I left the pastor’s office after telling him I was resigning and headed to my office. I thought I just might sit in my office alone and cry while everyone else was gone. But, I decided that wasn’t a good idea and instead called my friend who lived next to the church and asked her to go to lunch with me.
It was a good decision.
She was such a good friend; she listened and encouraged me.
I still have a picture on my phone from that day of her posing beside her vehicle. Her husband had changed her flat tire, and she was laughing at the ugly tire he had used to replace the old one. It occasionally shows up in the memories my iPhone creates for me. That’s something people don’t talk about much. What do you do with all those memories? What do you do with them when they pop up in your mind, phone, or social media? It’s part of your life, but that part is over, said and done… I haven’t completely figured all of that out. I can’t even describe how those memories make me feel. It’s a blend of sad, angry, hurt…
When I returned to the office after lunch that day, the pastor had some news for me. The church was planning another mission trip to Honduras the following summer. My son and daughter were already signed up to go. But unfortunately, my summer work schedule wouldn’t allow me to go on the trip. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go; I just couldn’t make it work. My summer as a children’s minister was entirely too full to add anything else. Ten days in the summer for me was impossible.
The pastor knew I wanted to go. So, when I got back, he was excited to tell me that two slots had just come open. Two people had backed out. He thought that since I was quitting my job now, my husband and I should go. This was an exciting possibility for me for several reasons. One, I thought it would be a great thing to do as a family. My son loved it so much the year before and couldn’t wait to go again. I was hesitant to send my daughter without me in the first place… so being able to do this as a family sounded terrific. Second, I didn’t want to quit children’s ministry and subsequently quit ministry altogether. I knew it was possible that I could leave and just stop doing everything. This gave me a real ministry opportunity on the calendar… something to look forward to. It wasn’t a decision I wanted to make too quickly. My emotions were raw. I told the pastor I wanted to talk it over with my husband before giving him an answer. He told me I needed to hurry because he couldn’t hang on to the spots for long. Then he said something I will never forget.
He told me that the church would’ve paid for my trip if I wasn’t resigning from my position, but now I would have to pay for it myself.
Hold up… First of all, if I had kept my job, there’s no way I could’ve gone in the first place. Secondly, it would almost make sense for the church to give that to me as a gift for the time I had served… but let us not forget the generous $300 hush money “gift” I had already received. This was going to be a financial burden for our family. The money I made at the church wasn’t a lot, but farming wasn’t good that year, and we would miss that extra income. The pastor would be going, and his trip would be paid for, the youth minister was also going, and his trip would be paid for… mine would not because the only way I could go was to quit my job.
When I look back on these things, it becomes obvious that the pastor always made these snide little remarks at the worst times. It was always a little dig… a little humor disguised as what he really thought and really wanted to say. Why would he say that the church would’ve paid for it if I hadn’t quit? It was like he was dangling a carrot in front of me. I don’t even know what his motivations were behind it other than to make me feel terrible about myself, about the money I had cost my family… it was just too much, too soon… I hadn’t even completely come to terms with what I had done… I was still grieving. I wasn’t in a place to make this kind of decision. But here he was, pushing me once again.
My husband and I did end up signing up for the trip. I was able to talk them out of charging us the $200 deposit because the person who canceled had already paid that part. However, it took some convincing.
I stopped by the former secretary’s house on my way home that day. She was a dear friend of mine. She and I were close, and she was one of the few people I shared with early in the game that I was quitting. She knew long before the pastor and encouraged me in a way I needed. I wanted to tell her how things went that day, so I visited with her for a while. She and I had a special bond. I miss her.
When I got back in the car to go home, I called the girl who interned for me that summer to let her know I was quitting. She knew things were going bad early in the summer and wasn’t surprised that my time as Children’s Minister at Tree Town Baptist had ended. She understood better than others because she had also worked with the pastor and knew how he managed a staff. She knew just how hard it was to keep up with his inconsistency and his mood swings.
I got home that night, and I crashed.
I went to see my counselor in person on Wednesday, November 6th. I didn’t usually make appointments with him on Wednesdays, but he had been out of town, and I needed to catch up with him before too many people found out I was resigning. That appointment was hard. For weeks we had been discussing whether or not I would quit, but this week we were putting the plan in place. It was all becoming so very real.
We would have the “postponed” Trunk or Treat that night at church, so I drove straight to the church after my counseling session.
When I got to the church, the pastor asked me to come into his office. He shut the door and asked me to sit down. I was always concerned when this happened because it meant that this was a serious conversation that others couldn’t overhear.
He said that he had been thinking about things since I resigned, and he was worried about something.
He was concerned about how people would receive the news of my resignation. He said he didn’t want to be selfish, but I could make him look horrible in my resignation or make him look good.
I will never forget the look on his face at that moment. He looked like someone had just told him that Santa Claus wasn’t real. He looked pitiful. I felt like I had caused him unneeded pain and stress. I felt terrible. I felt like this was all my fault. He was extremely convincing.
He was worried about what the church thought of him, and since I had been there so long, he knew they loved me. His reputation was at stake. It would make him look terrible if I told them all the real reasons I was resigning. I remember feeling awful for him at that moment. To think that I could cause my friend to possibly look bad to his church was devastating to me. I had promised him in our meeting that I was choosing friend over boss.
