Before you read this... Read my first post.
In this post, I want to be honest. I will fess up to mistakes I have made, but I come to the same conclusion. I am pissed off, becaues I have been pissed on.
I can't even tell you when it started, but here is the order of things.
I got an email from a friend. It basically said: "Do you wanna move to Phoenix and be the Youth Pastor at your old church?"
My first reaction was: "Not really right now. Things are going well here."
But after a few months went by, Kim and I decided that we wanted a change of scenery. There was nothing awful or bad going on. But we were recruited by several people to take different ministry jobs.
When we agreed to fly to Phoenix, it was after I had said "no" twice to continuing the conversation. They asked if they could fly us down so that they could at least feel like they tried.
We flew down, and in the airport felt like we shouldn't even be coming down at all.
However, we had a blast.
During the trip we met with old friends who I would be working with and met with new friends who we were excited to start working with. We met with the Pastor and his wife. This was a big deal to me. They stayed up until 1am talking with us about the possibility. They told us that we could be couples in ministry together.
I asked if I could be myself. He had read my blog and knew I was irreverent and silly at times. He told me that "that's what I want."
We interviewed with the staff, the youth staff and the board. Very fun and easy going people. The only red flag was in the meeting with the board. A conservative board member who had read my original blog, said that some of it concerned him a bit and he did not understand blogging. But it didn't seem to be that big of a deal. They even said that they would want Kim to interview to be on staff as well.
I was myself in the interviews. I did not promise to be someone different and said that we would be excited to work with our friends on staff.
It was fun and interesting.
The only other red flag was when I met solo with the Pastor. He did share with me that there was potential downsizing that would need to occur. He made it sound like it would be one of the staff members, but it would not have to happen before I had been there for a good 6 months.
So we took it.
We aren't dumb. We know that nothing is perfect. But this sounded fun and interesting.
Over the next few weeks, Kim talked with the Pastor and he shared his excitement to put her on staff too. We were thrilled. He told her that there were two pastoral positions open and he would be open to having her in either. I went as far as to ask him if he could put her on staff when we got to town. He agreed to do this on a 3 month probational period after which she would be interviewed for one of the open pastoral roles.
So we quit our old jobs. We put the house for sale and got ready to move.
About two months later, the pastor called and told me that we would have to eliminate two of the people who worked for me. Again, this wouldn't have to happen for 6 months. I didn't like this much, but I understood the reasoning and believed that after 6 months it would be ok. I asked him if he would break this news to them, and he said that he would.
So we got into town. Everything was getting started and was exciting.
Within a couple of weeks, I was told that I had a couple of weeks to identify the people I was letting go and give them the big ugly ax. I hated this. I understood. But I hated it. I ended up letting two good friends go. One of them told me that she wanted me to let her go, so that her fiance could stay on. I obliged. The other still said that we could keep our friendship.
That same week, Kim had been on staff for a total of a week and a half. The Pastor met with her to tell her that she would not be able to be on staff as a Pastor because the Board didn't want a husband and wife both on pastoral staff, and she would not be able to go past her 3 month probation because they didn't have the money.
This was a huge change and a big blow to us. She would now have to scramble to find herself a different job. This was deflating to her as she was pretty much assured of having at least some job on staff at church, and now there was nothing.
She did find a job with a local school district. This job was quite defeating to her and certainly was not the ministry that she thought she would have been a part of. During the rest of our time here, Kim not only worked her full time job, but worked countless hours with us in student Ministry.
Next.
One of my employees took some middle schoolers to camp, 6-8th graders. During the camp, he confessed to them that he was struggling with a porn addiction. I was not informed of this until the entire youth staff knew about it as well as at least one board member. He them came to my office and informed me that he had made this confession. I was floored and shocked. I told him that this was a BIG deal for a Middle School pastor. I told him that counseling was necessary as well as accountability both through software and through meeting with pastors. He immediately informed me that he didn't want software as it would slow his computer down.
I didn't know what to say or do. I did have some conversations with my Pastor. It turns out that my Pastor did not trust this staff member. He had wanted me to let him go when I let his fiance go a month earlier. I consulted with a mentor of mine who is a pastor and his wife, I consulted with a former board member who is a counselor, as well as with other friends. I told them that my major concern was not the porn, although it had to be dealt with. My major concern was that he felt it was appropriate to tell 6th graders this news before he told his pastor, staff leaders and his fiance that he would be marrying next month.
I had to suspend him, which was not my decision. I wanted to make a decision and have it be final. During his suspension, I did find that there were no staff members or board members who would support keeping him on staff. It seemed that the writing was on the wall. I told the Pastor that this was an issue for him to deal with. He met with the staff member and the staff member relayed that he did not feel that it was a mistake to tell the kids of his issue. The Pastor said, I think we need to let him go.
