Transitions: From Pastor to Waiter

Great blog. I read it to my wife as we were eating breakfast. We went thru something similar when we were first married. I found myself an associate pastor under a man who had many indescrepencies in ministry (which I will not qualify here). That to say, we felt we could no longer serve in a situation where integrity was at stake.

Unfortunately,we had no place to go and were stuck in a lease, held captive in the city we served. My wife got a job working at Taco Bell. I got a job working at Hardees. I went in at 4 am my first day of work, only to be told that the guy I was replacing had decided to stay. I went right back to our humble apartment, defeated.

My wife knows the humiliation of serving tacos to teens and adults alike, who would all ask, “What are you doing HERE?” I ended up subbing at the local High School, where word spread quickly as to why (or why not) I was there. The pastor would continue to misrepresent the truth. People would stop us at Walmart and around town and ask why we left. Our answer… “Ministerial differences”.

We too, learned these same lessons. We were defeated. We needed love, badly. We needed to know God cared at all. My wife would come home crying fro the shame of suspicion and bruised from working the window at the drive-thru (she’s a small lady), covered in taco sauce and trash (from the parking lot). At home, we had food left from care packages given us at our wedding. We ate saltine crackers and tuna for meals and saltines and fudge icing for dessert. (I lost alot of weight… a side benefit.) We were hungry, in more ways than one.

The second lesson learned, aside from humility, is just as you said, empathy. There is a world of hurt out there. Some self-inflicted and some not. We have always respected people who have risen out of the mire of defeat and remembered from whence they came. Truth is, we can all end up there again. We must be kind to one another. (I was even amazed at the lack of empathy shown by pastor friends of ours. No position meant very little camaraderie amongst my ministerial peers.) I have a real heart for pastors who have fallen or dumped to the wayside (perhaps this is where that comes from.)

We too, saw God’s provision. We did have pastor friends who did care! We would receive in the mail $100 here and $50 dollars there, all in the nick of time. Some would have me come preach (mainly to have an excuse to give us money to help out in this difficult 9 month period of time.) Our first Christmas married we used gift cards from our wedding to buy each other a gift. Our other gifts were given us by pastor friends who had wanted us to give to each other without the other knowing what they had done (it wasn’t too hard to figure that one out. lol!). We contiued to tithe off of everything received and God continued to bless. It was truly amazing!

We learned a lot. We never want to go back to that again. We wouldn’t trade that experience for anything (it helped to make us who we are today). We still hope to never be at that place again (it did hurt, after all). But, God was definitely working something IN us, as you say. As our Savior once said, “Not My Will, but Yours be done!” Easier said than done.

yes.. yes. Yes.

People thought I was crazy when I left a job to go clean houses. (I was one of those people actually that thought I was crazy.) I could go on for days about this blog and my ability to relate so closely.

Instead though, I will just say this is a powerful series/project God has put on your hearts. Thanks for being obedient and transparent with your story, that’s the most precious kind of passion for His kingdom and testimony of His goodness.

- Krissy

Wow! Thank you for sharing your intimate story with us. This is the stuff that truly transforms our lives.

For me, I was a full-time pastor for 17 years. And I had allowed it to kill my soul. As a husband and a father, I had become the man I promised never to become.

My eight-year old daughter found my on the couch one night, watching TV (as I was prone to do every night). She looked at me and said, “Daddy. Why are you always angry or tired?”

My kids knew it. My wife knew it. And finally, I knew it. The next morning, I resigned from my church, vowing never to work for any church again.

So in February of 2005, I found myself with no job, the single salary of my wife (a teacher), and a complete identity crisis. I had been a pastor for 17 years. And now, if I was no longer a pastor, who was I? Through an emotional and unintended journey, I discovered me.

I discovered that I love being a dad, and that I had a lot of making up to do. I discovered that I’m a risk-taker, and an entrepreneur. I discovered that I love to preach, but with media, not spoken words. I discovered that I needed to reacquaint myself with God’s grace, and that I needed to model, and live into a Kingdom-grace in all of my relationships with people. And finally, I discovered that I was a terrible employee, and that I needed to lead within a team of people who trust me, and I them.

I founded a media company, and it’s been the truest calling I’ve ever experienced in my life.

The most important lesson I’ve learned in this transition is a difficult one. For me, I am shaped by His hand the most when I beautifully, and painfully, give up. The day I gave up, life began.

I read this and thought of my leaders here at my work. As I read about you waiting tables, I thought of my leaders and how they are consistently gracious towards people in our community – whether the people are servers, or delivery people, or tellers…and they are teaching our congregation to be gracious too through their example. Thanks Justin for reminding me of the great hearts of the leaders I serve… I know that was totally not the intention of your post, but that’s how God used it

It wasn’t so much a vocational situation that lead me into transformation – it was giving birth to our son. I went through a horrendous depression after he was born, and in coming off the medication cold turkey 8 months of taking them (they quit working), I found myself more depressed (and angry than ever) – and it was affecting my marriage, and my new relationship with our son. It lead me to a Christ-centered recovery group (Celebrate Recovery), and through the program I learned where God needed me to be – helping others find the same healing I was finding [in Christ]. I am now an online student at Liberty Univ. for Christian Counseling – and will be done in a year and a half.

