Friday, October 25, 2019… my second day at the hotel by myself.
I was spent.
I had cried and prayed and cried and prayed. I felt like I knew exactly what God wanted me to do, and by this point, I just needed my husband.
I broke the rules just a little bit when I called him and asked him to come to stay with me the second night. I needed to talk it all out with him.
He came to the hotel and picked me up for dinner.
He took me to my favorite restaurant.
We sat down, and I began to tell him everything I worked through during my hours alone with God. I took my journal to show him my thought process and the outcome.
When I first mentioned quitting my job to my family in February of 2019, every one of them, including my husband, thought I was losing my mind. They knew how much I loved being a children’s minister, and they couldn’t believe I would want to quit. They continually encouraged me through the brutal summer months. They thought I would recover from my exhaustion and keep going just as I did. They didn’t want me to give up something I had worked hard for and loved so much.
I didn’t want to let them down. I didn’t want to let anyone down.
That night, when I told my husband that it was time for me to quit, he was in total agreement. His response was exactly what I needed.
His support in my decision meant so much to me. He knew how much I was struggling; he knew my hurt, my aggravation, my exhaustion. He also knew how much the job meant to me and how much it hurt to let it go even though it was the right thing to do.
When I say I married the best, it’s true. This man loved me through it all, supported me, and waited patiently as I listened to God for the answer.
I talked through every possibility with him.
We could potentially lose our friends and our “status” in the church. What if things didn’t look the same?
Could we let it all go? Could we really just be church members and let go of these “responsibilities”?
The pastor had asked us to teach the college class… would this free us up for this, was this our next ministry opportunity?
What about our kids? This was going to hurt them. How would we handle that?
There was also the potential that if I didn’t create some boundaries, I would again be doing the job, just not getting paid. I would have to reiterate to the pastor that I was making a clean break from the job.
I wasn’t interested in training anyone who came after me. I felt God wanted me to be done entirely, not just partially, which meant I had to let it go.
We decided that Friday night, as we had dinner, we wouldn’t tell anyone about this decision just yet, only our kids. We wanted an exit strategy in place before I just blurted out that I was quitting. I wouldn’t even tell the pastor or our closest friends. We would hold this close until the time was right.
I told my son about my decision the next day. He has always been the one who sees things in black and white. He is more like me, with a little attitude and some sass. But his role in the children’s ministry had been huge. He did so much and loved doing it. When I first mentioned quitting my job to him in February, he quickly shut me down. This wasn’t a ministry I did on my own. As I’ve said before, I worked with amazing people at the church who I would miss working with tremendously, but my family… this was different… this was something we talked about, worked on, and dreamed about on a daily basis. There was always something we were working on for the church and for the children’s ministry. My kids had a hand in every event, every camp, every service, every video, every song… it was a team effort, and I was closing out this chapter of our life. It was a big deal. And my son, who is very opinionated, was one who I thought would try to talk me out of quitting… but I was wrong. When I told him about my stay in the hotel, my talks with God, and my final decision, he was completely supportive. He said he had been praying about it as well, and he agreed that it was time for me to let it go.
Sunday, October 27, 2019
I went to church that morning with mixed emotions. I was so relieved, yet I was scared that someone would see through me and figure out that I was quitting. So I had to lay low. It was a strange feeling.
I remember sitting in my office and absorbing all the feelings. This office was where I had spent so many days and hours for almost 3 years. I enjoyed very much having a space in the church that belonged to me. I liked when people came to visit me. I liked to keep candy for the kids and mints for my adult friends. It was more than just an office to me; it was where I had talked to kids about Jesus, and it was where I listened to kids tell me about their problems and also their joys. It was where I wrote my newsletter updates. It was where I visited with my friends; it was where I cried when things went wrong and laughed and rejoiced when things went right. It was where I planned events, cut, copied, pasted… It was where VBS began and ended. It was where candy was divided, where camp supplies were stored, it was where the camp flag lived, and the VBS signs from previous years were on display. It was filled with memories… It was more than a room with a desk; at Tree Town Baptist, it was the place I belonged. It was my space… and that day, I knew my time in that space was limited. What would it look like to attend church as a regular member… to walk by that office each week and know it belonged to someone else?
After church that day, my daughter and I had tickets to a Broadway show in the city near us. I felt this would be an excellent time to talk to her one-on-one about my quitting. She is my child who feels things deeply. I was concerned about how this would affect her.
Both of my kids were my constant sidekicks in ministry. If I quit, they would also lose many of the “jobs” that they had and loved at the church. I wasn’t sure how my daughter would take this news. This was the conversation I was most worried about. I had been worried about how my son would take it, but he was my child who was able to shake things off pretty easily. He thrived in a changing environment, but my daughter thrived in a routine, and this was a routine that she enjoyed and loved.