I offered to break the news to the staff member, but the Pastor said that it was his job. Cool, I thought. I knew when this meeting was happening and was in my office stressed and sad. The Pastor came to get me out of my office. He told me that the staff member had said: "the only thing he could have said that would make me think twice about letting him go."
The Pastor told me that he had finally said that he now thought it was a mistake to make this statement to the kids. The pastor told me that he didn't know how heartfelt this was and whether it was just to keep his job. He called me into the meeting.
During this meeting, he asked me if I would feel comfortable with this staff member taking more kids on a camp, mexico trip or out of state trip. Or whether I would feel comfortabel with him taking MY kids on one of these trips. I said No. Who would have? No staff members or board members felt comfortable with this, and the only thime that I had let him do it, it had led to these problems. Plus, I had a list from staff members and board members telling me that the staff member was an awful driver and unsafe with kids in the van, that he would force the kids to take benadryl on camps and retreats, as well as documentated statements of him being disrespectful and insubbordinate to the leaders in charge of him.
What should I have said? After saying that, the Pastor informed the staff member that he was fired. Basically, the Pastor couldn't do it himself and had called me in to be the bad guy. I was thrown under the bus. I had known this staff member since he was in high school. He was a friend. It was the last conversation we had.
This created a huge hole in ministry for us. There were over 200 kids weekly coming to our services and we now had no middle school pastor. The Pastor told me that I could interview and hire a replacement.
I called a good friend. He was really interested and planned to come to town with his wife since she was in a wedding and check out the church. He and his wife had obviously had long talks about this and were strongly considering changing their lives and making this move.
While this good friend was in town. In my office even. The Pastor called me in for a conversation and informed me that we didn't have the money to rehire this position. I had to go to my friend and apologize for leading him on with this position. I felt awful. Only a week before, I had let the Pastor know that I would have my friend in town and he had said nothing. I still don't get it.
We now had less than half of the staff members that we had started with. I had started a small group ministry with 20 groups meeting on a weekly basis and training meetings for the adult leaders of these groups. We had continued having great sunday meetings. We had fewer events for middle schoolers but people understood that we were biding our time until we could hire a new middle school pastor. We were working crazy hard with me and two half time employees as well as Kim consistently working with students and putting the program together.
At this point, we had gone on a great summer mission trip schedule, and things were flowing nicely. We came back from our summer trips to find out that our Children's Pastor had quit his job. He would be gone in two weeks.
In an emergency, all staff meeting; The Pastor told us: "This is not MY problem, this is OUR problem." In this meeting, every staff member urged the Pastor to consider hiring Kim as the Children's pastor. He agreed to think and talk about it. But in the meantime, I was selected as the staff member who could oversee the one employee who was working part time with Children's Ministry and who could take the interim lead on Children's ministry.
My weekly schedule which had contained at least 2 and ususally 3 evening meetings for student/college ministry now had increased to at least 4 evenings away from home. Not only that, but I was also in the middle of chairing the committee to hire a new worship pastor. Which was a weekly evening meeting and a Sunday after church meeting.
This was difficult. This was also the time when I was confronted by a person who worked for me and told that I should confront the Pastor about the fact that he refuses to meet at the chuch in the evenings but the whole staff is there multiple evenings in the week. I did not do this because he held the fate of our family in his hands. I wanted to stay on good terms with him because not only does my job depend on him, but he was making a decision on whether to hire Kim to work in Children's ministry.
He did meet with Kim twice. He insisted on meeting during the day so she had to bring in both of her phones since she would take time off of work but still be "on call." Because he did not want her on staff subordinate to me, or equal to me, he decided that she would be subordinate to the discipleship pastor that he had just hired. Both of them met with her. Several other staff members were consulted and advised that they should hire her, but that they should treat her fairly as she had been treated unfairly before.
They decided that she was not a good fit. Even though she had 6 years of experience and the support of the entire rest of the staff. Even though she taught seminars at conferences on the subject. Even though she had been trained at several large churches that the Pastor wanted to emulate.
When he let her know that he would not be pursuing her farther, he called her at work on the phone and told her that they didn't like how she lived with 2 cell phones and she was not the right fit. The conversation lasted 2 minutes. Kim was hurt.
At this same time, I was chairing the worship pastor search team and was being asked by the pastor to get the team to recommend my staff member Brandon to be considered for the job and to take an interim role where he would work half time for me and half time for the adult service. This was a thrill to Brandon, but rough on us as he would now be divided. We also were dealing with the departure of my one other staff member who was leaving for grad school in Wa.
We were now down to me and one half time employee. This is down from the seven employees that I had when I began.
I was not happy. I was asked the same week to go to a church planters conference. I don't know if I saw it as a way out, but I did see that it might give me an option or at least some inspiration. It was a mistake to not tell the Pastor that I was going on this trip until I left. I already had the days off, but didn't want him to know that I was going. But when I noticed that a couple of church members were in attendance, I figured I should let him know I was there so that he did not hear a rumor. I was not planning to leave, I was just checking it out.
