When Ministry Hurts. . .

My husband and I are experiencing first hand that the The Devil is REAL he is really, really real!! I might add that he is not nearly as charming as this nice little clip art either he is UGLY, very UGLY!!
Before I get any further into this post I feel the need to note that we believe in a living God, who came to earth in HUMAN form, LIVED, and ultimately DIED on a cross to pay for our sins, only to RISE again on the THIRD day!! He is all POWERFUL and all KNOWING and NOTHING surprises him. We also fully understand that ministry should be done for the GLORY and HONOR of GOD and never for the PRAISE of man. In addition WE understand that MINISTRY CAN BE HARD and that if everyone quit based on feelings nearly every church in the country would be without their pastors, leaders and teachers!
That said SOMETIMES GOD ALLOWS the Devil to get to us, to mess with our heads or our hearts, he allows the Devil to cause STRUGGGLE and CONFLICT and PAIN in our lives. WHY would a GOD who loves us ALLOW such a season in our lives?? Well -- because GOD never promised that our lives here on EARTH would be easy he just promised to be there ALONG SIDE of us!! The bottom line is that GOD cares more about our CHARACTER than he does about our COMFORT level -- he uses the hard times to shape us (to me shaping carries the idea of carving) and it hurts!
This year has been a very hard year for us SPIRITUALLY speaking! We were asked to head up a youth MINISTRY at our church, a ministry that by no fault of ours had experienced GREAT conflict in the previous year. We had not gone looking for the position we had offered to HELP, but NEVER in our wildest dreams thought we would be asked to LEAD THE MINISTRY! We were VERY reluctant at first but the more we prayed about it the more we felt that God was in the details, Sometimes GOD uses these experiences to STRETCH people in was they never EXPECTED and we were up for the challenge if that was what GOD wanted! So we agreed to give it OUR BEST, with the understanding that it was GOING to be a tough year and with the understanding that WE had NEVER served in that capacity BEFORE and we were going to need SUPPORT!! Well -- to say that the year was tough MAY IN FACT BE the understatement of my lifetime!! Our HELPER bailed on us after about two weeks (in search of greater glory) we did eventually get a new helper who DID stick with us, but it was still a major set back because the students were already attached to the one who had BAILED. The students were primarily male and they were truly great young men but they were at times quite hard to REIGN IN . . . poking their neighbor, steeling his i-pod, calling each other names, and belching LOUDLY during lesson time, we even had an arm BROKEN at one point! Though it was hard to endure we had to remember that they were hurting, they did not really respect us, they wanted their old leader back (they absolutely loved him--but he was dealing with an issue in his life that prevented him from being a candidate to teach.) The first semester we hosted a movie night and a Christmas party that NO ONE attended, our weekly attendance ranged from ONE to FIFTEEN and we watched as the students rolled their eyes at Hubby's lessons (I passionately believe that he is a wonderful teacher but admittedly his teaching skills were a little rusty and he was having a hard time relaxing enough to find his groove.) We lost some of our students to a mega church in town that has a cool rock band and gives away free stuff. It does not matter who you are as a youth leader it is very hard to compete with that at a small church with a tiny youth ministry budget. We FELT somewhat abandoned by our PASTOR who had promised to support us. MEETINGS with him seemed really HARD to schedule and when we did MANAGE to have one they were maybe 15 minutes long and he truly seemed to never really understand where we were coming from. (He later said that he did not offer more help beause he does not really feel that comfortable working with teenagers himself.) We understand that but really we were just looking for some support from him as the LEADER of our CHURCH! You know like, What kinds of activities and fundraisers were allowed, how to best handle parent CONCERNS and student behavior problems.
By the time that the second semester rolled around, it seemed like things were starting to turn around. We hosted a retreat with the help of some awesome FRIENDS from college and the students LOVED it!! Our attendance got a bit more regular we had a core group of ten to fifteen students, that came most of the time. Hubby was starting to RELAX more, he was teaching this really fun cirriculam on families with LOTS of interactive activities and skits involved -- Hubby is really great with any kind of skits or drama and it really made my heart SMILE to see him SHINE in ministry. We (especially Hubby) prayed and prayed over the students and though our numbers were small GOD was doing great things in the lives of the students who were there!! God was REALLY showing us that he could do great things in our (small and struggling ministry) despite or lack of funds and experience!
INCREASINGLY it became hard to ignore the fact that our pastor was GROWING really discouraged with the STATE of the YOUTH MINISTRY!! He never really came out and said anything that was concrete because we might have made changes or adjustments if he had. It is just that EVERY week when we gave him our attendance number we watched his FACE FALL and it was PAINFUL TO BE HONEST. We just wanted our pastor to undersand our style better there were so many times when Hubby wanted to scream at him and say " listen if you are looking for a flashy, loud, in your face youth leader you have the wrong guy, on the other hand if you are looking for a guy to be faithful, consistant and who will love the students and teach them TRUTH, that is me. Yes I understand that students may be slower to warm up to me but once they do -- they will see my goofy side -- I do have one I just don't wear it on my sleeve." Sometimes we would stand around after church and talk and the pastor would say things for example: "I did youth ministry once as my full-time paid job and I ended up having to be replaced and it was really hard . . ." or "how would you feel about working with sixth graders exclusively" or "I'm thinking of bringing more people on in the fall to be part of a team, but the two of you would still be a part of the team." We were starting to feel a strain on our family life because Hubby was working 55 hours a week at his full-time paid job and then trying to keep the youth ministry SPINNING. The STUDENTS were CLEARLY not getting the time and attention poured into them that they deserved and the family/youth leader role was feeling VERY HEAVY for Hubby. So we were very excited about the idea of being part of a team TRULY!! We REALLY FELT that a youth ministry team was an answer to our PRAYERS because we were unsure how much longer HUBBY could keep going as he was.