When the play was over, she and I went to eat. We talked for a while, and then I gently began to tell her what I had decided. I expected her to be upset, but she wasn’t. Instead, she said she had been praying about it too and knew I should quit. I don’t know why I was shocked by her response. I should’ve known that God wouldn’t tell me to do something that He hadn’t also told my family. He was preparing all of us.
We need to go back in time for just a moment here…
September 28, 2019… the day of my grandmother’s funeral. My parent’s pastor and wife chatted with us between the meal and the funeral. Our own pastor had just told us all we needed to be at church for the next day. He had made it known that it was time for me to get back to work. This was heavy on my mind when my parent’s pastor’s wife said… “you should pray about being a missionary.” I was like, what? Where did that come from?
They began to tell me and my family about a church they were planting in a town about 2 hours from where we were right then. They needed someone to lead worship at this church for a little while until they could find someone to take it over. They wanted us to pray about coming once a month to do this.
I laughed out loud. I proceeded to tell them that I was on staff at a church, that my absences were already frowned upon, and there was no way my boss/pastor would ever allow that; in fact, my pastor had just informed me of all the things I had to do at church the very next day.
My parent’s pastor kindly said he understood but just pray about it, he said.
That interaction was one of the most bizarre things I had ever experienced. We had never discussed leading worship anywhere, and we definitely hadn’t talked to my parent’s pastor about it. He had only heard us sing on a few occasions. This whole thing seemed to come out of the clear blue.
I had so many mixed emotions… I knew it wasn’t possible, but it also sounded like such an adventure. I had always longed for more opportunities to lead worship, but at our church, it was frowned upon for a woman to lead alone.
I had a couple of opportunities to lead worship at Tree Town Baptist if there was a man on stage doing the speaking and “in charge.”
On the Sunday morning that we began VBS in 2019, the pastor couldn’t find anyone to lead worship; it was during the time we were without a music minister. He asked me if I would do it. I had a lot on my plate with VBS, but I jumped at the chance to lead worship. I started planning the music for the service, and a few days later, the pastor asked me if I would ask a man in our church to help. I told him I didn’t really need any help, but I would ask him if he thought I should. I stopped and thought for a moment… I asked the pastor if I needed to ask this person so there would be a man on the stage that Sunday morning. The pastor told me that he hadn’t wanted to say it that way, but since I had figured it out, yes, there needed to be a man on stage and not a woman leading worship alone for a Sunday morning service.
So, because of the environment I had been raised in and had served in for the past several years, I had been groomed to believe that this was a man’s position, and I had never even fathomed that there was a possibility that, as a woman, I could lead worship somewhere. This whole idea was foreign but very interesting to me.
This missionary idea intrigued me. At the same time, I knew it wasn’t possible.
Back to October 27… As I was explaining to my daughter that I felt like God wanted me to quit my job. I was worried about how that would affect her. She asked me if this meant we could entertain the idea of leading worship and helping with this church plant. She knew that if I wasn’t on staff, we could miss one Sunday per month, and no one could stop us. She explained that it was something she very much wanted to do but knew it was impossible with me being on staff at the church. It was something she had even been praying about, although she never mentioned it to me.
God was working.
She took the news so well and even cheered me on.
I need to reiterate here just what a big deal this is. When I say that my family worked with me in this job, I need you to understand that statement. We were a team; we loved it, we dreamed about it, we talked about new ideas together… this was a HUGE part of our lives. When I took this job, we talked it over and decided together that it was the right decision, and I needed my quitting to be a decision we agreed on together as well. If I had told them my decision and they had resisted and told me I was crazy, I would’ve questioned everything. But instead, God was preparing all of our hearts, at the same time, in the same way, with the same answer. It was beautiful.
I told my mom I was quitting on October 29. I had no idea how worried she had been about me. She was extremely relieved and supportive.
I also didn’t know that she had seen certain behaviors of the pastor that concerned her.
She thought he was manipulative and had an agenda. She told me she had never been a fan of his, and she was glad I wouldn’t be working for him any longer.
Everyone I told in my family was extremely supportive, and it felt good. It was just the encouragement I needed.
My counselor and I were scheduled to meet on October 30th by video to put together my exit strategy. This was the same day that the pastor was freaking out over canceling the Trunk or Treat because of rain. I had already decided I would quit before this. So the whole time the pastor was losing his mind over what to do, I knew that my time dealing with his chaos was coming to an end. Maybe that’s why I was able to be bold. I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders. The pastor was making my decision easier, and didn’t even realize it.
My counselor and I decided that I would tell the pastor I was quitting after the staff meeting the following Monday, November 4th, and then he and I would meet in person the following week. Until then, we would work together to make a list of things I needed to say when I told the pastor about my decision to keep me on track.
I still have that list… I’m going to share it in its entirety in my next post.
I attended church Sunday, November 3, 2019. We had KidWorship that morning. After church was over that day, I went to lunch with 3 of my friends, and I filled them in on my plan. They were extremely supportive. They were good friends.
I didn’t sleep much that night. The next day was going to be hard.
Until Next Time,
Whitney