Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

ministry transitions

Pastor, Here are 3 Reasons to Leave Your Church (according to Eugene Peterson)

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After (what is typically) a long season of discernment and transition, starting a new role in pastoral ministry is exciting.

A new context with new people often results in new ideas for ministry! It’s also a time to re-try ideas (with adaptation) that didn’t work in your previous context. Plus, you have the chance to share all of your stories to people who have never heard them.

And while I would never advise any pastor to start their new role with their hand on the rip cord—just waiting for any sort of reason to leave—there are some reasons to leave.

I came across these three reasons to leave your church from A Burning in My Bones, Winn Collier’s biography of Eugene Peterson.

So, here are Eugene Peterson’s 3 Reasons to Leave Your Church (with additional commentary by yours truly):

1. Your Marital or Family Life is in Danger

If your marital or family life is in danger the sooner you get out the better. You can be a doctor or banker or professor and have a lousy marital/family life but not as a pastor. A valid reason to leave.” – Eugene Peterson

No one is perfect. We all mess up and make mistakes. And I’m so grateful that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ can cover over all of it. He is so merciful and loving, and he is definitely a God of second-, third-, fourth-,… seventy-seven times seven chances.

But there’s a reason that Paul exhorts Timothy—a young pastor—to “Pay close attention to your life and your teaching” in 1 Timothy 4:16. Or you might know it as, “Watch your life and doctrine closely.”

You can be a doctor or banker or professor and have a lousy marital/family life but not as a pastor. – Eugene Peterson
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If your marital or family life is in danger, you can only hide it for so long. They are more important than any title, paycheck, or sense of calling. Don’t neglect them. Leave your church, get a job elsewhere, and invest in the health of your soul, your marriage, and your family.

Before you can re-enter the ministry as a pastor, you need to have processed questions like the following:

  • How did my marriage or family get to this point?
  • What did I do to contribute to this? What am I doing to continue to contribute to this?
  • What have I neglected about myself and those around me?
  • Where do I find my sense of worth?
  • If I never re-enter the ministry as a pastor, will I still love God? Will I still believe that God loves me?

A lot of these are identity questions.

Another resource that can help you process this is my book, You Are What You Do: And Six Other Lies About Work, Life, and Love.

2. Your Congregation is Dysfunctional

Another danger symptom is a dysfunctional congregation that has a history of dysfunction. Some congregations are absolutely toxic and it’s usually a toxicity that has a history. Sometimes it can be disguised for three or four years, but not indefinitely. An urgent reason to leave.” – Eugene Peterson

Now before you declare your congregation dysfunctional, be sure that you’re not reacting to someone or something, or making this declaration in isolation. Talk to your denominational leader (if you’re a part of one), talk to previous elders and pastors, and talk to congregants who have left.

Some congregations are absolutely toxic and it’s usually a toxicity that has a history. – Eugene Peterson.
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Dig deep and mine what’s going on. Don’t make this declaration yourself.

I love how Henry Cloud reminds us that the past is the best predictor of the future, unless there is significant change.

So, if your congregation has a history of dysfunction, and if there hasn’t been significant change (like a heart of repentance, or a major change of stakeholders or the core), and if God isn’t asking you to stay and work through it, then leave.

3. You Aren’t Up To It Anymore

But maybe the most common reason for leaving is a sense that you simply aren’t up to it anymore—fatigue or depression or a chance that you aren’t equipped to deal with.” – Eugene Peterson

I think some of us fall into the trap of thinking that if you leave your church, there will never be another opportunity. Or if you need to take a break, you’ll never come back.

What a lie.

In life, we walk through different seasons don’t we? Sometimes things must die and go dormant (winter), in order for new life to sprout and begin (spring). Maybe this is your winter season? Or perhaps this is your summer season where all you want is to go inside and hide from the sun, when in fact you need to be out in the field watering it.

What season of ministry are you in?
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Don’t make the decision to leave in isolation.

Bring this up to your elders, to your leadership, or whoever you are accountable to. Maybe the right decision is to leave, or maybe the right decision is to go on a Sabbatical or leave.

Living and Drifting when in Transition

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Have you heard about The World’s Toughest Race?

It was a 671 km race over 11 days in Fiji that involved paddling, sailing, mountain biking, whitewater rafting, rappelling, climbing, and canyoneering. That’s the equivalent to 16 marathons, but multiplied exponentially in difficulty! When you watch the first episode, everyone is absolutely stoked, excited, and revved up to compete. Of the 60 teams from 30 countries, some have been training for months, and others for years.

