When May arrived, the church did hire interns as the pastor promised. They hired one for the children’s ministry and one for the youth ministry. This was a welcome thing; I needed the help so badly. The catch with my intern was that she was a high school student and couldn’t start until the end of May.
The pastor wanted this program to begin on May 15th and run through August 14th; we would call it Summer Nights. As I’m typing this, I feel my blood boil again. That’s a 14-week program, from scratch, every Wednesday night on top of everything else that had already been planned for the summer. The only break would be the week of VBS and the week of camp, and those really can’t be considered a break. It was a bitter pill to swallow.
The pastor said that since my intern couldn’t help until mid-May, he would help me with the first two weeks.
Thankfully a sweet lady offered to help plan the program for the Pre-K department. Once it was planned, she handled many of those responsibilities. I talked my friends into helping me with the kindergarten through the 6th-grade program. Unfortunately, it was almost impossible to find extra help in the summer. The parents just wanted a break. And several parents were already signed up to help with camps and VBS before this summer program came into existence. I didn’t want to ask them to do more.
The first week we did a massive scavenger hunt. The pastor helped me write the clues and set up some obstacles. But he also planned a mission trip meeting that night, which he had to attend. The church was planning a mission trip in June of that year, and this meeting was very important. My son would be going on the mission trip; I would love to have gone on this mission trip, but there was no way my schedule would allow me to go. This meeting was important, so on the first night he promised to help, he didn’t exactly help as he promised.
We made colossal slip and slides for the pre-k and the older kids the second week. The pastor would also be helping with this summer night. The slip and slide project was quite the undertaking.
It required large rolls of plastic, water hoses, baby oil, sprinklers… We spread it out over two of the church’s grassy areas—one area for the younger kids and one for the older ones. In the pre-k area, there were some “stickers’ in the grass. We didn’t want the kids to hurt their feet, so when we were trying to figure out what we could do, the pastor and I remembered these rolls of rubber rug-type mats that had been used for years to cover the carpets in the fellowship hall. They were big, heavy, and several feet long, but they were perfect for what we needed.
The pastor and I went to the gym to gather these black mats.
I wasn’t supposed to lift over 10 pounds because of my previous back surgeries, and these rugs weighed quite a bit more. So, the pastor loaded them on a rolling cart and took them over to the grassy area.
I know this sounds like a strange thing to spend so much time describing, but one short month from this “slip and slide night,” these black mats would play a significant role in my quitting.
The parents chipped in when the night was over to help us clean up the mess. But unfortunately, the black mats were wet and couldn’t be put back in the church closet, so we laid them out to dry in the yard to be put up later.
The rest of May was crazy.
My intern arrived. The youth intern ended up helping with the children’s ministry more than the youth. All three of us worked around the clock to get things done. Even with all three of us working, we still couldn’t get ahead.
Our Summer Night program included:
- A scavenger hunt.
- A slip and slide night.
- A sonic night.
- A game night.
- A painting night.
- A swimming night.
- A bounce house night.
There were several more…
Go big or go home, right? Looking back, I should’ve gone home.
Planning a VBS with over 100 workers and 200 kids is a huge undertaking.
Planning a Day Camp for 25 first and second graders is a considerable undertaking.
Taking 50 kids to a camp in another state is a huge undertaking.
All of those things are a lot to plan, but those three things within a few months plus a Wednesday night program each week is an insane amount to keep up with.
We met ourselves coming and going.
We still had staff meetings every Monday morning. We were all pitching in to help with the mission trip. We were studying a new leadership book. The book was called “Simple Church” though nothing we were doing was simple, we were still without a music minister… we were just busy.
My family took a quick vacation to a nearby theme park at the end of May. The pastor and his family joined us, and we had a great time. I remember being so concerned that the pastor needed a break. We made him promise that while on the trip, he wouldn’t work. We were worried about how busy he was. But, I remember spending much of my time working on the Day Camp for the next month on that same trip.
Looking back, I realize how much time I spent worrying about the pastor and his well-being. I’m not sure why I took so much of that burden upon myself. By May 2019, I was the only “original” staff member left. I felt a responsibility, for some reason, to make sure the pastor was happy. I hated seeing him upset. He struggled with his moods being up and down. Some days he had lots of energy and was ready to take on the world. On other days he constantly worried about keeping certain people happy. His inconsistencies continued to take a toll on everyone in the office. We would spend days and sometimes weeks planning to take the church ministries in one direction. Then soon after, we would change directions or even abandon the idea entirely at a moment’s notice. As his moods fluctuated, so did his ideas, plans, and motivation. It was exhausting, especially on a mental level. I’ll give a few examples:
- Pretty soon after the pastor arrived at Tree Town Baptist, he decided that what the church needed more than anything was new signage and an updated exterior with new lights and outdoor signage as well. This was our number one priority. It’s all we talked about. The pastor formed a “team” to oversee these ideas, and we met several times. The staff was required to attend these weekday evening meetings on top of everything else. That sign planning “team” was abandoned, and the meetings stopped without warning or explanation. Several months later, he would put together a different team to do the same thing. The first team’s ideas and time spent working on those ideas were tossed aside and forgotten. The church finally added new signage long after we were gone. I have no idea how the project ended.
- There was an architect rendering with new office space, updated foyer, new bathrooms, new office entrance… That was a hot topic for a very long time. Every week there was a new idea. At one point, my already tiny office was going to be moved to a windowless closet. I was none too happy about that idea.
- There was a steeple or no steeple idea that changed daily.
- There was an online training that we purchased at one point. We all had to learn how to use it and create training for our Sunday School teachers. I’ll talk about that one more later. That idea was quickly abandoned, but not before we spent weeks learning how to use it.
- There was an app designed specifically for churches that we spent months learning to use as a staff; we even had an all-day training with the “expert.” We were supposed to do everything through this app… Sunday School roll, membership information, addresses, phone numbers, messaging, announcements… It was going to be the absolute best thing. Unfortunately, it was hard to learn, use, and not a great program. When we left the church, that idea had also been abandoned.
- For the first few months he was there, he made a big deal about giving a live Facebook update every Monday morning from his office. That didn’t last long at all either.
Have you ever heard the term “just throw some things against the wall and see what sticks?” That was what we did. I want to be clear… trying new ideas isn’t a bad thing… but changing things almost constantly is not an excellent way to manage a staff. We would almost get accustomed to one thing, to start something new soon thereafter. We would follow everything that whatever leadership book we were studying suggested. So in the two years, I worked for this pastor, we were a “Welcoming Church,” a “Disney Magic” church. When we left, we were striving to be a “Simple Church,”… and we were failing miserably.
These are just a few things we experienced with him changing his mind. I can’t even begin to list them all, and not one of them is necessarily bad. And trying new things isn’t bad either. But you lose confidence in a leader who can’t ever make up his mind. And you learn to dread the next “new idea.”
May of 2019 was crazy, and June looked just as busy. I was running on fumes. I could feel it, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. I had to keep moving. I had to perform with excellence. I had no idea what was coming…
Until Next Time,