We were TOTALLY caught off guard by what HAPPENED next! A few months later (about 5 minutes before service) the pastor pulls Hubby aside and tells him that he has a young couple coming to be the new youth leaders and he's about to make an announcement in service. So we find out the details (and there were not many) of this arrangement sitting in the congregation with the rest of the church members!! That hurt Hubby more than my words can write . . . he/we had poured our lives and hearts into this ministry for a year and our pastor thinks we do not deserve any better than to find out HOW the ministry is changing right along with THE REST of the church!! In that moment when I watched Hubby suck back tears I NEVER FELT SO DISPOSABLE!!
We still had a month before the new couple came and we tried to carry on for the sake of the students but it was difficult to put or emotions aside . . . not to mention that hubby was sick during that month and he was also feeling EXTREME PRESSURE from his paid job -- to work even more hours, he had nothing else to give!! We continued to be pretty much in the dark about the changes that were about to happen with the youth ministry, sure there was a date in the bulletin exclaiming that "Joe & Jane" were coming but there was little else! The students and their parents were starting to have lots of questions about what the ministry would look like once "Joe & Jane" arrived and we hand no answers! (The pastor defended this by saying that he had purposely been so veauge because he wanted "Joe" to be the leader of the ministry and make his own decisions about how the ministry should function, with all due respect pastor it was very inconsiderate of you to leave us in the dark for so long along with the parents and students!!) If you wanted" Joe" to make the decisions that's fine we really do respect that, just PLEASE discuss, things with "Joe" and then LET US KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON, or HAVE HIM LET US KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON!!
The first day we meet them was (three days before they took over) the day they showed up for a pizza party!! We had NO MEETING with them prior to Joe coming to teach the first lesson to the students, and NO EARTHLY idea what our role was!! Frankly it was a humiliating experience for Hubby (who had prepared a lesson because he had gotten the impression that "Joe & Jane" intended to only observe that first night.)
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That is a summery of the past year from our perspective, we took the month of July off from youth ministry, then Hubby got sick again, and tonight we should be there but we are preparing to leave for a much needed just the two of us vacation . . .so we haven't really been back much since "Joe & Jane" took over.
The things that we have done together are really pretty akward, there is still no real clarity as to what is everyone's role is. They are the leaders yes, but where do we fall into line? "Joe & Jane" are very nice and they say that they both want and appreciate our help, we WANT to believe them but we cannot escape the feeling that they are trying to incorporate us because they feel OBLIGATED. Neither Hubby or I want ANY PART of serving in a ministry where the new leaders feel like they have to KEEP US ARROUND!!
We are left feeling very LOST, CONFUSED and HURT!! We are not sure where to go from here? Can we/should we find a new ministry? Can we/should we stay at our church? We love and respect our pastor but if serving in another ministry under him would just lead to a repeat of this experence we are not interested . . . not to mention that I now feel like I am going to THROW-UP when I am getting ready for church and I have to drag myself into the building because I feel like we were made to look like we did something wrong . . . in front of the whole church! How do you recover from that?
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THAT -- IS WHERE THE DEVIL COMES INTO PLAY! HE IS REAL HE IS UGLY AND HE WOULD LOVE IT IF WE CONTINUED TO FEEL LIKE THIS!! Further more he would love it if we continued to misunderstand our pastor and if our pastor continued to misunderstand us . . . until we were frusterated enough to just walk away from this whole mess. The Devil would love that, but what he would love EVEN MORE IS IF HE could use this situation to make us think THAT WE FAILED and that, this last year of our lives was a WASTE OF TIME . . . because if he could do that he could make us BELIEVE that our GOD is SMALL. IF WE COULD BELIEVE that we failed and that OUR GOD IS SMALL . . . we could easly BELIEVE THAT MINISTRY AND CHURCH are for someone else!! (My point is that the devil creeps in to situations like this -- and while I don't know what GOD has instore for us, I KNOW THAT OUR GOD IS BIG AND WE ARE NOT GOING to let the devil have his way!!
**** PLEASE NOTE: This post is NOT intended to hurt our pastor or to "get back at him" in any way. We do not believe that he intended to hurt us we just know that we were hurt! Our pastor has actually apologized for hurting us and he has been faithfully praying for us over the past few days. We just hope he understands that the majority of our pain was CAUSED BY THE WAY WE WERE REPLACED and not the fact that we were replaced!!