I was in the ministry full time from my early twenties leaving Bible School through to the age of 30 before having a dramatic and sudden departure from the ministry. At the time I didn’t think it but looking back I can say that leaving the ministry saved me! Here is my story…
In my twenties I discovered I had a gift for preaching and that gift took me all over the world to many different cultures and church groups. I loved preaching and I loved the ministry. I never imagined doing anything else in my life. I was young, idealistic and thought I knew everything! The gift of preaching opened so many doors and I was able to speak to large groups of people. However, as I started to move into my mid twenties the internal conflicts of growing up as a man started to build up within and the temptations of life started to move center stage.
Looking back (I am now 44) it was at some point coming out of my mid twenties that slowly I gave way to temptation and I started to live a double life. However I didn’t know how to do anything else but preach. Some pastors that I confided in were also in a similar predicament to me and we weren’t really much help to each other outside of propping up each others failures. The tearing that took place within from leading a life of double standards eventually brought about a decision point. I recall the day that I woke up and was due to preach to a large crowd of people at a leadership gathering in South East Asia. Something snapped inside me that morning and I said to myself this is the last time I will ever preach and I am quitting that day. I was 30 years old. I remember going to the auditorium and I preaching what I considered to be a good message. After the meeting I left the stage and that was it, I quit. I had left the ministry. I had left preaching. I left the very thing that I felt that I was born to do and there was nothing else that could replace it.
The day I quit the ministry it was like a volcanic eruption in my life. Suddenly I didn’t have to please anyone, be accountable to anyone, it was my life and I could choose how to live it. To be brutally honest I went to the extreme for a number of years of what I thought was “catching up” on everything that I had missed out in life. Church, the ministry, God…all began to be a faded memory. I was like a man on fire for a number of years. I couldn’t even go back to a church and I wanted no connection with the past whatsoever.
Whilst I could go on for hours about this period of my life it is not relevant. What I can say is that raging fires do calm down eventually! And it took words of a friend to get me thinking about my life. It was time to accept that my life didn’t stop the day I quit the ministry. It was time to accept that my life still had a future and a plan despite leaving the ministry. It was this point where I started to rebuild my life.
I am now 44 and married to a beautiful wife. The failures of my life have been many. I have stood in the valley of complete gloom and despair but I have risen out of the darkness and felt the warmth of the sun again. I have become an entrepreneur and have started some amazing businesses and stand now on the verge of taking a company that I founded to the stock exchange. I found God again in the period of time leading up to getting married. However it was a totally new experience unlike what I previously experienced. It was a strange feeling going back to church and a few old feelings stirred inside me. When the pastor discovered I used to be a preacher he asked me one Sunday to preach. I did so reluctantly. To be completely honest I didn’t enjoy it at all. I left the stage that day satisfied and happy in the knowledge that this part of my life was behind me. I was happy and satisfied in the new life that I had discovered.
Looking back I can honestly say that leaving the ministry saved me. The other thing I discovered about myself was that I was far more talented than I realized if I must say so myself. The day I left the ministry I thought life had ended but there were skills and abilities that I had learned that were unconscious to me at the time that emerged within me in carving out a new life.
I am here to say that there is life after ministry.
Sandra Anderson
Thank you so much for sharing your open-hearted story. I definitely resonate with parts of it. No kidding that a Bible school background and a little encouragement can launch a person down a path that may not be his or her true purpose on the earth. That path may hold a person back from discovering the work God created him or her to do for years, as it could appear that there are no alternatives to preaching. As you discovered, to your satisfaction, you were equipped with several more capabilities to thrive and lavish contribution on others. If you want to write more of your process, I invite you to connect with me at my coaching address, sandy at re-visionyou dot com. I would enjoy sharing my plans for coaching ex-anyone to their next steps and would appreciate your input
Aidan Bishop
I believed that ‘ministry’ was the true purpose for my life at the time. Upon reflection it may well have been the purpose for my life at that particular time. However I have come to consider that the overall purpose of life is not so much about a vocation, a job or a ministry. Therefore no matter what mistakes and failures we have there is always a new path ahead within the overall purpose of our lives and that path can take on many forms. God bless always.
