10 reasons not to quit abruptly, pastor

“Therefore, we do not lose heart.” (II Corinthians 4:1,16)

From time to time I receive notes like this:

“I resigned my church tonight. Just couldn’t take it any more. The bullying from a few strong men (or one family in particular) finally wore me out. So, I got good and fed up, and tonight I tossed in the towel and told them I was through. It feels good to walk away and leave all this stress behind. But now, I will be needing a place to move to, a way to support my family, and when the Lord is ready, a new church to pastor. Please keep me in mind if you know of a church in need of my services.”

Nothing about that feels right. I want to call to my friend, “You resigned in a fit of temper or or a moment of discouragement? You walked away from the place God sent you? You quit a well-paying job without knowing where you will move your family or how you will support them? Have you lost your everloving mind?!”

I guarantee you the pastor’s wife is thinking these thoughts, no matter how loyally she supports her man and aches to see him struggling under such a heavy load.

I would like to say to every minister I know that unless you are sure the Holy Spirit inside you is saying, “This is the time. Walk away now,” don’t do it. Do not resign abruptly or impulsively.

Here are 10 reasons not to quit and walk away even when to remain there is killing you….

1) God sent you. Stay until He says otherwise or until you are fired.

You may not be able to keep a church from firing you–some of the finest ministers on the planet have been terminated at one time or other–but if it’s up to you, stay until He tells you to leave.

So, pastor, you found the going to be tough, some of the leaders resistant, and a few members to be criminal in their behavior? You grew tired of fighting them and fed up with the way they treated you?

I have something to say to you, my friend.

Grow up.

No one said it was going to be easy, least of all the Lord who called you in the first place. Go back to Matthew 10 and read what He said to the early disciples, from verse 16 through the end of the chapter. Compare your situation with what they were facing, then apologize to Him for your belly-aching.

2) The church needs you to see them through this crisis.

There are good people in your congregation who need a shepherd. If you walk away, you are abandoning them to the bullies who have been making your life miserable and ruling that church with a heavy hand.

If the bullies remain in place, the church will continue to be sick and stunted in its growth and ministries.  Read Acts 20:28ff and notice that from the very beginning of the Lord’s church, it has been this way. Your church is not unusual. It may be sick, but if so, it needs a physician and that’s why you were sent. Stay with the patient.

3) If you walk away, the bullies win, they are empowered, and they will try to control the next pastor.

The pastor who follows you will wish for all the world that you had cleaned out that nest of vipers before leaving.  As it was, he will feel you took the easy way out, turned over the keys to the trouble-makers, and made sure the next preacher will have to deal with them all over again.

I know, I know–it doesn’t feel that way. You are at your wit’s end and feel you cannot take it any more. But you can. Stay with the assignment the Lord gave you. Love those bullies and minister to them as faithfully as you do the precious saints. Follow the blueprint of Luke 6:27-35.  You will puzzle the troublemakers, frustrate the devil, and honor your Lord. Furthermore, you will strengthen your church and give your people a picture of a blessed servant of the Lord for all time.

4) You have a family to support.

As the head of your household, you are charged with providing for your own, a serious assignment from the Lord. To walk away from a steady paycheck because you “couldn’t take it any more” reflects poorly on you and puts your loved ones in a difficult situation.

Now, it’s possible to go too far in the other extreme. I’ve seen pastors cave in to the bullies and not challenge them on anything–“I go along to get along,” one called it–in order to keep their job. Do that and you soon lose the respect of everyone including those nearest and dearest to you, and will become the lapdog of the church-rulers.

Each extreme is unwise–caving in or abruptly walking away.

Stay close to the Lord for His guidance, His wisdom and the kind of self-control only He gives.

5) If you walk away, your ministry will be changed forever–and possibly diminished.

What do you suppose a pastor search committee is going to think when they look at your resume? May I answer that for you?

–“If this guy is so good, why is he without a job now?”

–“If he could not get along with the strong leaders in his last church, he’d have trouble in our church, too.”

–“Let’s not take the chance. Let’s see who else is available without all this baggage.”

And you are history.  Believe me, pastor, I have been on the receiving end of this stuff and have the scars to prove it.

You are seriously handicapping your future service to the Lord by quitting and walking away.

In the Southern Baptist Convention–always my frame of reference–if you walk away from your present church, it will take from six months to a year before you get another church and that one will be a third to one-half the size of the present one. You will regress in your ministry in a hundred ways if you walk away.

6) If you walk away and find yourself unemployed, you may lose confidence in yourself and possibly in the Lord.

Say what you like about the ministry being different from other jobs, but the simple fact is in our culture most of us get our identity from our work. When you have no work to go to in the morning, you begin to wonder “who am I?” and then “am I a failure?”

