My last few months of Sundays as pastor were brutal. Nothing really happened out of the ordinary, just same churchy things as always.
But my head was in a bad place. I couldn’t pull myself out. I didn’t want to be at church. I didn’t want to preach. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I didn’t want to do anything except get it over with and go home.
I’d had depressing times before, but this one was to the core of my being. I couldn’t shake it. Tension built in me: how can I keep doing this job feeling like this? This can’t be right, man.
My plan for a number of years was to quit after our last kid graduated high school. That happens, Lord willing, in a couple months.
Perhaps it was being so close to the end? Seniors in high school get Senioritis. They’re so close to being done with school, yet they have to go through the motions until graduation day. Maybe I caught it from my son?
There was angst all around this past year, much of which made being a pastor more difficult. Listening to church members fixate on politics and passive-aggressively attack each other on Facebook posts. People freaking about viruses and how the church was to respond, which alienated someone all the time no matter what. There was a massive family issue going on in my extended family that drew my attention elsewhere.
In other words, there was a lot of troubling things on my plate. Maybe it was just overwhelming to my system.
All I knew is that Sundays is where it all culminated and beat me into the ground. Saturday nights were just dread. Sunday mornings, I couldn’t even pray. I didn’t even want to think about church. Just let me go and get it done with. Then I’d spend all afternoon fighting anger and inevitably end up sobbing at some point.
Man, I was a mess.
Well, I gotta tell ya. Sundays are way better now!
I’ve been going to church. I don’t have to do anything at a church for the first time in 21 years. I don’t have to worry about who isn’t there, or why, or who will be mad next. I don’t have to have regrets all afternoon and evening about how I messed up my sermon.
It’s just gone. It’s all gone! And it is delightful!
Now, I will admit, it’s hard to sit and not have a say. I can’t help but let my mind wander into what I would preach about this passage, or how I’d have said that point better, or criticize the application.
But the upside far outweighs the downside. Sundays are fantastic. I get edified. I talk to people who simply are talking to me not some mental image of “pastor.” I can relax and actually think about my spiritual health and not fixate on all the screwed up people in front of me.
Ahhhhh.
It’s a beautiful thing. Not sure how long it will last. I feel the pull already to get involved, which is good, probably. But right now, I’m pretty happy with Sundays.
Failing Pastor 