It’s been almost three years since I made the decision to leave “vocational” ministry. I’ll never forget my last meeting with my last ministry leader. I had to clarify repeatedly that my desire was not to stop serving the Lord but to get out of unhealthy ministry situations that are less concerned with the Gospel and more concerned with the image, the messaging, and highly controlled programming. The irony of that conversation was the emphasis on what I would say and the indifference to why I would say it. Different stories were told to different people designed to make my decision to look like something other than it was. That’s why I got out of ministry.

Somewhere along the line we turned following Jesus into an entrepreneurial endeavor of church planting. Church planters are “self-starters” and “pioneers.” They are given personality tests, and evaluated for competency. A church planter is a future CEO that, if successful, will lead a large organization to exponential growth while telling everyone numbers don’t matter….That’s why I got out of ministry.

What I have discovered, from being on the inside of some “high level” church planting organizations and learning from some “high level” leaders is, we aren’t really planting churches.

In 2019 churches are led by executives not pastors. (I still have friends…I think… who run “successful” churches and I can say their hearts are in a good place as they passionately shepherd their flocks. They will, however, tell you it’s often more organizational management than it is shepherding.) It’s not just a problem for pastoral leaders. When said CEO/pastor begins taking the corporation (church, 501c3 organization) in a direction that doesn’t meet their expectations people start finding ways to highlight how their CEOs are not very good pastors. (I could go on but that’s another blog for another time.)

The point is we live in a time when churches are consumer driven and pastors are pedaling a product. Not the Gospel, but the whole vision, culture, assimilation process and brand recognition.

It’s a version of church that doesn’t need pastors, in the Biblical sense of the word. We have created a twisted version of church that uses all the right spiritual language to mask the taste of consumerism and the constant competition for brand loyalty. Most of us are okay with this arrangement as long as we call it church and say things like “we preach the Word of God” and “we are committed to Kingdom work” and “you need to be in a growth group.” That’s why I got out of ministry.

I know with great certainty God did not call me to be a CEO. He called me to be a pastor. I want to invest in people. I want to help them understand God’s love for them and discern what He has created them for. I want to live on mission outside the four walls of the church and I don’t want that to just be a tag line.

The only time I really lived this way was my first few years of ministry. Those years were some of my favorite. I was a High School Pastor. I got to teach students about Jesus. I wasn’t perfect but I was at least aiming for the right things. Then it all stopped when I started planting churches.

To plant a church you can’t really help people discern what God has called them to do. What you have to do, if you want to succeed, is create options within your organizational structure that they can choose from. Then convince them that filling one of those roles is following God’s plan for their life.

We do church like Truett Cathy does chicken sandwiches. We brand. We structure. We promote. We shoot for a big launch day that will hit the magical thing we call “critical mass.” (The magic number of people in attendance that leads to success.) We do everything we can to keep them coming back. That’s why I got out of ministry.

We won’t say it’s about the numbers but it is. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t talk about critical mass and strategies and numeric ceilings that need to be shattered. Instead, we would talk about strength of community and authenticity. (I don’t mean as a tag line to make our numbers talk seem more spiritual.) We would celebrate God at work in our midst in big and small ways, even if we can’t make a really powerful video out of it.

Real church is God’s people living in community that functions like a family.

Real church is God’s people on a mission empowered by the Holy Spirit to rescue the orphaned, oppressed, beaten and broken.

That’s it!

Real church is a community that knows God’s love and forgiveness through Christ.

Real church is a community that bares one another’s burdens. I’m talking about actually, sacrificially, baring one another’s burdens. (This is a good point to ask yourself “what are the burdens and who are the burdened, I have walked with and supported in my church community?”)

Real church is a community that gives of their resources to help those in need.

Real church is a community that models unity, forgiveness, and healing in the most broken relationships.

Real church is everything the world wants but can’t experience because of the damage done by brokenness and sin.

Real church is the place God is most present in supernatural ways doing things in people’s lives that can only be explained by Him. Sadly for many churches, these things are the exception not the rule. That’s why I got out of ministry.

I got out because creating a weekend experience isn’t actually a thing in the Bible, unless God does it. Jesus moving among his people is. You don’t need high level people for that. You just need people who love Jesus. That’s what God has called us to. He just wants us to Love Jesus more and allow Him to make us more like Him.

It’s been two years since I “got out” of ministry. It’s only recently that I’ve begun to recognize that maybe I didn’t “get out” of ministry but for the first time in a long time I “got in” again.