You don't know everything…

In 1989 I was burnt out, I was also a church dropout. A denominational church pastor was innovating and planting a "contemporary" church. I was invited, and attended the new church. As a result I was renewed in my faith and became an active lay minister. A lawyer by trade, I was inspired to read every book I could get my hands on about the subjects of church growth, church planting, leadership and Christian living. Eventually, I served as the executive pastor of the church for a number of years culminating with a building program at a new location.

In the midst of this journey, God gave me a mission: "To support, encourage, and nurture the planting of churches targeted to reach teens-to-twenty-somethings and their parents." When I took over as the interim pastor of a local Vineyard church, I thought, "I’m finally on the way to my mission!" God had a lesson to teach me in pastoral ministry: "You don’t know everything."

During three years pastoring the church, everything that I had learned about church growth and leading a church stopped working. As a person who believed that cause and effect were a predictable process, this was a hard time. I also found out, that like Charlie Brown, "I love mankind, it’s people I can’t stand."

I had every possible kind of bad experience, from church splits, to church rebellions, to gossip and slander. I was kind of cheered up when I read a book on pastoral burnout and realized that I hadn’t ended up on the floor of my bathroom in a fetal position, like the author of the book. Eventually, the church had "grown" from about 125 to 30. It was time to call it a day, and start over. I had become a practitioner of "reverse" church growth. By every possible measure I was a failure as a pastor. More than that I was sick and tired of my life. Three faxed resumes and one interview later, I found myself working 60 miles from home on the other end of an hour-long train ride five days a week. I was back "working" for a living.

One nice thing about train rides, you can do something else while you are traveling. The possibilities are endless. Learning a foreign language, writing a book, prayer and meditation, these are all possibilities, but I spent my time tracing my spiritual journey.

Scribbling furiously on the journal pages, I tried to make sense of all that had happened. I had come full circle, from burnout to burnout. I began to seriously question my faith. One morning I looked out the window, and with tear-filled eyes, prayed this prayer, "Oh God, get me out of this mess." I had finally reached a point where God could speak, and I would listen. I had come to the place where I could learn a new way of living.