Home Pastors Articles for Pastors The Conversation That Saved My Ministry

The Conversation That Saved My Ministry

It was a recipe for disaster. Not only was my environment very difficult to minister into, but my immaturity was being exposed all over the place. When difficulty and immaturity collide, there’s always going to be some kind of carnage that results.

It wasn’t long before I started to experience opposition, both from outside the church and regular criticism from within. It seemed mean and disrespectful to me at the time. After all, I had moved my family to this hard place, I was working very hard every day for long hours, and I was doing my best to use the gifts that God had given me. “Give me a break!” I thought. But looking back, much of their criticism was valid.

THE CONVERSATION THAT MADE ME WANT TO END IT

One Sunday evening, a man in our little church called and asked if we could get together to talk. Dinner-time was the only availability I had the following day, so my wife, Luella, prepared a meal for us up in my third floor office.

Going into the meeting, I was expecting this man to tell me how convicted he was by my sermon and how he needed some counsel as a result. But it became very clear that he didn’t want to talk about my sermon, or himself; no, he wanted to talk about me. Neither one of us touched our meals.

He started by criticizing the way I preached and ended up criticizing everything about me. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! Then, he asked if I would follow him to his house because his wife wanted to talk to me as well. When I arrived, she did the same thing her husband had done, for what seemed like an eternity. To cap it all off, they told me that many other people in our little church felt the same way they did.

That night as I drove back home, I didn’t just want to quit pastoral ministry—I wanted to die. I felt exposed, judged and condemned, and I didn’t know how I could go on if people felt this way about me. How could I offer them pastoral counsel? How could I stand before them and preach? How could I ask them to trust and follow my leadership? How could I encourage them to invite others to join us as well?

The call to pastor in Scranton that I had so joyfully accepted now seemed impossible. The people that I thought loved and supported me now seemed like a gathering of critics. I was a broken pastor and I didn’t know how to go on.

The next few weeks felt as if I was slogging through deep mud in complete darkness with no destination in sight. I went through the pastoral motions, but my heart had left Scranton. The only way I made it through each week was to fantasize about ministry opportunities in other locations.

In my mind, I would rise to the throne as sovereign and create an ideal pastoral scenario, with a church community that loved me and my preaching and experienced plenty of ministry success. These fantasies were the only pleasure I found in those dark weeks; it was like spiritual masturbation. The only problem was that I would wake up again to the reality of opposition outside and criticism inside, and the despondency would quickly wash over me again.

I finally resolved that my only escape would be to quit. I had an education degree, and I had helped found a school, so I began to look for opportunities in the field of Christian education. No one knew that I was doing this—not the congregation, not my fellow leaders and not even my wife.

It was all fantasy at first, but before long, I wanted to experience that fantasy first hand. I found a great job in California and began to make initial contact. I went first to Luella, and then to my leaders and told them that I just couldn’t pastor in Scranton anymore; I was going to quit. Luella simply counseled me not to do anything until I was sure, and my leaders begged me not to leave. But I was ready to leave; I had no willpower or strength to continue. I couldn’t imagine any scenario where staying would work for out me or for the congregation. It seemed that they didn’t trust me anymore, and I was surely having trouble trusting them.

I finally told the leadership that I was done and that I wanted to schedule a Sunday to announce my resignation. I couldn’t wait to get the burden of Scranton off my shoulders and move to what seemed to be so much better.

THE CONVERSATION THAT SAVED MY MINISTRY

The Sunday of my resignation came, and at the end of the service with two leaders standing with me, I made my announcement. The small congregation that gathered that infamous morning was shocked and surprised.

I remained up front after the service and talked with person after person who was saddened by my departure. “Even critics can be nice at times,” I thought. But their sadness didn’t move me at all. When the group finally melted away, I was still committed to leave. There was no one left in the little building we were renting, so I went to lock the front porch.

1
2
3
Previous articleHope in the Midst of Infertility
Next articleHow to Disciple Millennials
Paul David Tripp is a pastor, author, and international conference speaker. He is the president of Paul Tripp Ministries and works to connect the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life. This vision has led Paul to write many books on Christian living and travel around the world speaking and teaching. Paul's driving passion is to help people understand how the gospel of Jesus Christ speaks with practical hope into all the things people face in this broken world. Paul and his wife Luella reside Philadelphia. They are the parents of four grown children.