Two weeks ago today I got a phone call from a friend who serves as pastor of a church on the East Coast. About an hour into our conversation, my friend shared something to me that wasn’t much of a surprise. He was considering leaving the ministry. The pressure was getting to him and he didn’t think he had much more to give. I listened and sympathized, but there wasn’t much that could be said that would lighten his burdens. They are real. His church is struggling financially, membership is declining, the buildings need extensive repair, and political issues have turned preaching into a minefield. These seem like unsolvable problems to him and so he has decided it may be time to hang up his collar (so to speak). What was remarkable about our conversation was that it was one of three I had in the past month with friends who plan on leaving the ministry.
People are typically drawn to the ministry because they want to make a difference in people’s lives. But after years of managing struggling volunteer organizations, many pastors decide they can make more of a difference in a different field. One friend left the church to become a nurse; another to run a charitable organization; a third has become a community organizer. What is tragic to me is not so much that they left ministry, but that they left because they came to believe that the church could no longer make the impact they hoped it would.
As a second career pastor, I am not as discouraged as some of my friends. I know the grass isn’t any greener in those other fields. The challenges we face as a church exist in all institutions. And I still believe that the church can make an impact on the world. In fact, I am convinced that the church has the potential to make the greatest impact, if we do it right. How do we do church right? The answer lies in looking closely at the character of Jesus and then seeking to follow where he leads. If we embrace humility, sacrificial love, generosity, unflinching honesty, and the hope that springs from the eternal, we will do church right. Our work progresses slowly; but over the generations the church has fed the hungry, fought for justice, met suffering with compassion, sowed seeds of peace, called attention to the dignity of all people, and given meaning to both life and death. As a community we need only to discern where we are called to make an impact and then go all in with the love of God as expressed through the person of Jesus Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
There is so much good we can do as a church! Our best days lie ahead of us.
Blessings,
Pastor Jen