If you resign as pastor to find work in the community, but you still want to serve as a pastor in the church (just not as a paid staff person), you will immediately encounter a problem.

Many pastors spend 60-70 hours per week performing pastoral duties. How are you going to continue to do this, and also work at a job in the community?

The short answer is that you are going to have to make a few changes, all of which will be incredibly beneficial for you and for the church.

1. Redefine Pastoral Ministry

Many pastors think that Pastoral ministry only occurs in a church or with church people. But when a pastor realizes that he can be a pastor to all people, not just to church people, then true ministry really begins.

While pastors would love to disciple and train all those people who already believe in Jesus, read their Bibles, and pray,
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One benefit to resigning as pastor is that you can no longer get fired. I know this doesn’t seem like much of a benefit, but it is.

No More Fear of Getting Fired

If you are considering resigning from the pastorate, one reason might be due to conflict with the leadership team of the church. Maybe you and the other elders don’t see eye-to-eye on the direction of the church, or how to allocate the church budget. And because you are the one one who depends on the church for income, some elders will use that to their advantage, threatening you with loss of pay, or even loss of job, unless you come around to their way of thinking.

As long as you are getting paid by the church, those in the church who hold the purse strings have power over you. In many churches, those who hold the purse strings control the pastor to do what they want by threatening him with salary cuts or worse yet, losing his job.

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Many pastors today are resigning from full-time ministry…or at least thinking about it. Many wish they could, but don’t know what they would do if they left pastoral ministry.

As someone who has left the pastorate, I want to write several posts which share some of what I have learned along the way. I will share some of the benefits of resigning, and also suggest some ideas for how you can make a living away from professional, paid pastoral ministry.

Drawback to Resigning as Pastor

In this post, let me state that if you leave professional, paid, pastoral ministry, you will most likely miss it, especially if you love it.

I loved pastoral ministry. I loved the churches I worked in. I loved the people I worked with. Not a day goes by in which I do not desperately miss many elements of pastoral work. One of the reasons I left and (so far) have not gone back into full-time pastoral ministry, is because of a conviction I have that I cannot get paid to be a pastor.

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Have you ever heard of “spiritual fatherhood”? Have you ever had a pastor who asked you to think of him as your “spiritual father”? What happened? How did it work? What was your experience of this?

This concept is not found in all churches, but where it is, the pastor often uses the idea to exert his authority and control the lives of others. It is another form of pastoral power abuse.

Scriptural Basis

The idea of spiritual fathers comes from passages like 1 Corinthians 4:15-16, 11:1, Philippians 2:22, 4:9, and 2 Timothy 3:10, 14 where Paul tells those under his care to follow his instructions and imitate his example because they are his children in the gospel. From this, certain pastors also try to get the people of their church to follow their instructions, and imitate their example. Seems innocent enough, right? Especially since the Apostle Paul set the precedent.

Spiritual Fathers and Spiritual Child Abuse

The primary problem, however, is that not all pastors are like the Apostle Paul. The ministry of Paul was characterized by self-sacrificial service to others. Many pastors who try to control the thinking and behavior of others with the concept of “spiritual fatherhood” are more concerned with their own position of power and prominence than they are with the spiritual wellbeing of other people.

This can been seen when their practice of spiritual fatherhood goes far beyond anything Paul practiced in his life and ministry. If Paul was a “spiritual father” it was a servant father, not a father who lorded his position over others. Paul, as a spiritual father, did not engage in spiritual child abuse.

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Sometimes, those of us who are pastors think of ourselves as the head of the local church, the spiritual leader that deserves respect and obedience from others, or the one like a High Priest who has the closest connection to God.

Among the disciples of Jesus and in the early church there were spiritual leaders who thought of themselves in such a manner. Some of the early believers wanted to sit in places of honor and privilege (cf. Matt 20:21-24; Jas 2:1-13), and receive recognition for their leadership role within the church. This seems to have been a problem in Corinth also, as Paul had to remind the believers there that the church has only one head, Jesus Christ.

Many of the early Christians came out of Judaism and pagan religions where a class of clerics and priests ruled and dominated other people in all things spiritual. So also, the concept of the man as the head of the household carried over into the idea that the pastor was the head of the church, especially since early churches often met in houses.

Scripture argues against a single, authoritarian leader in a church, and taught instead that all were equal in Jesus, that spiritual gifts were given to all for the benefit of all, that we are all priests with Jesus as the High Priest (cf. Matt 26:6-11; 1 Pet 2:5, 9; Heb 4-5).

Ultimately, the cure for wanting to be the man in charge is to see Jesus as the sole Head of the church. There are no sub-heads in the church, nor are Jesus and pastors conjoined twins. We do not share headship over one body. Jesus is the head, and the pastor is part of that body.

When we view ourselves this way, we begin to see that our role in the church is the same as everybody else’s: to serve the other members of the body.

One of the big pitfalls in pastoral ministry is the lure of pastoral power. We want people to respect our position of authority, listen to our ideas, and follow our instructions. While there is a certain amount of authority inherent within the pastoral position, it is, like any other form of power, easy to abuse, and while pastors are spiritual leaders, this does not make us immune to the lust for power, but to the contrary, often seems to amplify it. After all, we’re doing “the Lord’s work.”

Furthermore, just as history is written by the victors, it is also true that the rules are created by those in power. Pastors are no exception. We are experts in using Scripture and theology to reinforce their power. We use our knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, our sense of spiritual calling, our ordination, the seminary degrees, leadership skills, and charismatic personalities to convince people that they must follow and obey.

If you have been around church for any length of time, you know how damaging and destructive this can be, not only on the congregations, but also in the pastor’s life and family.

One way to begin to free ourselves from the bondage of power that we put on others and put upon ourselves is to unravel the theology and Scripture texts which have been used to support our claim to power and authority. There are dozens of these, but in the next couple of posts, I will look at some of the more prominent.
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