what was your biggest loss?

[David HaywardKeymaster]

I want to share with you what I think was my biggest loss when I left the ministry and the church (which, btw, was at the same time): friends. I lost pretty much all my friends. Painful.

• This topic was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by  David Hayward.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  David Hayward.

[Anonymous]

Same for me David. Any good pastor has a great love for people. Losing friends is going to be particularly painful because of this. I survived by joining a number of community groups. I joined a local running club, became a member of my favorite golf course and joined the local barbershop chorus. It did not take  long for new friendships to develop and the void was gradually filled. I am now surrounded by many friends and none of them seem to have any desire to hang with ‘church people’.

Thanks for this ex-pastors’ and pastors’ section David! Great idea.

[Anonymous]

God’s presence in the darkness.

[David HaywardKeymaster]

yep

[Ruth AnneParticipant]

I really have lost my sense of purpose and calling. I don’t know why I’m here and what I’m doing. I can’t make sense of evil in the world or in my life if I can’t turn it around and free other people from their bondage through my stories. I thought my pain was always for the purpose of ministering to others… and that God wanted me to have an awful lot of swords in my hand so that I could be a powerful and effective force for his kingdom. Now, I’m starting to feel like “I myself am somebody that I used to know” and nothing at all now…. Yep, that’s it… purposelessness.

This coming from someone who thought they were “over it”….

[Ruth AnneParticipant]

Think I want to add one more thing to this. We were doing ministry. We answered what we felt was the call of God. We never worried about money because we believed he would provide. We made out decisions on calling and not money. When we got pummeled over and over and finally left the ministry we starved! I thought that God provided for his children, especially if they were serving him…. but instead he left us out cold. Barely scraping by. Living in complete financial stress. And we have struggled to this day. He gave us a child that has special needs but we don’t have the money to meet them! I don’t think that is a great way to pay back your employees for all their hard work! I’m kinda P*O’d at God right now…. like REALLY. Like IF he exists, raw deal and if he doesn’t, what a fool I’ve been…. So IF he did all this to make us effective warriors I could deal with it – but since that all seems to be a myth now… there is no reason for this….

How’s that for a landing out of ministry into a faith crisis?

[David HaywardKeymaster]

maybe you haven’t landed yet?

[Ruth AnneParticipant]

You mean I’m still falling… spiraling downward…?

 

[verittusParticipant]

My biggest loss in exiting ministry/church is that there is little that I can look back on that serves me any good memories, value or purpose. That time spent, now appears as time stolen.  There`s very little I wouldn`t trade to have never gone through the “fire” we went through.  In a metaphorical sense, an arsonist burnt the house down while we were still in the building and we escaped with our lives.  Some fragments survived the fire and serve as bittersweet memories, but there’s little from all those years of my life that I can look back upon and say “it is good.”

• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by  .

[Anonymous]

Ruth Anne…thank you for your raw honesty.  That always takes courage and challenges me  to be more transparent.

[Ruth AnneParticipant]

Thank you maliborn…. I’m nothing if not honest…. and raw for that matter…. It’s kind of all coming to a head right now…. You hold on for so long, believing the best, hoping and then one day you wake up and say… “this is all bullshit!” That’s where I’m at right now….

 

[Ruth AnneParticipant]

verittus, my daughter, when she was 4 (she’s now 19) and we were serving our worst church – had a dream that there was a church that was burning and pastors were getting thrown in and burned to death… most were not escaping. We escaped – and you did too! The fact that we are alive and on a website like this means something… even if it’s only that we breathe. I know just what you are saying about wishing it never happened – I hear you… I’m sorry that you had to go through it. know that you aren’t alone….

[David HaywardKeymaster]

thanks verittus. that’s real.

[JeffParticipant]

The greatest loss has been a sense of identity. I get the feeling that doubt is the other side of the absolutism and fundamentalism… as an evangelical I was certain of almost everything (at least that’s what I would have told you). Certainty doesn’t exactly foster healthy faith.

[David HaywardKeymaster]

I agree Jeff. Finding our true identity outside of ideas is a new but necessary venture.

[Author]

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