November of 2019 was a blur of activity for me. I had so many loose ends to tie up, many files to create for the person coming in after me, and so many people to talk to. It was exhausting.
The pastor recommended that I begin telling some of the people that helped me in the ministry that I was resigning so that they weren’t shocked when I announced it to the church.
I was nervous.
I made a list of people I thought I should tell ahead of time. Then, I started making the calls. Each one was a little easier. I remember that it helped my healing. Telling people I was quitting made it real. It was like letting go a little at a time. But it was a struggle. How was I supposed to choose who to tell ahead of time? And who should have to wait to find out until I resigned before the church?
There was one couple that was hard to tell. This couple had been some of my greatest cheerleaders. They were great friends. They supported the ministry, and they supported me.
This was the same friend I called when my evaluation and raise didn’t go as I had hoped.
This was also the couple that the pastor was most afraid for me to tell. He knew that they would quickly see through my story and ask what the real reason was that I was resigning. I remember the pastor asking me many times if I could control the narrative with this couple or if they would break down my defenses and get the real story.
This was an influential couple. The pastor knew this. In staff meetings, he would talk about people who needed just a little extra attention in the church and people we needed to keep happy. He called this “petting” people. You know, how you pet a dog, and he likes you more? You give the dog an extra pat, an extra treat, and pretty soon, he’s eating out of your hand.
This is the terminology he used for these special people in the church that we needed to keep happy. I talked about it in an earlier post. This lady was one he prided himself in petting. He would stop by her store several times a week just to shoot the breeze and make sure she felt heard. He could take the temperature of the entire church by catching up on the latest gossip. It was a trick that a former pastor taught him.
He made sure she stayed happy. They had money and influence, and he thought they were big tithers. So keeping them happy was a big deal.
I didn’t feel this way about this couple. They were just my friends. Friends who I had always been upfront and honest with. However, even though I always wanted to tell her about the “petting,” I didn’t want her to have bad feelings toward the pastor, and I also didn’t want him to be angry with me. It was something my husband and I considered telling this couple on more than one occasion.
When I called to tell them I was resigning, they immediately asked my husband and me to go to dinner with them. They wanted to hear it in person, to hash it out…
The pastor was a nervous wreck. He reiterated that I needed to control the narrative. Just tell them that God wanted me to quit. That was the truth, after all. I didn’t need to share all the details.
Why wouldn’t I just disobey the pastor and tell these friends the truth? Well, there were a couple of reasons… I didn’t want to lose my opportunity to read my resignation letter to the church. I also had no plans to leave the church. This was a place I planned to be for the rest of my life. My friendships were important to me. The pastor was my friend, and this couple, they were my friends as well. I needed to find a way to keep both the pastor and my friends happy. The immediate answer seemed to be doing what the pastor asked of me.
I remember everything about that dinner, down to what I wore… I remember my friend looking me right in the eye and asking me if I was telling her the entire truth. I was, wasn’t I? I mean, the pastor told me that telling people God wanted me to quit was the truth, and it was enough. I sat there that night feeling like the worst liar in the world. I was stuck in an impossible situation. Someone was going to get hurt, but the pastor had begged me to make sure it wasn’t him…I regret my decision. In the end, the one who got hurt was me.
When I tried to explain that I knew that God was telling me to quit because I had prayed about it for so long, and the answer was clear; my friend was confused. She asked me over and over how someone could know God’s will for them. She kept saying she just knew there had to be more to the story.
When I told the pastor her reaction, his response was ridicule… he said it was unfortunate that people in the church were so spiritually immature that they didn’t understand knowing the will of God…
Or…
Maybe it was just that my friend knew me well enough to know I wasn’t telling the whole truth?
I regret this portion of my story. I regret controlling the narrative to protect the pastor and not telling my friends the entire truth when I had the chance. They deserved the truth, not the half-truth I was told to give. I can blame that entirely on the pastor, but that would be wrong. He was wrong to ask that of me, he was wrong to use his power to influence me to do that, but in the end, I’m a grown woman who knows right from wrong. I knew it was wrong when I sat at that table sharing Italian food and a bottle of wine with my friends. I knew it was wrong when she looked me in the eye and asked if I was sure there wasn’t something else I needed to tell them… I knew, and I did it anyway.
When I finally realized what I had done and tried to mend it, it was too late. By that time, when I wanted to tell them the real story, they thought I was just trying to get back at the pastor.
I wonder if he knew that’s how it would go?
As I write this, I can look back and see things I couldn’t see then. I will go into more detail about this later, but in the end, this couple chose to believe the pastor over me. I will tell more of this story in the 2020 section of the blog, but this didn’t occur to me until very recently. I was hurt when that couple chose to believe the pastor over me… but I did the same thing… I protected the pastor over them…
Our friendship was 12 years old… we had each known the pastor for less than 2 years at the time this all went down. How was the pastor able to convince each of us to protect him over a friendship that was over a decade old? It makes my brain do cartwheels. What kind of personality is this influential, this convincing, this deceiving…
And it makes me wonder what he’s doing now…
I continued to trudge through November. I created detailed files for every ministry on the list the pastor had given me. His list left out a few things that I had to add. Let me share that list with you now. Please remember that these weren’t my day-to-day things… these were the big things on top of the day-to-day…
KidWorship/ Twice a Month
LilWorship/ Weekly… Organize leaders, and teachers, provide snacks
AWANA
Day Camp for 1st and 2nd Graders
Centrikid Camp
Summer Nights Ages 2- 6th grade
VBS
Egg Hunt
Fall Fest
Dessert Auction
Soup and Chili Lunch/ plus prizes for winners
Baby Dedication
Expectant Mother’s Ministry
Christmas Parade
Christmas Pre-K Musical
Happy Birthday, Jesus Party
Children’s Musical After Party
Photo Booths
Foyer Tables
See You at the Pole
Interns
Sunday School/ Promotion Sunday, Teacher Gifts
Teacher/Leader training
Baptism Videos
Kids Videos
Operation Christmas Child
6th Grade Programs
I also did hospital visits if kids were sick. I ate lunch with the kids at school once every week. I was constantly busy. It would’ve been fine if I had been a full-time employee, but I wasn’t.
Looking back at that list, I’m not sure how I survived. It’s no wonder I was exhausted. It’s not at all surprising that I was experiencing burnout. What is surprising is that no one saw it. Not even me at the time.
For those last 6 weeks, I kept my head down and completed the files. I spoke privately to all the people I felt should know about my resigning ahead of time. It was tough. I had so many things left to wrap up. My emotions were all over the place. I was completely exhausted.
My formal resignation was just around the corner.
Until Next Time,
Whitney