I cannot count the heart-breaking emails I have received from unemployed pastors who wonder why God doesn’t hear their prayers, why search committees do not appreciate their resumes, and why friends do not recommend them to other churches or invite them to fill the pulpit in their absence.

You do not want to be in that position if you can help it, preacher.

7) God can use this testing time in your life, in your family, in your church, and even in the lives of the trouble-makers.

In the weight room, you build a muscle by putting stress on it. In God’s kingdom, He builds believers by allowing us to undergo trials and burdens and oppositions.  If we walk away from the work before quitting time, we miss the blessings and often add to the problems of the very people we were sent to encourage and bless.

Did you enter the ministry idealistically? Were you expecting the churches to be filled with saints and every day to be sweeter than the day before? If so, it’s clear you have never read your Bible. Look at the ministry of God’s shepherds in the Old Testament (Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc) and in the New Testament (Paul, Peter, James, John, etc). They all had a tough time of it. Did you think you were better than they?

I don’t mean to be unkind here, but only to provoke you to be tough with yourself and not jump ship when the going gets rough.

8) Think of how you will feel about this a million years from now.

Which is to say, take the long view and not the short-term view.

9) The bullies need you to act courageously and faithfully. Whether they know it or not.

It will be good for the Diotrephes in your congregation (those who “love to have the pre-eminence”) to see someone acting like God truly is in this place, that the Lord really did send him here, and that he actually expects to have to stand before the Lord some day and give account for this flock (see Hebrews 13:17).  It will be eye-opening for the bullies to see you able to take a licking, then get up and love them again in the power of the Holy Spirit.

You are going to win them by the power of humility, love and service, and not by playing the game the way they want it conducted (by sheer force, big numbers, and power).

10) Your family needs to see you acting maturely, speaking firmly, and confidently dealing with this matter in quietness and strength.

Over the years, I have encountered adult children of ministers who quit going to church years ago “after seeing how the church people treated my daddy.” They grew bitter at the church and marked them all off as unChristian and hypocritical.  To the extent their preacher-fathers allowed them to be hurt,  they did them no favors.

Protect your children, parents.  As much as you can, pastor dad, shield your wife from the trouble. She’ll need to be in on some of it, but not all.  But shield your children from as much of it as you possibly can. They are so vulnerable. They do not have the spiritual resources with which to deal with hateful members or cruel leaders. So, try to shield them.

The ministry can be the most rewarding life in the world. But it can also be the cruelest. In either case, it is the Lord Christ whom you serve. And let me assure you, He does not take lightly the wonderful service you render in His name nor the treatment you receive from those who would hinder you. (Hebrews 6:10 has your name all over it.)

Find out and then help your family to see what Scripture means in calling the Lord “our Shield and Defender.” It’s all good.

Now, get up off the ground and get back into the ring, preacher. The worst thing they can do is kill you and all that does is send you to Heaven.

 

16 thoughts on “10 reasons not to quit abruptly, pastor

  1. Good, solid words Joe. You share a whole lot of wisdom and as for me I’ll take every drop I can read. Thanks much, friend. I’ll be praying for you as you preach the revival this week.

  2. Thank you Bro. Joe for these encouraging words. There were some that truly challenged me. Some I did not want to be reminded of but needed. Even though I am currently serving as a youth pastor at a church that is without a pastor, I feel that God once again used you to speak wisdom and guidance into my life.(like once before in my life). Thank you for being faithful to God!

  3. Hi Pastor Joe,

    I took on a church where this exact thing happened. The previous pastor left really quickly after promising to retire there. I have to say without discrediting or dishonouring him it probably wasn’t the best way to go. The church were left with a lot of questions and some were quite stunned by events. There were questions over vision and promises made. It has taken a little while to work through this situation without centering on it. A few years on and we are in a good place where what happened is in the past and not a present issue. Always good to think of those who will be effected by this course of action. Point number 10 is a key component in all of this. Family will always be watching even when we think we are hiding things from them. Blessings

  4. Love that last line! “Now, get up off the ground and get back into the ring, preacher. The worst thing they can do is kill you and all that does is send you to Heaven”

  5. I appreciate this so much along with all the comments. The big key is before you quit, take time to pray and seek God. I believe that over a period of time we develop a vision and conviction which direction we need to go. The decision to quit or stay does not come in a split second, but over a period of time, if we are truly seeking God. If over a period of time, you believe it is time to go, then you can move on in confidence. That is so much better than doing it in the heat of emotion.

  6. I might add this. If a discourage pastor has decided that he is no longer going to stay in a church with the systemic sicknesses in place, he should, once he has made his peace with that, not quit, but go ahead and do the things he lacked the courage (for fear of firing) or insight to do before. He should, in love and wisdom, go ahead and fight the hard battle. If he is fired… he was going to quit anyway. If he helps the church course-correct, well, he will have done a whole lot of good both for the church and himself.

