When I took the job at Tree Town Baptist in 2016, the first promise I made to myself and my family was that I wouldn’t let it affect our family life and dynamic. If any of us saw that the job was affecting me mentally, physically, or emotionally, or if I began to bring the workload home, whether mentally or physically, I would quit.
If I’m honest with myself, I didn’t do an excellent job keeping that promise. I thought about my job 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It kept me up at night. It constantly entered my thoughts, and I disregarded all the warning signs. I made an excuse to myself and those around me that this job was for God, this was ministry… all the planning, all the thinking… it was for the greater good.
I was wrong.
My kids loved working events with me and helping plan camps and trips. My son loved going to camp as a chaperone, and my daughter couldn’t wait until it was her turn to do the same. My husband was always quick to offer a helping hand when he could. He would leave the farm often to help me set up, tear down, or even provide emotional support when needed. Obviously, we were all enjoying it, so it must be good.
I let these truths cover the multitude of lies I told myself.
We were doing ministry as a family! It was a beautiful thing. We were doing the work of the Lord. Jeremy and I were raising our kids in the church and teaching them to serve… this was how things were supposed to be. Could there be anything greater than doing ministry this way?
Much of our family time was spent together doing children’s ministry. For three entire years, we put everything else on the back burner to do what I felt called to do.
We had some really great times together; we built some good memories that we will forever cherish.
But what about the things we didn’t do…
We didn’t take our favorite beach vacation because it was in the busy ministry summer months. Even if I could find the time to get away, I didn’t have the energy. So our “summer vacations” during those years were mostly just church camps…
We stopped going to my family’s Christmas Eve time because I was required to take part in the Christmas Eve service and be there for rehearsals, set up, and tear down. It was a great excuse at the time, but what I wouldn’t give now to have those years back with my grandmother at her house on Christmas Eve.
We cut so many trips short to make it home for things, and while on those trips, I was always preoccupied with things at church. I remember sitting on a bench ordering t-shirts for a camp one year. I remember writing a letter to the personnel committee during our last beach trip before I took the job. I remember my phone ringing during a winter weekend getaway with my husband. The pastor asked me to fix an issue with a parent before Wednesday night service (a problem of which I was neither personally involved nor aware). I was never off… there was no such thing.
What about the days when I was finally home and didn’t have the energy to actually be present with my family? How many mornings did I wake up exhausted and end up going back to bed? How many days did I curl up in a ball on the couch or on the bed and sleep my days “off” away? How many times did I sit at the dinner table and work through emails, text messages, or take phone calls? How many times did the pastor text me after hours with questions or ideas?
The answer to all of these is that it happened way too many times.
We were busy… and in the end, I think maybe that’s all we were… busy.
Those things weren’t only the church’s fault or the job’s. Many of the expectations I put on myself. But the work environment there wasn’t friendly to missing things. Ministry didn’t just stop, you know.
And I also realize that all jobs can be stressful. So many people take their work home. I’m not the only one that this happens to. I just realize that what I was doing was supposed to be “part-time.” I wasn’t paid to work full-time hours or be on call full-time…but it was expected of me.
I had no idea until I quit that my job offered two weeks of paid vacation every year. No one ever told me that. I always thought that since I was part-time, it worked differently. I didn’t know I could take two weeks completely off. Like no work, no thinking about it, no planning, no online training… I always thought my time off was a favor from the pastor.
I’m not saying that I never got any time off. But I never gave myself permission to really be off, and I didn’t feel like anyone ever offered that either. And the time “off” that I received didn’t match the extra hours I worked.
Whether real or something I made into more than it was… whether it was self-inflicted expectations or those handed down from the administration… whatever the case… I did exactly what I promised myself and my family I wouldn’t do from day one… I let that job become my number one priority.
It consumed me.
I look back on all the things we did. They were good things, but as much as I wanted them to be for the furthering of God’s Kingdom, I think that many of them just furthered the Tree Town Baptist Kingdom. We were building programs, increasing numbers, meeting salvation, and baptism goals, and working toward a good evaluation and a decent raise… But, the climate wasn’t a spiritual one. It was all business.
Am I saying there weren’t any good things that came from it… No.
I absolutely loved spending time with these kids at Tree Town. I loved getting to know them and their parents. I loved serving them, ministering to them, teaching them about Jesus, and planning things for them… I loved every moment of summer camps, VBS, etc. The kids I had the opportunity to lead to Jesus… those were some of the best moments of my life. There was a lot of good…
It makes me think of the little hand motion my mom and dad taught me… the one where you clasp your hands together and, in a sing-song voice, say… Here’s the church house, here’s the steeple, open up the doors, and there are all the people…
It’s fun, looks good, and the work is admirable… but when you open up those doors, there’s much more inside than just the people. There’s a machine, an establishment, an organization, politics, money issues, abusive authority, pastors hiding behind all the good, social media attempting to bring excitement just when there’s something terrible happening behind the closed door, exciting trips are taken to change the perspective of people, smiles, laughs, handshaking, calculated conversations, an engaging, happy pastor when he’s really only trying to push his own agenda… it’s really a shit show. A very calculated, planned shit show. It looks great on the outside…
It reminds me of that scene in The Help… that chocolate pie looked really good… but…
When Monday morning rolls around, everything will be discussed, and everything will be evaluated. Names will be mentioned… are the older people happy? What can we do to make them feel important? How can we make sure they keep giving money to the church? Who was the hero this week? Who needs some extra attention? Anything we need to be aware of? The script will be tweaked, changes will be made… the show must go on.
