I begin this post with a disclaimer. For whatever reason, this seems appropriate. I’m wrestling with some questions today and inviting you into a conversation. Do not mistake this for a pity party.
This past week I had two radically different experiences in the world of Professional Ministry. The stark juxtaposition has kept me pondering, wondering, wrestling. I’m not sure what to make of these just yet.
Days ago, I was contacted by a local non-profit with bad news about my job application. This local ministry exists to work with young people on the fringes of society and employs student apprentices as ministers-in-training to do most of their work. I had applied for a Discipleship Director position to formalize a hybrid program of classroom and “laboratory” training for these apprentices. This felt like a position that was custom-made for someone like me. I applied. I interviewed recently. Things went well.
At the close of my interview, I asked the Executive Director if this position came with an office – someplace to put all the books I have acquired in almost 25 years of ministry and academics. This question turned out to be more important than I realized. There was no office – this detail had not been considered.
When my phone rang this past week, I was thanked for applying and interviewing. The Executive Director said some kind things and said he enjoyed our conversation. Unfortunately, however, I would not be considered further for this position.
“This job functions in the trenches of ministry. We are looking for someone who has ministered in this type of setting before. Sadly, you lack the qualifications we desire.”
Talk about a punch to the gut. I browse the classifieds regularly - Indeed, Glassdoor, Zip Recruiter, you name it. I find job after job with entry-level requirements for which years of Professional Ministry render me “unqualified” for a variety of reasons. This was the first job I had seen in a long time in which my experience, education, and personal ability were uniquely suited. Or so I thought.
Fast forward a couple days. Months ago, I had e-mailed a dozen churches in our metro area to introduce myself and offer help with training and support in their student ministry programs. I heard back from one. (Yes, just one.) The initial e-mail came from an Executive Pastor who said he would like to meet for coffee. Excellent! I replied and waited. Eventually I heard from someone who introduced herself as the Administrative Assistant to Pastor ______. The purpose of her e-mail was to find a date and time to schedule me for a coffee with her boss. I found it odd that he didn’t contact me directly, but I went along with the protocol. We found a date and time and I agreed to the hour drive that would make a local meeting most convenient for him. Yesterday, he stood me up.
I sat in the coffee shop and waited. As the time passed, I realized I had no contact number for this Pastor – the details for this meeting were handled exclusively by his Administrative Assistant. I called the church and was informed by recording that their offices were not yet open for the day. All I had was an e-mail address for the Administrative Assistant – so I sent a mail and asked where Pastor _____ might be. Turns out, this meeting never made his calendar. I received an apology and an offer to reschedule this meeting for a future date. I kindly declined. Eventually I did receive a voicemail from the Pastor, himself. He apologized – and made it clear this mishap was the fault of his Administrative Assistant. Wow.
I keep reflecting on these two very different experiences from this past week. Each of these tells me something different about the world of Professional Ministry. In other ways, they each affirm something that is very much the same. I’m trying to sort it out. Here’s what I have so far.
In the case of our local non-profit, I am “unqualified” for their role as a Discipleship Director. The reason for this (I think?) is because the work in my previous churches and universities had more to do with programming and calendars, events and activities, and classroom-based teaching designed for upper middle-class students in safe and sterile environments. These jobs always came with an office. I had shelves and shelves of books flanked by professional degrees on my walls. Though I practiced ministry of a certain kind in all these places, the work I did was not “in the trenches” enough to satisfy this potential employer. Maybe they are right. Maybe I am unqualified for the role they envision. What does this say about me, my ministry, my Career before exiting the ranks of Professional Ministry?
I thought about all this as I waited for the Executive Pastor who ghosted me yesterday. In this case, I was irritated by anyone functioning at the “Executive” level who fails to make a scheduled appointment. More so, I was troubled by the way all this came to be. Your Administrative Assistant runs your personal calendar (poorly?) and does all the communicating on your behalf? I’ve had an Administrative Assistant in one of my former churches – I never expected her to do these things for me. Where does this guy get off? When did he become so important? One thing I know for sure: Pastor _____ has a nice office, complete with shelves for books, wall space for professional degrees, an Administrative Assistant, and quite possibly a designated parking space outside his facility (I know of one Senior Pastor who has his own bathroom and shower attached to his office in the executive suite of his primary campus). As much as this turns my stomach, I recognize my personal “qualifications” for ministry are much more congruent to this world than the one served by our local non-profit. Ugh.
In other news, I’m still waiting to hear from a local employer about my application for their “General Laborer” position. It’s been several weeks now – I’m losing hope. I’ve applied for internal positions with my current employer and continue to get the “Thanks for applying, but…” e-mail at regular intervals. I find new listings daily for jobs that require five years of this and ten years of that in fields where I have zero experience. Years of Professional work have rendered me unqualified for “professional” jobs.
In the world of Professional Ministry, I have a resume that is solid. Plenty of experience and lots of education and a wealth of exposure to people and places in a good number of places. I have experience – but I may also be unqualified. This all depends on who you ask. I’m not sure what to make of all this. There’s nothing wrong with offices and shelves and admins in the world of ministry. I don’t think so, anyway. There’s also something about ministry – true ministry – the kind we see with Jesus and his apostles, that involved personal interactions with others at all levels of society, unmitigated by Administrative Assistants and without need of office space. Jesus was “in the trenches” more than he was ever on stage or in the spotlights. Jesus never got an MDiv and he never had a dedicated space to park his donkey (Jesus even borrowed those as needed).