I was all in; I wanted to protect the friendship, so certainly, I didn’t want the church to think badly of him. I didn’t want him to lose his job or even make things harder. I assured him that I didn’t want any of that. So, he asked me to control the narrative, to tell the truth, but leave out anything that had to do with him. He assured me that it was completely truthful to say that God wanted me to quit, and that’s all I needed to say to people. When we started telling people about my resignation, he asked me to keep that in mind and the narrative controlled. He said that maybe I shouldn’t talk about the evaluation issues or the raise.
Y’all, in my warped state of mind, I thought nothing of this. He was my friend. Sure, I wanted to protect his reputation. I wouldn’t mention a negative word about him. I promised him, and I kept that promise to my own demise.
I also selfishly didn’t want to ruin my chances of getting to resign properly before the church. I wanted to read my resignation letter. I wanted the opportunity to express my gratitude to the church. The pastor made a big deal about the music minister’s resignation. He told me many times that the music minister said the wrong thing and lost his chance at a proper resignation. I didn’t want that to happen to me.
And let’s just walk through this… If I wanted to stay at this church, remain a member, and be an active member… wasn’t this the only way? Let’s say that I did something that angered the pastor… let’s say that I didn’t control the narrative and told the truth… how would that work out for me? How do I piss off the pastor and stay at the church? How do I anger him and remain his friend? It wouldn’t work… this was the only way.
And let me offer a little foreshadowing right here… let’s just imagine that I did eventually piss off the pastor and in some way make him question my loyalty, not to the church, but to him… what if that happened… what if eventually I quit controlling the narrative and instead told the truth… would I be welcomed back into the church with open arms… I’ll just let you guess for now.
As I was walking out of his office, right after he asked me to control the narrative, to go put the finishing touches on the now tiny, ridiculous trunk or treat that was in the back parking lot, in the dark, that was now down to 6 trunks decorated (it was pitiful, a disgrace after the fall fest we’d had the year before) he stopped me one more time and said… if I had known you were going to quit, I would’ve made you do the fall fest because (you probably already know what he said) this looks really bad on me.
That statement hurt.
He told me earlier in the year that we wouldn’t have the fall fest because it didn’t gain enough church members and cost too much. He told me it was a lot of work for me and something he wanted to take off my plate. Now he’s telling me that if he had known I was quitting, he would’ve made me do it anyway.
Can we just break that down a little?
What did this even mean? Why did my quitting or not quitting have anything at all to do with the Fall Fest? People were asking questions, wondering why we had let one of our most significant ministry opportunities end. And when they asked me, I gave them the answer he asked me to. You know, to make him look good in the situation. So now he’s telling me he would have made me do it anyway?
I was an idiot to believe anything he did was about me or my well-being. He would sacrifice my sanity, physical, and emotional health… all of it to make himself look good. He could’ve cared less how anything he did affected me. It was all about how things looked for him. It was his only care. He wanted the church to grow in numbers because the more people that came, the more people put money in the offering plate. But, it was also important to him that the members think he was doing a good job, that they were happy…, especially those older ones.
Something sweet happened that night… the youth pastor discovered that I was resigning. He came to my office and hugged me. He had tears in his eyes. He knew how much I loved my job. He was shocked and sad. He didn’t say much, but I could tell he was genuinely concerned for me. It was very sweet. I appreciated him for handling it the way he did. It meant a lot to me.
That night was hard.
It was my first time in the church for a regular Wednesday night service since telling the pastor that I was quitting.
I felt like I was carrying a deep secret. I felt like I was hiding from everyone in plain sight.
After setting up the tables in the parking lot that night, I brought out the small speaker I used for these events. I hooked my phone to the speaker and played some old VBS songs. My daughter came to help that night, and when she found me, I was sniffling. I loved VBS songs. It was becoming more and more real that those VBS days were behind me, and it was tough to come to terms with. Finally, my daughter saw how much the songs affected me, and she changed the music to the Burn the Ships album. I thought that was pretty cool.
This protocol of telling people in the proper order, controlling the narrative, getting my story straight… It was a lot to handle emotionally. I was a wreck… a peaceful wreck because I was following what God asked of me, but I was still a wreck. I felt dishonest. I didn’t like it.
My intern’s mom was a member of Tree Town Baptist. I didn’t realize that she told her mom that I was quitting. Her mom had a decorated trunk that night, and when I went over to talk to her, she whispered in my ear, asking me if I was ok. I remember how real that made things and how scared I was that someone would hear us talking and I would be in trouble.
Does any of this sound normal? Is this the way all church resignations go down? I mean, at least I wasn’t asked to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement. At the very least, I should be grateful for that… otherwise, I wouldn’t be telling my story today. There is, in fact, an NDA in the Personnel Manual I was given at the beginning of my job. I never signed it, but it does indeed exist. Why does a church need an NDA in their Personnel Manual for employees? What are they afraid will leak? What are they afraid might escape from those walls? What are they covering up?
I guess without an NDA, it’s very possible that a former employee could start a blog and spill all the tea…
Until Next Time,
Whitney