Just a quick side note… I don’t know why this came to my mind. It was always the older crowd at Tree Town Baptist that the pastor was concerned the most about, especially the ones who tithed well. But these were also some of the people he spoke the worst about and complained the most about behind closed doors. He even told a story about his previous church, where a lonely, elderly lady called him too many times each week, which drove him crazy. Finally, he gave her a limit. She could call him only once each week and talk for a predetermined length of time.
That’s not a bad thing. Pastors need to set boundaries… but he was so proud of how he controlled this woman; how, with just a few words, he had taken control of the situation. It makes me wonder how many people he still controls today. Is that phone call to the elderly member or the visit to their house premeditated? What’s the purpose? Does he still shut people down? Does he go to great lengths to make certain people or groups of people feel important? How powerful has he become?
Is there any good in Tree Town Baptist… absolutely yes… is there a lot of bad… absolutely yes. Are there things that need to be exposed… for sure, yes… will the administration pull all the punches to keep it covered… without a doubt. The church must be protected at all costs.
My walking away from the job ended up having more benefits on my life than staying ever did. I learned to love God in a whole new way. He is no longer the job… He is a loving Father who wanted me to fall into His protective arms and let Him guide my life. Church is no longer a job, and frankly it had become a job long before I officially took the job. There was a checklist of expectations I put on myself… Sunday School… check… Sunday Morning worship… check… Sunday Night… nope… not if I could help it… I’d rather just take the 2 on my evaluation… Wednesday Night… always… Different ministry during the week… check. And the list goes on and on.
It has taken so much deconstruction to realize that God isn’t interested in what I can do for Him. He isn’t only interested in my faithful church attendance… that isn’t what makes a Christian. In fact, it might be quite the opposite.
I saw someone from my past one day not too long ago. I wasn’t sure how they would react to me or what they would say. The question they asked wasn’t malicious in any way. Still, after not seeing me for several years, their first inquisition was about where we were going to church as a family. Their question was not about my well-being, not how we were doing as a family, not a question of can you please tell me why you left Tree Town, are you ok, is there something we should know…, just where are you going to church… as if that was the spiritual thermometer for how I was performing as a Christian…
What if I hadn’t found a church yet, but my walk with Christ was better than it had ever been? What if we decided we were never going to be a part of a church again? What if we had been so hurt by the church that we couldn’t imagine serving anywhere again?
What if the absence of the church as an establishment in my life had brought me closer to the feet of Jesus? What if realizing that an organization isn’t where my allegiance lies was what made all the difference in my life?
Church and Christianity aren’t synonymous.
But how many times have I done the same thing to people? How many times have I greeted someone by saying, where are you going to church now? For so many years if someone I knew was out of church I would be so concerned for them. I would silently judge them. I would think that they needed to get their lives in order. I mean, church attendance is where it’s at, right? The more you’re in “God’s House” the better off you are.
But what if someone attends church every time the doors open, but inside they are falling apart? What if every Sunday they put on a smile, but they are farther away from Jesus than they’ve ever been? What if they are questioning everything, but they are scared to voice those questions for fear of being judged? What if they have bought into the idea that church is the most important part of their lives but haven’t found a place for Jesus?
Hear me… God created the church for a reason, He wants us to find a place to serve, and He wants us to be surrounded by a community of fellow believers, church is important… but that IS NOT the only thing important in our Christian walk.
I’ve been out of Tree Town Baptist for almost 3 years now. My “ministry” looks different than it did. Where I never thought I would like anything as much as being a children’s minister, I have found that this feels much more organic. It feels right.
I plan to write about where we are in our church life very soon. It’s a beautiful story full of healing and redemption. God has proven Himself faithful in my life and in the life of my family. It’s a very happy story.
But it’s nowhere near the same as what our lives looked like at Tree Town Baptist. And many people would probably say we need to get our lives in order… that we aren’t giving God our time as we should be…
I would say they are wrong.
The most important thing I did after quitting my job was that I began to pour more of my energy into my family. My husband became more of a priority, and my kids, as well. And even my extended family. I have more energy now to spend with my niece and nephew, my brother and his wife, and my parents. My mind isn’t always on church work anymore… but I feel it is more in tune with the things of Jesus…
This week my mom and I will travel to Branson to spend time together. Many factors have kept us from being able to do this in the past several years, but my job definitely played a role. For many years we went to Branson every year, but this will be the first time we’ve gone just the two of us in almost 8 years. I’m excited about this trip.
I’m just glad my mind is free, my time is free, and my ministry obligations, as they were, no longer exist.
This next week my mom and I will shop, eat, go see shows, and talk late into the night… it will be good. And not one time will I be sidetracked thinking about some job at the church or the perception of the pastor as I’m missing important work, I won’t get a text message from my boss, I won’t be asked to continue to work while I’m away… it will be good…
It feels good to be Finding Life Beyond Church…
Until Next Time,
Whitney