When Should a Pastor Quit?

My church gives me many reasons to quit. I don’t want to list them; it will just make me depressed and sound whiny. Just trust me; it does.

I have thought about quitting many times. Ask my wife, and she’s only heard a tiny fraction of them.

Many times the quitting-feeling is just self-pity. Things didn’t go as well as I wanted them too, that one person is doing “their thing” again, no one showed up again, another board member is acting weird again, and stuff like that. I get over these fairly quickly.

But there have been some dark times, times where all point and motivation were completely gone. I phoned it in for a while. No one noticed because no one was there, which didn’t help.

I once asked a pastor who makes a partial living telling other pastors how to be a pastor, when a pastor should admit defeat and move on.

“After five years is the standard principle,” was his answer. My mouth dropped.

“Five years? Wow, I could have quit my church four times!”

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The Top Four Times a Pastor Wants a Bigger Church

Humans measure success by numbers. People clamor for more followers, more subscribers, more attention, more money, more buildings. Success is measured numerically.

All pastors feel pressure to get higher numbers: More attenders, more members, more baptisms, more conversions, more money, more buildings, more programs, etc. More, more, more.

Unfortunately (although this is actually fortunate), spiritual success cannot be measured numerically. The Pharisees sought justification in the sight of people. Their success was known because it was seen. Jesus thought they were the least righteous people He ever met.

God judges success completely differently than we do.

Which leads me to my point: why do you want a bigger church? I am the pastor of a small church. Many would be shocked by how small I mean “small“ to be. I have come to notice that there are specific times I want a bigger church.

1. When a visitor comes.
Why is it that whenever a visitor comes, or an out of town family member of a person at church visits, no one else shows up? Why is the lowest attended service the one new people come to? This happens especially when I have an out of town visitor or family member of my own come! People pick that day to skip. How humiliating.

2. When I talk to other pastors.
Pastors, who should all be on the same team, love comparing our successes. As Paul would warn, “they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.” Pastors, who should feel the most sensitive about pastoral depression, are one of the leading groups of people who make me feel terrible about myself and my church. Pastor conferences, books, blogs, podcasts, eventually all slip into the mentality that the only time God is present or blessing a place is when it is growing.

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3 Things This Pastor Never Says

In my twenty years of being a pastor, there are three things I’ve learned not to say.

1) “I’m busy.”
I hate these words. I hear these words so often, there’s no way I can possibly say them to another human being. No one is ever available for anything because they are “busy.” I later find out ”busy” meant doing something they thought was more fun, which is just about anything other than doing something associated with church

I also don’t say “I’m busy” because I’m not. I can make time for pretty much anything I want to do. I have gotten more used to simply saying “no” to things, rather than giving stupid excuses. I attempt to never give excuses. If I forgot to do something, I will say, “Oh, I’m sorry.” Rather than “Oh I didn’t do that because I was so busy.” Constantly getting blown off by people because they are “busy” makes a guy feel like a pile of mud. I don’t want to do that to other people.

I am also the pastor. If I tell people in my church I am too busy for them, that sort of defeats the purpose of my job. If the church keeps you too busy to be with the people in the church, things need to change. It also sounds like I’m complaining about my job, blaming the church for my busy-ness. That’s not a good look

2) “You’re saved.”
People want the assurance of salvation. The Bible pretty much says you will have the assurance of salvation to the degree your life is changed, new, becoming like Christ. 1 John hits the point pretty clearly. Seeing sin decline in your life is a great sign you’re saved. If you tell that to people, they will charge you with being legalistic and promoting works righteousness. People do not want to hear this.

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Top Three Pastor Insults

Insulting pastors is a good source of entertainment for many. The amazing thing is how many feel the need to actually stand in front of the pastor to level the insults. The brazenness of it all is amazing.

There’s a person in my church who has sworn at me and called me more names than anyone else on the planet. It’s unreal. There’s something about being a pastor that causes people to have to go overboard with disagreements, to just blast you in the face. I wonder if it’s an attempt to see if they can get a sinful reaction out of me? I don’t know. Perhaps car mechanics and plumbers deal with the same stuff. I believe they probably do, I just wonder if they get the same frequency.

