Reverse Church Growth and the Prayer That Changed Everything

I had just about every kind of bad church experience you can imagine—church splits, church rebellions, gossip, slander. You name it, I probably experienced it.

I was actually somewhat cheered up when I read a book about pastoral burnout and discovered that I hadn’t yet ended up lying on the bathroom floor in the fetal position, like the author of the book had.

I figured I must still be doing okay.

Eventually, the church had “grown” from about 125 people to 30.

It was time to call it a day and start over.

Apparently, I had become a practitioner of reverse church growth.

By every conventional measure, I was a failure as a pastor. But it went deeper than numbers. I was sick and tired of my life.

Again.

Three faxed résumés and one interview later, I found myself working miles from home, at the other end of an hour-long train ride—five days a week.

The pastor had gone back to work.

I was once again “working” for a living.

One nice thing about riding a train is that you can do something else while you travel. The possibilities are almost endless. You can learn a foreign language, write a book, pray, meditate, read—or simply watch the world go by.

But I spent my time trying to understand my spiritual journey.

Day after day, I scribbled furiously in the pages of my journal, trying to make sense of everything that had happened.

Somehow, I had come full circle.

From burnout to burnout.

I had started this journey burned out and disillusioned with church. Then my faith had been renewed. I had become a lay minister, an executive pastor, and eventually the pastor of a Vineyard church. I had studied church growth, dreamed about planting churches, and believed I had discovered where God was taking my life.

And now here I was again.

Burned out.

There is something humbling about discovering that all your education, experience, books, plans, programs, and good intentions have brought you right back to the place where you started.

I had spent years trying to figure out how to grow a church.

Now I was trying to figure out how to grow me.

One morning, I looked out the train-car window. The scenery passed by while I sat there thinking about what had become of my life. With tears filling my eyes, I prayed one of the simplest—and perhaps most important—prayers I had ever prayed:

“Oh God, get me out of this mess.”

That was it.

No eloquent pastoral prayer. No theological language. No three-point outline.

Just a tired man sitting on a train asking God for help.

There was no strategy left. No church-growth formula. No leadership technique. No five-year plan.

Just me and God on a train.

Looking back, I think that was exactly where I needed to be.

I had finally reached the point where God could speak—and I would listen.

I had come to the place where I could learn a new way of living.