to reputation and people leaving the church (along with the money needed to sustain the church which is provided for by those people).

Again, not an attack, just an observation I have seen across many churches of varying denominations.

So, I am sharing this for the benefit of all the pastoral staff out there who left a church (fired, resigned, let go, or otherwise) and haven’t felt that they could share their story. 

This one’s for you, pastor.

Context

A little bit of context before diving in.

I started at my church in 2016. I was hired to be the Student Ministries Pastor (birth-college, focus on K-12th).

Within my first two years, I had a baby on the way and the non-pastoral staff member was let go, one had announced their call to be a missionary in Kenya and move overseas, and one announced that they were transitioning out of pastoral ministry after 24 years.

It was just me. Thankfully, we had a rock-solid Elder Team who picked up all the slack, but I was in charge of daily operations throughout the week (because I was the only one there during the week, duh).

Then, we hired a new Lead Pastor (who my wife and I cheered for all along the way as being the best pick and fought for them at every opportunity).

The Best & The Worst

I am doing my best to keep this short and share only the necessary beats.

But there is roughly a year-and-a-half of stuff to work through. Forgive me and know I am trying to only share what I feel needs to be for context.

To keep things fair and anonymous, from here on out I will refer to some issues as being with “leadership” and you can infer from that what you want, but I will not be commenting on it throughout the story unless it is specifically needed for the context.

Some Learning

I learned a lot from the leadership during this year and a half.

I learned some better organization and time management skills because of some of the rules put into place.

I want it to be clear that the leadership at this church did invest in me and taught me things along the way. There is always good in the bad.

The Beginning of the End

Right around the beginning of 2020 I was told by leadership that the church wasn’t getting “our money’s worth” out of the work I was putting in. 

I had to start cataloging my hours about what I was doing, when, who with, and what ministry task it was associated with. Then, those hours would be reviewed and discussed as needed weekly.

Later on in 2020, I was told I was the most “overpaid youth pastor” this person in leadership had ever met.

I had been told by leadership I was “doing the bare minimum” even though my submitted hours were well over 40 (which I had been told to stick close to). When I compensated and worked more hours I was told I was working too much and to cut back.

I was told I went “above and beyond” and then would be told I wasn’t bringing any “value” to the needs of the church.

These are a few of the conversations going on during early 2020 that completely tore me up inside. I thought it was maybe just growing pains, and, to be fair, I was learning how to work in ministry all over again it felt like.

During my years at my church I had picked up A LOT more roles and responsibilities outside of Student Ministries Pastor and not much was ever taken off my plate.

Things, as you may have guessed, only got worse with time.

Job Role Change

Note: The exact order of events during this portion of my story are skewed. I didn’t write much down during this series of events and I started dealing with a lot of anxiety. I am hazy on when things happened even to this day.

One day in the spring of 2020, after COVID and the lockdown, I was asked to come into the Lead Pastor’s office.

He started by saying something like, “I know this isn’t a fun conversation, but…” And he was right. It was not a fun conversation!

He told me that it had been voted on by the Elders and decided that my job would change to become the Administrative Assistant and Children’s Pastor and youth would essentially go to the wayside (at least for the time being). An important note, he also mentioned that if I would rather resign, then he would understand.

As you can imagine, I had lots of questions and we had longer conversations in the following days and weeks. Emails were exchanged in frustration during this time, too.

It became unhealthy quickly. 

So, I asked to meet with leadership after about two weeks of the job change conversation.

I won’t go into a ton of details, but there are a few things which were said that are important to understand why I resigned.

Revealing Conversations

There was a particular part of the conversation where the Lead Pastor mentioned he saw that Kaila and I were struggling after he got hired (meaning he thought we were burnt out). I asked the question, “If that is true, then why didn’t you try and help us?”

He mentioned he recommended getting counseling for my wife and a mentor for myself, both of which we did.

When pressed further he said he felt his role was to, “Help the helpers and invest in the leadership, and hope that I would figure it out on my own.”

Then, one final question I had was, “you mentioned that you would understand if I resigned when you mentioned the job change. Within the same breath as telling me my role was changing. Were you hoping I would resign?”

His reply, “If I’m being honest, yes, I hoped you would choose to resign.”

