This church in Tree Town was the first church that our kids asked to attend a second time. I can’t remember if we went back the very next week or if we waited a little while. But by Christmas of 2008, we had all but sealed the deal.
We found the people to be incredibly friendly, the children’s programs were excellent, we found a Sunday School class that we loved and quickly made friends. All our earlier qualms had all but disappeared.
Though this church was older and more traditional, it seemed on the cusp of something great. It was more than twice as large as our previous church, and it seemed to be continually growing. As sure as we were that we should leave our old church, we were now just as sure that this was the one we should join. So, we officially joined in May of 2009. By this time, we were already actively serving. I was offered the role of AWANA Director for girls 3-6th grade, and my husband the role of AWANA director for boys the same age.
For anyone not familiar with this AWANA program, it is a Bible memorization club for kids. It was something my husband and I had done for years at our previous church, so it was an easy fit. Before too many months had passed, my husband started teaching Sunday School with a group of men who became his close friends. It was all perfect. It ended up being exactly what we needed and wanted. It was a community to be involved in, a place to serve, a place to have like-minded friends; it was where God wanted us to be.
How long does a honeymoon last? Funny, you should ask. For us, it lasted almost 12 years with a few bumps in the road.
Shortly after joining the church in Tree Town, the youth/children’s pastor resigned. We were bummed, but we trusted the committee process that was in place to hire a new one. The committee hired a new youth/ children’s pastor pretty quickly. However, shortly thereafter, the pastor who had been there for 20 years retired. We were sad when this happened because we loved him very much. In fact, his daughter had become my very best friend, so we grieved his retirement.
We joked that we waited years and years in the hope that the pastor from our old church would resign, and after only a couple short years at Tree Town Baptist, the youth pastor of 15 years left, and the pastor retired. Oh, the irony.
Because the pastor had been there for so long, the convention recommended the church go through an intentional interim process. The convention would send someone specially trained to guide the church through the transition process. He would be the full-time interim pastor, and the hope was that the church could walk through all its issues before a new pastor was called, and in doing so, the next pastor would be able to stay longer. The thought process behind this was that after a church has had the same pastor for 20 years, they are less likely to keep a new pastor for more than a couple of years. So, theoretically, this process would fix all the old problems, bring up any new ones, and repair them before the new pastor was hired.
Everything was brought to the surface, all the bylaws, the church history, the structure, the committees, the theology… the list goes on and on.
This intentional interim process drug on for over a year. It was painful, awkward, and drawn out. As a result, several people left. Honestly, a few times during the process, we almost left the church ourselves. But, because we had just come out of such a dire situation at our old church, starting over again wasn’t something we wanted to do. We just couldn’t move our kids again. They had friends that they loved. They had grown very comfortable in their new environment.
Finally, it was time to call a new pastor, and we did. He was such a nice guy. He brought new ideas to the church, and the church was somewhat receptive. He made the church look outward instead of inward.
He changed the committees to teams.
He wanted people to volunteer for ministry opportunities instead of being elected. He wanted the church to focus on reaching the community with no strings attached. He wasn’t focused on numbers. While he was pastor, we didn’t do ministry events to gain church members but just to share the love of Jesus. As sad as it sounds, this seemed to be a new concept for this church.
They had been inwardly focused for so long that this was something fun and exciting, a new way of looking at things.
For the first few years, the church flourished under his leadership. However, they went through 3 youth pastors while he was there, the music minister retired, and a new one was hired. The church added a part-time children’s coordinator to the staff.
There was a lot of change.
My husband and I were elected to the children’s council during this time. We also volunteered to oversee the children’s worship service every other week. We found ourselves involved in many aspects of children’s ministry and enjoyed it. We had found our niche. We were serving the way we felt called to do. It wasn’t too long before our plates were full, but we didn’t mind it; we were doing the Lord’s work.
I remember when my friend told me she was thinking of applying for the new Children’s Coordinator position the church had decided to add. They wanted the youth pastor to handle only 7-12th grade instead of the whole children and youth program. This new person would coordinate the classes and activities and oversee babies through 6th grade. The pay was almost laughable, and the job description was more than 4 pages long. She asked me what I thought. I told her I would be cautious going to work for a church that she was a member of, that the job description was much more than the pay accounted for, and that it seemed like a place to get hurt. She took the job anyway.
During the first year on the job, she flourished. She had some excellent ideas, and she implemented them well. She was extremely organized. The church was happy with the hire, and my friend was pleased with the job. By the second year, she was feeling overwhelmed. The Children’s Council helped her with the events she planned, and I soon found myself taking up the slack.
I did this because I wanted to. I genuinely enjoyed it. I was happy being her helper until it all got to be too much. By the spring of 2016, I found myself remodeling the Pre-K area because she didn’t want to take on the project and then directing Vacation Bible School because it was too much for her. Please don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed doing these things, they were in my wheelhouse, but it started to wear on me that I was doing a job that someone else was getting paid to do. I guess that’s the human side of things. It’s fun until it’s not, and you start to feel used at some point. I was there; I was feeling used.
My friend felt the burden of the job, and she resigned in the spring of 2016. In the absence of a paid Children’s Coordinator, I stepped in. I completed the extensive Pre-k remodel, launched a complicated check-in system, directed VBS, finished last-minute camp details, continued the Sunday children’s worship, worked in AWANA, and helped with a 6th-grade ministry… the list goes on.
Also, during this time, we were without a youth pastor.
He and his wife resigned just a few months before the children’s coordinator. I soon found myself helping lead worship on Wednesday evenings for the Youth Department and taking teens to summer camp as well.
Let me pause here again to say this… I wanted to do all these things… I enjoyed them, felt called to them, felt equipped to do them… no one held me down and forced them on me… it was all my own doing… I did them well, with excellence and without pay, but with a church that cheered me on and loved me. They encouraged me and made sure the money was there for all the projects and programs. I felt loved, secure, and wanted. It’s a high that is indescribable, and it’s one you can’t see when you’re experiencing it.
It’s only when you look back that you realize the bubble you were in. You only later recognize the exhaustion you were feeling, the weight that was on your shoulders, and, in turn, the effects it had on your family that you couldn’t see then.
I guess I thought that the church would just hire me. I thought they would just turn the reigns over to me, no questions asked. I mean, I had been doing the job, and in my state of mind at that time, I had forgotten all the warnings that I had given my friend about working for a church you love and how being on staff could cause issues.
I genuinely felt like God was calling me to take this position. In all honesty, I wouldn’t be spending any more time doing things than I already was. It felt right.
The pastor offered to let me write a letter explaining why I wanted the job, hoping that the church would just hire me. He hoped this could be done without the whole process of opening the position to the church and community and taking applications.
But they didn’t. I continued everything I was doing that entire summer, plus the youth pastor responsibilities I had taken on, along with the remodel, check-in system, camp…. All unpaid.
I applied for the job and went through the whole interview process, and if I’m completely honest, I was offended. Hadn’t I been interviewing for several years?
They officially hired me in October of 2016. A few short weeks before the Fall Fest that I had been planning all summer.
I was now on staff at the church I loved…
Until Next Time,
Whitney