Lately, I've been wrestling something... I've been looking for the words that aren't there. I open my mouth and I feel like nothing intelligent comes out. If you know anything about my recent experience, you may find yourself in the same situation, if you were in my shoes. It is hard to simply answer the question: "Why did you leave the church you were serving at?" There are a lot of layers to the situation. Sometimes I just tell people that it was messy and we needed to leave. I'll tell others that there were major sin issues and the leadership was allowing it to continue. I've also said that the vision that God gave us (my husband and I) for ministry didn't match the vision of the church leaders. All of those things are true, but my husband recently ran across an excerpt from the book The Contemplative Pastor by Eugene Peterson that describes it better than I ever could.
Being a pastor who satisfies a congregation is one of the easiest jobs on the face of the earth--if we are satisfied with satisfying congregations. The hours are good, the pay is adequate, the prestige considerable. Why don't we find it easy? Why aren't we content with it?
Because we set out to do something quite different. We set out to risk our lives in a venture of faith. We committed ourselves to a life of holiness. At some point we realized the immensity of God and of the great invisibles that socket into our arms and legs, into bread and wine, into our brains and our tools, into mountains and rivers, giving them meaning, destiny, value, joy, beauty, salvation.
You see, I could have easily continued to be the worship director. I could have gone around and asked, "What do you prefer? How can I make you comfortable? What do you want to hear on a Sunday morning?" Instead, the vision that God gave us for ministry was so much bigger than ourselves. It was bigger than our wants, needs, or even our preferences. It was bigger than all of our opinions combined.
It was bigger because it was all about Him. Our vision for ministry was all about what God wanted. We asked God what was on His heart and He started to tell us. He wanted true, genuine worship. He wanted all of us, not just the pieces that we were willing to give up when it fit into our schedule. He wanted excellence. He wanted uninhibited worship--not worship that was designed to impress or fit the latest mold that we placed around it. He wanted His Spirit to be free to work in us. He wanted us to label our lives with Him. He wanted us to live our lives as worship to Him. He wanted us to bring the lost home.
As we began to receive this vision, we began to get excited. We began to envision how our church would display it. We also began to hit a solid wall when we presented it to the leadership. We knew that our hearts were beating evenly with the Lord's, but when we talked to others about our vision, it was like many of them were flat-lining. If they weren't completely unaware of the work that God was doing, they were too afraid to go against the tide. We told more and more people about the vision and more and more people stared at us blankly. More and more people kept saying, "Well that's not how we've ever done it... Our church will never go for anything like that." Every excuse that we got was laced with fear of the past or fear of a certain group of people or fear of the unknown.
After much fear, excuse, ongoing sin issues, gossip, slander, and dead-in-the-water leadership, we were finally released from that ministry. There was a definite day when we felt like the Lord released us from this prison. We had been fighting it for months. We had been praying and expectantly waiting for the "go ahead," while we continued to serve as if we were never planning on leaving. Our hearts continue to ache for those people, but God has released us into a place that is walking in step with His vision.
When it really comes down to it, whether you are volunteering or on staff in any ministry, you need to make a choice. Do you want to serve God's purposes or man's purposes? The rewards are much different for each choice. If you choose to serve the praise of man, the approval, the adoration, the popularity, the title... your reward is temporary. It will waste away. If you choose to serve the heart of the Father, the leading of the Spirit, the example of Jesus, a life that actually matters past this earth... your reward is eternal. It lasts forever. It will never perish or waste away.
I truly believe that each leader, follower, disciple of Christ needs to make the choice. Whose opinion matters in your life? Whose desires are you seeking? Whose purpose will you serve?
It's a big decision. If you make the right choice, it will cost you something... but what you give up will be totally worth it.
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