It was at this point with these two pieces of the conversation that there was no chance I could stay at this church anymore.

Phone Call & Resignation

That night, I called a member of leadership and mentioned that I was resigning but wanted to check with them to make sure I wasn’t crazy. I went over the details about what had been happening and they told me, “I think you have to resign, man. I don’t see how this works out well for you.”

The next day, I turned in my resignation letter (June 11, 2020).

It was agreed I would stay on until leadership decided my last day, and I was okay with getting a paycheck as long as possible. (By the way, I forgot to mention that I had a baby on the way, and, oh yeah, it was the middle of the pandemic!)

When I left the office I was told it would be best to mention that I was leaving because of the job change if I told anyone or anyone asked.

The Denouement (the part after the Climax in a story)

After that, I had conversations with leadership and started the process of transitioning.

It wasn’t announced that I was leaving until July. I was asked to write a letter to send out and, again, coached to say it was because of “job role changes.” 

There was an outdoor event (because COVID-19) that was not very large because most people weren’t coming to church at this point, very few students were there to say goodbye to, and some of the leadership couldn’t be there either.

It was as good a sendoff as could be expected given the situation, but it was a little upsetting, honestly.

The week before I left I had an exit interview with leadership and mentioned I was frustrated with being told to essentially lie about my reason for leaving, and I think it was understood across the board that it was a sticky situation.

Lessons Learned

Now, here we are one year later.

I want to give you some lessons I have learned along the way!

I learned that managing staff is hard. I get there may have been some issues in the leadership knowing how to handle and manage me in the whole process.

I have learned I have to set better boundaries for myself because I am highly relationally bent and would, what some might call, waste time in the office by chatting and catching up on life.

I know now there is a lot I don’t know about running a church and have gained so much knowledge and wisdom by running my own business that would have been incredibly useful back then.

I definitely know the type of leadership I will not mesh well with and to ask those questions whenever I may next be in ministry.

Growth Earned

One thing I think is important to discuss is to discuss what the church leadership learned from this endeavor.

It has been a painful transition all around and they have done some learning and growing just as I have.

I can’t speak for all the leadership, but I know I discussed this post with one of the couples in leadership and they mentioned having conversations after I left with the leadership team.

One important thing they have put in place following this debacle was systems for leadership to stay in check and stay in the loop on these things. 

Structures have been put in place to make sure no one will be put in the position I was. Structures have also been put in place to ensure no one gets put in the position the Lead Pastor was either.

There was learning and growth all around.

But that doesn’t make things easy.

What’s the Point?

So, why am I bringing all this up?

Why this super long post with not even one-tenth of all the details?

Well, as I mentioned already, this isn’t a smear campaign. Rather, to let other pastors know they are not alone.

If you have been forced to resign, if you have been fired, if you have been asked to step down – you are not alone. Your story deserves to be heard. 

I am not villainizing any leadership at my church. The majority of my time there was wonderful. Even the majority of my interactions with the Lead Pastor were great.

I just want every pastoral staff person who has had to go through anything remotely like I have to know and understand that I empathize with them.

I’ve wrestled with feeling the push to write this post, but here I am.

What’s next? I am still ironing out details, but I am launching a podcast (and maybe more) to help give space for pastors who have gone through something similar to what I have to process and heal. I want to give space for pastors (across the board) to learn and improve and fill the gaps in their knowledge (all the stuff they don’t teach you and prepare you for in ministry classes).

What will this look like? Well, more details will follow! Keep an eye out on my blog, feel free to sign up for Stories From the Forge, and like DSM Story Forge on Facebook.

If you are a pastor who has gone through something like I have, then please do not hesitate to reach out to me!

If you are a pastor who has been on the other end of what I have, then I want to hear from you, too! Reach out to me!

Lastly, if you want to follow up with me directly or ask me any questions (or want any more details – no promises, but maybe), then feel free to reach out to me, too.

---

If you are here and like what you see, then I’d invite you to check out my book about The Lord’s Prayer. Or, hey, if you like the idea of books but not reading them, then you can check out part of DSM’s Brain where I offer up my book notes and other types of notes. In fact, go check out my website and my whole store of stuff!

You know you want to!