I keep trying to locate myself in the world of ministry. I used to have a place, a position, a Profession. Now I’m struggling to decide what I think of all that. I don’t love the pretense and politics and programs that plague Professional Ministry. I’m not sure any of that is for me anymore – or that it ever was in the first place. I also feel called to be in dialogue with that world somehow, as the people, places, and systems at work there have God-honoring work to do in some way, shape, and form. I’m not the Mother Theresa type – I know this about myself. I love classroom teaching with a quality syllabus and a good white board. My books are important to me, and I’m tired of them taking up space in my garage. Is it wrong to hope for an office again one day? Should it bother me that I’m “unqualified” as a Discipleship Director for a local non-profit? Should it bother me that I might be qualified as an Executive This or That with a local church? I’m just not sure anymore.
I'm not a minister. But I have been turned down for jobs more than I care to admit. Here are some things I have learned in my season of occupational rejections, sometimes I didn't have a good interview. Sometimes someone else was better for the job. Sometimes they hired their buddy instead of the right person for the job. Sometimes the person hiring was unqualified to hire someone for the job. Sometimes they flipped a coin. One time I was told I had the best interview out of all the other candidates but didn't get the job because the other guy was “groomed” for the position. Another thing I just thought about is, SOMEONE hired the Executive Pastor who can't do anything for himself! Go figure. It's a jacked-up world we live in. Don't beat yourself up.
By the way, I'm reading your book. Good thoughts.
My flow of experience has left me wondering to what extent organized religion in the western Christian world even vaguely resembles what God desires. I have a undergraduate Bible degree from ACU and a masters in Bible from LCU. Every church I worked for experienced significant growth and an increase in evangelism. But my silly ideals that it's a bad idea to cover up and ignore sexual impropriety by leaders and/or members (in 3 different churches!) and that it's a good idea to adopt (imperfect) kids from orphanages in Russia eventually led to me being undesirable to have on a church staff.
Interestingly enough my brother has had a similar journey of discovery. He retired at age 54 and went on staff at the Gateway church in Southlake, TX with Robert Morris as the senior pastor. If you have watched the news lately you will have seen https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/even-the-largest-churches-can-fall-will-gateway-survive-morris-sex-abuse-scandal/ar-BB1oSEva?ocid=BingNewsSerp that Robert Morris has lots of problems. My brother discovered early on after going on staff as a pastor there that there were significant levels of financial deception going on that involved millions and millions of dollars being funneled into the pockets of specific people. He also became aware of multiple situations in which the church was covering up and for people who were or had been involved in sexual improprieties. He made the mistake of asking questions which led to the pitchforks coming out and him being run off.
My brother and I both came to realize through firsthand experience that power and money were killing churches. Every church I worked for liked to say that they had to run the church like a business which was code for saying whoever gave the most money got to decide what happened. The mega churches have taken the church as a business model to the extreme saying they are giving God their best which results in a drive to obtain staff that best achieves their goals. Churches tend to view pastors/ministers as a disposable asset that are hired to achieve a goal and disposed of when that goal is achieved or when the person does not match the money and power goals of the church. Therefore young good looking people are hired but as time goes along those people become more expensive to keep around which leaves the church seeking greener pastures. Combine that with a select group of senior pastors/senior ministers that have learned how to surf the power/money environment of churches and stay on top, look around, how many senior pastors are surprisingly old and have a bizarre grip on power?!
All the years I was in ministry I was underpaid and made to feel guilty if I ever gave the appearance of having enough money. There was year after year where there were no raises. I finally decided this has to change so I approached Hal Elrod who was a former executive minister from First Colony church in Sugar Land and talked to him about going into real estate full time. I got my license but then was chased by another church and eventually agreed to go on staff there for 6 years until my discovery of a scandal involving the preacher allowed them to combine that with the fact that I had adult children who were gay and send me packing. God blessed my time at that church but the reality is I would have been so much better off if I had not agreed to go on staff at the new church and had just gone straight into real estate. The last church harmed my wife and kids so bad that I’m not sure they will ever step foot into another church building the rest of their life. I handed over my real estate career to God and literally prayed God you have to make this work or we are going to go bankrupt. God has been faithful! I have been one of the top 3 agents in my office of 300 agents this year.
I firmly believe God has been leading my journey, as strange as it has been. The pain of all my years of ministry and education became such a thorn because I was at the top of my ministry ‘game’ and yet no church wanted me that I finally took my entire library to half price books and sold it. Every single book. It was a lot of boxes! I literally had to hang my ministry career up in the closet. I did not want to do that but it was what had happened.
However, God continues to lead me into ministry in the most fascinating ways. There is a kid from my last church that I became his safe place, living with his grandmother who had a leg amputated, birth mother who is a disaster, birth father committed suicide, he calls me dad at this point. I listed a house for a church member from my last church, when I showed up with the photographer the wife was crying, I discovered she had just gotten off the phone with one of the elders who told her her elementary aged children were no longer allowed to attend bible class or summer camps since she questioned why one of the adults working with the children’s ministry was treating the children. God used my horrible departure from that church to be able to tell them it’s not you, it’s them. They have now bought a new house across town and have fallen in love with their new church.
So departure from paid ministry is not a bad thing. It has allowed me to begin a process of healing from the emotional and financial harm done by church after church. Is that the solution for others? Who knows. It is where God has led me. I pray now more than ever, and a lot of times my prayer is God, I don’t get it, but here I am, on a sabbatical from church so that I can grow in my faith and reformat my mind to recognize the bigger picture of what God is up to in the world and figure out where I fit in now.