During the race, the top teams slept only a few hours a day, if even. In fact, one team who dropped out in the middle only slept four hours in four days. Others stopped in the middle because of hypothermia or infections. Some just couldn’t go on because of pure exhaustion, others dropped out because of physical, mental, and emotional fatigue. And for most, it all happened in the middle.

What is it about the middle?

Don’t you find that we often quit in the middle? We get scared, and then we quit. We run out of money, and then we quit. We run out of time, we’re not serious enough, we lose interest, we settle for being mediocre, or we just focus on the short term instead of the long term…and then we quit. And doesn’t all of that usually happen when we’re in the middle?

If there’s anyone who knows anything about living in the middle, it’s the Israelites! For 40 years, they lived in between their life of captivity and the Promised Land—that’s 40 years in the middle. As time passed—and as they got used to living in the middle—something interesting happened. They began to drift.

Their longing for the familiar led to a longing to quit because they began forgetting all the ways that God had miraculously rescued them from their former life of slavery. And eventually, their gratitude drifted into mumbling, their thanksgiving drifted into grumbling, and their hope drifted into despair. In other words, when the Israelites were living in the middle, they forgot the past, began turning inward, and eventually drifted off course.

Has this ever happened to you?

As the Israelites slowly started forgetting their past and taking their eyes off of God, their God-worship was replaced with idol-worship. And even though they boldly declared that they would never have any other god beside the one True God (Exodus 24:3), they still bowed down to an idol—all because they drifted.

As we see all throughout the Scriptures, and in fact, all throughout the news as well, our natural tendency is to drift because our hearts are full of idols. With the Israelites, I know that Aaron made a golden calf (Exodus 32:1-6)—which is kind of why Moses flipped out—but that was simply a physical expression of what the people had already fashioned in their hearts and were already bowing down to. Even before they asked Aaron to make an idol for them, the Israelites had already started living for and worshipping the idol of comfort, the idol of comparison, and the golden calf of me, myself, and I.

When we’re in the middle, our natural tendency is to drift because our hearts are full of idols.
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When they were in the middle of leaving behind a life of slavery and moving toward a life of freedom, their hearts wandered and they drifted. They forgot what God had done and how he had miraculously rescued them through signs and wonders. And as a result, they began turning inward, and they eventually drifted off course.

Do you find yourself in the middle of something right now? In transition? Or living in between?

If so, then beware because you will most likely end up drifting when you’re in the middle—just like the current that will take you down a river, or the tide that will take you back to shore, or push you further out. When we’re in the middle, our natural tendency is to drift, unless we are proactive and intentional to paddle the other way! And these days, while you might not necessarily create and bow down to a golden calf while you’re in the middle, your heart will often drift to an idol that you’ve previously secured yourself to, or bowed down to in the past.

When we’re in the middle, our natural tendency is to drift, unless we are proactive and intentional to paddle the other way!
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What is that for you?

Is it work? When you are in the middle, do you have a tendency to just bury yourself in work to distract yourself? Or is it perhaps leisure and trying to have fun and fill yourself with experiences? Or maybe it’s alcohol or drugs to help you relax and forget? Or perhaps it’s pornography because it makes you feel like you’re in control?

Instead of letting yourself fall into a tried, tested, and true tactic of the evil one, I urge you to do what some of the Israelites did once they recognized that they drifted—repent. Lay down your pride, confess your mistakes, and come humbly before Jesus because he cares for you.

If you’ve drifted and find yourself bowing down to an idol from your past, my prayer is that you would be overwhelmed by the unchanging compassion and grace of Jesus. And that the guilt or shame that you are experiencing would be replaced with the abounding faithful love and truth of Jesus as he washes over and forgives your iniquity, rebellion, and sin. Because here’s the truth: there’s nothing you can ever do to make Jesus love you less, and there’s nothing you can ever do to make Jesus love you more. His love is ever constant, ever present, and forever unchanging—even when we drift off course.

There’s nothing you can ever do to make Jesus love you less, and there’s nothing you can ever do to make Jesus love you more.
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*My article here was originally published on February 11, 2021 on Impactus.

Ministry and Life Transitions

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3 days remain.

I only have 3 more days in Canada.

There are only 3 more days until my wife and I begin our new life in Seoul, Korea.

How did it get this way? How did we end up leaving our ministry and our life in Montreal to move to the other side of the world?  How were we so sure that this is where God was calling us? How did we know that this was God’s will for our lives?

[Read more…] about Ministry and Life Transitions