john david
Well put, my brother! “Woulda “shoulda” “coulda ” has destroyed many a person. If not debilitating, then discouraging; to sit on the shelf and waste our today, worrying and fretting over our yesterday(s). Recently I heard Clint Hurdle, the manager of my Pittsburgh Pirates, tell a questioner, ” Any time spent on negative time is wasted time”. I’ve often wondered how Paul , prior to conversion, persecuted the church….and probably was responsible for the deaths of the Christians. Now, as a minister, how did he get over HIS past. And yet he did. Paul was able to settle his past and place the emphasis on today and the hope of tomorrow. We’re encouraged to do the same.
john david
Thank you for your candor and openness. I am sure there is MUCH between the lines. I am happy that you re-connected with the Lord. Trusting that you will use your discovered gifts in the local assembly as well. I am sure you can be an invaluable help to the pastor….especially as a confidant, if he will allow it….Blessings…as we move onward!!
Aidan Bishop
Thank you
Pastor Al
I have been in ministry in 3 denominations for over 53 years. I have had many conflicts and times when I was ready to quit. After spending time alone with God I concluded God’s calls are not “Temp Help”. If I were to leave the ministry I would be telling those that I have ministered too all these years including the children that have dedicated themselves to the Lord (including my son) that our God sometimes says “OOPS”.
Should I come tot that conclusion, I pray God would give me the courage to face people saying: “I wasn’t called but made the decision for other reasons. I have tried to live the life in the flesh but it hasn’t worked. I will still love God and serve Him in other capacities but God never called me to be a preacher”.
Please understand this is how, I believe, I would approach it. Has nothing to do with how you did.
mike077
I believe that it is also possible to say, “I was in full-time ministry for THAT TIME in my life and it is now past.” Further, I don’t think that full-time ministry is the only way to be in effective ministry. I am in full-time ministry now, but had very fruitful ministry as a lay person. Frankly, every Christian is “in ministry,” it just depends where.
Hector
I started ministry when I was about 25 years old, I was really happy and enthusiastic about, not any more, I am 58 years old and I am tired and sometimes I wish I could retire and do somthing else but what could I do? I don’t have any kind of college degree, not even in a degree in theology. I got saved when I was 21 years old in a small Pentecostal church that was really on fire for God and I got really involved in ministry for the church. At age 25 I decided to leave my job as a welder and bought myself a small tent and went out into the world as a tent evangelist. We moved back to my hometown in Texas and had several tent revivals with my family, brothers and sisters as my supporters. After a couple of years in the tent I decided to start a church in my hometown with my family as my first members. I was able to start the church and also I was able to buy a small radio station and with the radio I was able to start several other churches. It’s been now almost 30 years of ministry, I have enjoyed it for the most part but my problems started back in 2007 after the economy collapsed. I had bought several buildings to convert to churches and I was doing great, but after the collapsing of the economy it all changed. It’s been really hard to keep up and I have suffered to much pressure. Sometimes I feel that God is against me.
Rdaville
This gave me an interesting view on life after pastoring. I pastored for about 8 years, and decided to stop to focus on my life. After getting a divorce I continued ministry for about two years and though ministry was good and fun, I always felt like I needed to focus on me. Building myself up or just living a normal life without high standards or pressure. Once I left pastoring I instantly felt releaved of having to be the perfect high standard, doesn’t make a mistake kind of person. Keep in mind I started pastoring at 18 years old. I’ve enjoyed my non pastoring and now I have a great girl friend wife potential. My struggle is trying not to impose a high standard and expectation on the relationship as if I was still pastoring. I want to get away from expectation. She loves God and though she’s not a super fanatic Christian that should be enough. So I pray I can live a normal life with God and still be able to do the normal things people do (go out etc…) without being judged or looked upon. This article was good because it helped me see there’s a normal life after pastoring. Thank you.