So God took a horrendous moment in my life, and granted me insight where I need to be next for Him. Will it be as an actual Christian Counselor? Perhaps…but maybe not. I just know I am on the path He set me out on – and it took a huge depression to get me going on it. So I know the feeling of transition – because before the birth of our son, I had no idea it would wind me up here.

Thank you for sharing your story. It is a a great reminder of the grace of such a loving, awesome God!

Excellent post, Justin. As you know, I too walked through learning these lessons throughout the last year. When started as one of the most painful and humbling experiences ended up rewiring my heart and saving my life. I often say that God used Starbucks as an operating room to perform open-heart surgery on me. I’m so thankful for that season because it showed me who I really was and taught me how to detach myself from who I thought I was.

Thanks J.D. for sharing your heart – my hope is your story will help others about to make the same choice. Blessings to you on ministry and keep on making a difference!

THIS is something that scares me so much i can’t even breathe. i can’t even put words to it. i only have tears.

Justin and Trisha,
My wife and I can really relate to what you are experiencing. My wife had to endure most of the brunt of our lives in ministry, as I didn’t make it easy with poor choices early on.

We were church planters and pastors for nearly 15 years. We had planted and handed off two plants then moved (AGAIN) to another city to begin a third after hearing a clear calling to move forward. However, after following God’s direction, I took a position as pastor of a large exising church. I have never been fond of “mega” churches but felt God leading to begin a new work from where He placed me. I pastored there for years, and when it came time to launch the plant, the board decided that due to the economic downturn, it wouldn’t be wise to launch at the time (even though they were in the middle of a multi-million dollar building campaign). The tough part of this was that I really wrestled with what God had planned for us in this. We were obedient, faithful and risking everything to follow His call, so why didn’t He show up? I went through a pretty dark time after this spiritually, and while I didn’t think God owed us anything, I did expect Him to be central after laying our lives down for nearly 15 years!
In the end I had to pick myself up and find employment to take care of my family. I worked several sales jobs, since that’s what I knew after “selling” the gospel for so many years. I experienced great success at times, and had the floor drop out from under us as well. Most recently, the company I was VP of Sales for decided I was bringing on too many clients and just didn’t want to grow anymore (the owner just chose to keep the exisitng accounts and rest easy a bit) so after having great success in this company which wasseemed to be God’s gift (as it was a “Christian” company) I was layed off out of the blue!
I am currently unemployed and finding nothing out there, our savings are gone due to another move to be closer to friends and what would work better for this sales job, and once again left with the question, “Okay, so WHERE ARE YOU GOD??”
I have learned many lessons over the years (especially humility) and frankly we are tired of being the family who struggles yet remains faithful. It may be hard to understand but I am really tired of even being “prayed for” if that makes sense.
So, we relate, but have no real advice to give. The truth is we are all on our own road adn sometimes it’s very dark and others it’s full of joy and life can’t seem to get any better! When we’re in the dark on things, we have no other option but to keep the faith and keep going. This was perhaps the best lesson I learned from everything, by the way. there were days when I had screaming matched with God. I’ve whined, yelled and even cussed Him out many times (a terrible thing but I figure He’s big enough to handle it and more than anything He wants us to be honest with Him). Anyway, at the end of the day I couldn’t completely turn my back on Jesus- adn I tried beleive me. I really related to what the disciples told Him after a difficult teaching he gave to the masses where many left Him (He was talking about eating His flesh!). When many had left Him, Jesus asked His friends, “What about you, will you leave also?” They replied, “Where else could we go? You alone hold the words of Life”.
So ministry may suck, our mistaked may hunt us down and cause severe consequences and our wives may struggle with lack of trust in us, our decisions and our devotion to them- and really those are pretty good questions, aren’t they? But in the end, where else are we going to go? Who else will we turn to? When life sucks, and sucks bad, life with Jesus is still better than life without Him! And, I think walking with Him even if we’re pissed at Him is better than walking away from Him. Jesus is big enough, He can handle it. Our only choice is to keep going and see where He leads- it may be to the homeless shelter, but would we be any better off without Him, and did He promise comfort?
Sometimes, the words I have said in the past come back to haunt me. I remember praying earnestly before our first plant that I was willing to give it my all, to “spill my blood” in this direction if that is what He was asking, and as long as He lead the way. I didn’t think completely through the consequences those words would have on my wife and daughters, and He doesn’t owe me a thing. I’ll walk anyway.
Give me a shout if you would like to talk. Grace and Peace to you and your family.
-Jon