I’ve never sworn at a mechanic or a plumber or another employee of anywhere. I was a janitor for years and was frequently complained about, but never to my face, it was always to my boss. This pastor gig has opened my eyes to the hostility residing in many people.

Of all the insults I’ve gotten about being a pastor, there are a couple areas that seem to show up most frequently. Here they are and my responses to them.

1) Lack of work

“You only work one day a week”

“What else to you do for a living?”

“This isn’t your real job is it?”

“What do you do all week?”

I’ve gotten this one a lot. In some cases I can’t blame the question. What do I do all week? There are weeks I wonder the same thing. There’s no product produced, there’s no tangible proof that I did anything, so in some ways I have the same question!

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How to Destroy Your Church in Less than a Month

Just so you know, I speak from experience.

There was a time when my church did well. One Sunday we had to bring out more chairs there were so many people. That was cool.

Except the entire time my church was “doing well” and I preached to filled chairs, I felt completely compromised and miserable. I was preaching a party line and had actually no idea what I was talking about.

I began reading the Bible obsessively. I saw things I never saw before. I began preaching those things. People began to leave slowly. But there was one thing I did which completely pulled the rug out from under everything and the church has not yet recovered. And, just so you know, this was ten years ago now.

If you’d like to know how I ruined my church in one month, or would like to try it yourself (it was exciting), here’s how you do it.

1) Identify your church’s pet program. This is the thing your church is most proud of, what it brags about most. This is the thing that takes up people’s time and money and energy. For us it was a youth group. Our youth group was almost twice the size of our church.

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The Pastor and Sin

Pastors sin. This may shock some and be unbelievably obvious to others. I don’t know. People are weird when it comes to pastors.

Perhaps I should more accurately say, “This pastor sins.” Perhaps there are some pastors out there who don’t. I don’t know every single pastor in the world. Perhaps there are some. In fact, maybe I’m in the minority.

The way many pastors act and talk, they certainly want you to believe they don’t sin. They preach in such a way that everyone knows the preacher is high above them in spiritual stature. They give the impression that sin is something you little people deal with.

There are also people who hold pastors on a pedestal and can’t imagine a pastor ever doing anything wrong, and, if a pastor does sin, they should resign immediately. God forbid they catch you sinning. There are many church attenders who feel it is their duty to keep the pastor judged and potentially fired.

Although I risk starting a fight, I really don’t get the pastors who use the title “Reverend.” I could never use such a title. Reverend literally means “one deserving of reverence.” Reverence means “worthy of awe and respect.”

Now, I do think a pastor should behave in a way that produces respect, and I don’t mind if people respect a pastor, but to have the nerve to call yourself worthy of respect? That takes balls right there.

I said “balls.” There are some who would take that as a sin. I have just shot to pieces my statement earlier that pastors should act in a way that produces respect.

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Should Pastors do Altar Calls?

There’s no need to ask em, by the time I’m done preaching, every head is bowed and every eye is closed.
@FailingPastor

I have never done an altar call.

I have no problem with other people doing altar calls. I’m not one of those guys who feels a need to mercilessly mock people who do evangelism differently than I do. Do what you need to do before the Lord with a pure conscience.

I have seen altar calls done very poorly, but also quite nicely.

One of the worst I saw was at a junior high camp chapel service. Summer heat had raised the temperature of the chapel to approximately 174 degrees. The junior highers were hot, restless, and choking on sweaty sock stench.

The evangelist concluded his message with an altar call that went something like this:

“If any of you would like to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior tonight, you can go outside where it’s cooler and meet with some counselors. They have cookies and juice available as well, so you can take your time and really talk things over.”

The Holy Spirit fell on this group of kids. There was no rushing mighty wind (except the normal rushing mighty wind associated with junior high boys) or tongues of flame, but so sue me if 90% of that group of kids didn’t run out the doors to get saved.

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