    I guess I am saying, it seems like a “nothing to lose” situation, so seek God’s direction and go for it.

  7. How wonderful it is to get tested like this! People spit at you, some of them swear both you and your God. Others talk about you behind your back and yet others continue with snide remarks. Just a small sample of what our Lord had to endure and did He run away?
    It is the heart that matters and it is an honour to endure this testing in the name of our Lord. My habit is to “put the self away” daily and to continue regardless every day in the adventures that this life has to offer. If they tramp on me, they tramp on the Lord.
    Did He not say “behold I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions” Luke 10:19
    All that it takes is prayer and in the guidance of the Holy Spirit we are taught how to firstly overcome ourselves and then how to solve the problems that this life throws at us.
    If people see God in you they will either love you or attack you. It is our purpose to show them the God in themselves.
    Despondency is satans pillow and it should have no place in a Christians life.
    Amen.

  8. Dr. McKeever – So very well said, my friend. Although I am enjoying a wonderful season of ministry, I realize that many of our comrades in the faith are really hurting at this time. To that end, once again, I am confident that “Your words have stood men on their feet.” (Job 4:4). On a personal note, let me also thank you for the exceptional, anointed ministry which you are presenting this week at Smyrna First Baptist Church. My parents are thoroughly enjoying the services and they speak so highly of you indeed. As I mentioned in my earlier text, I am absolutely going to be compelled to offer you a job on my staff if I hear one more time how incredible your ministry is! 🙂 Grace and peace, my friend!

  9. Several years ago I was asked by the deacons to leave the church. Our young daughter was out of town visiting my older sister. Fortunately, she missed most of the ugliness that came forth from some of the members at this time. My wife and I shielded her from what had happened the best we could. Feb. 27th she will be commissioned as a career missionary in Africa. I have forgiven those who hurt me. I never fought back during the last month I was at that church. I agree with everything you have written and will copy it and give it to pastors who are tempted to resign abruptly.

    • Amen! I disagree with the article. I know a pastor who died 6 months after taking office from a heart attack. Church tried to revere him in death but it’s common knowledge that the church gave him much grief in those 6 months. His wife said, “the church killed him!”

      You have to do a case by case analysis. This wide sweep of rules is dangerous. Clergy suicide is on the rise. This is a dangerous article because it puts all the responsibility on the pastor’s behavior/response without requiring any transformation/repentance of the congregation. Also no mention of church discipline for the bullies.

      • Pastor Crews, this is one article of several thousand I have written. I’ve written so many times about church bullies and how to deal with them that I worry people will think I’ve gone to seed on that. It feels like you are rejecting the article not because of what it says, but all that you feel it should have said. It’s one little article. No one can do in one short piece what it would take a book to do. Anyway, thanks for your comment.

  10. Joe: All your suggestions are very good. Having been through some of the battles in church life my heart aches for the Pastors of today. In one church I was serving as Pastor there was a called meeting between the Deacons and Building Committee. It happened while I was attending the SBC in Florida. When I arrived home one person in the meeting came and drove me around and we talked. His statement was that in the meeting they had decided that I should leave the church. My reply was that I would let God direct me with his wisdom and determine when I should leave. Stayed almost a year. The Deacons later decided that there should be a called meeting to determine whether I should stay or go. My wife and I talked over the situation and decided to resign on Sunday. I resigned and stayed and finished VBS as we had already made a lot of preparation. In my letter of resignation I asked the church to look at their history. Going all the way back into the 1940’s the average length of stay for the Pastor was 18 months. “Why is that” I asked. I realize that sometimes churches do make bad decisions. Also there are ministers that do not measure up in belief and commitment. “Why would a Pastor want to leave the church”? “Go ahead with your meeting. But rather than voting on me talk about how you can work with the next Pastor. Talk about what you are willing to do to change so that a Pastor would not want to leave”. Overall, when I related some of the things that had happened and why I was resigning very few people knew the story above. Our family left on good terms and God provided for us. At the time we had two boys, a toddler and a baby. Tough situation and frightening. I completed three years. My succesor stayed almost 20 years. To Go be the Glory! I am still friends with the church.

  11. In a previous church, there was a couple who “bullied” the whole church. At one point, they came and said “we’ll leave this church and your offerings will bottom out”. I simply said “you need to do what you feel God is leading you to do.” They “dropped out”, but never officially left. Offerings doubled! (God has a sense of humor), and the opportunity came to minister to them in a crisis situation. After I treated them like God would treat them during that crisis situation, they came forward and shared their “sin” with the whole church, and fellowship was restored. Love again triumphed over sin. I learned that love is an action…and that God loves us ALL “in spite of ourselves”. As pastors, we should display that kind of love.

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