When I got back, I was told it was no big deal that I was at the planters conference. But there was another big deal. Apparently a board member had found an old blog that I had started 8 months prior. The blog only had 10 posts. He had only found it because I had started a new student ministry blog and he clicked on my name and clicked on "other blogs by this user." On the blog were three offensive things: 1. a link to one of those overdubbed gi joe videos where the guy uses the f-word a couple of times in a silly way. 2. A post about how being at the church had been a roller coaster. (no critical language toward church leaders at all, I did not even say that I was struggling with the Pastor's decision to fire people. It was very positive. 3. A post where I humorously recounted a day off where I made it clear that we had beer at lunch, where I made a silly comment about too much beer saying "for those of you who think that there is such a thing as too much beer" I also made a comment about Kim's mom walking in on us while we were having sex. In the post, I made fun of the silly situation and never used profanity except to say "blue balls."
Apparently these posts were passed back and forth between staff members for over a month before I was talked to about it. I had not posted on this blog in 8 months, in fact, I had totally forgotten about it. The only people who knew about it were 2-3 old friends. This obviously was not intended for youth to read, and it was my mistake to not know that you could get to this blog by clicking on "other blogs by this user." This was my mistake and oversight.
Apparently this was a "big deal" to the board. I asked if it was such a big deal that I could be fired for it. He said that he didn't know.
Keep in mind that the only offensive sections on this blog are the ones that I just relayed in this post. Keep in mind that this board had access to my previous blog where I questioned lots of stuff about faith and life in provocative ways and probably sometimes crossed a line, but they had access to that entire blog and were encouraged to read it before I even interviewed. I was told by the pastor that he was not uncomforatable with any of that stuff.
But NOW it was a big deal. I was asked to write a letter to explain it, so I did. I apologized for any offense, told them it was meant just for a couple of friends, told them that I was struggling with my place at the church and was dealing with depression and needed support.
This depression thing was something that I had confided to the pastor a couple of months before, as well. I told him that life was difficult. I was working hard and not keeping my head above everyone's expectations. Of course a month later, he had me chairing the worship search committee and taking on children's ministry as well. During this time, I normally worked 60-70 hours weekly with no day off.
I was told that the board accepted my apology and that it was a non issue after that.
I was also told that a board member took a stand for student ministry and suggested that we hire a middle school pastor. He told the board "we have set mike up to fail. we need to support him." So I started interviewing another friend. We interviewed him a few times and I told the pastor that I was ready to hire him. He said that he wanted to meet with him first. So I tried to set up the meeting. The pastor was too busy and couldn't meet. I asked for 5 weeks, and he couldn't find the time. Finally, after the holidays, the pastor sat down with me to inform me that we could not hire my friend due to the budget and we could not hire an administrative assistant to fill the roleof the other staff member who left and that Brandon could no longer help with adult worship. This conversation lasted 5 minutes.
About a month later, I was called in to the pastor's office. He asked if I was leaving. He may have figured out at that point that I was not happy working this many hours with only one employee, no financial support, doing two jobs and being his voice at the worship search team meetings. He may have figured out that because he had hurt my wife so bad (and knew about the pain from several conversations with me)that maybe I was not happy. So he asked if I was looking at leaving. He now told me that he was mad that I went to the planters conference 5 months earlier. He told me that he was still thinking that I had a couple of issues to be worked through if I wanted to get back on good terms with him and the board.
Walking into that meeting, I thought that we were on decent terms. I didn't know that he was hurt about me going to that conference. I did not know that the board had any other issues (which I was told later by a board member that they did not.) He told me that I had a leadership issue because I openly disagreed with him in a meeting when he said that taking our church credit cards away was not a big deal. (I was not disrespectful, but let him know that meant that I would have to spend hundreds of my own dollars every week to be reimbursed and that I did not have open credit cards.
He also said that I had disrespected leadership when the church administrator handed me a copy of the myspace page of one of our students who was foul mouthed on his own page, and told me that I had to take care of it since it was linked to the student ministry page. I took the page and didn't explain how myspace worked. I actually did delete our myspace page on that day even though it didn't matter.
He told me that because my wife had made a statement that he disagreed with in our Sex love and Dating series the previous year, he didn't believe that I had talked to her about it. (Which I had, but how would he know anyway.) He also said that he thought that I needed to do more to recover my relationship with the board. When I asked him what, he didn't know. He also said that he wanted to see different things for student ministry. He was sad that we lost kids. This is something you tend to do when you lost most of your staff. He was also sad that we had never reached out to the homeschooled kids of two board members. One of those board members had told me that her kids were not allowed to be in a small group or attend our service, and all of those kids go to the adult service anyway.
He said that because of those things, my character was in question. He said that he wanted to put together a plan on how to get back to good standing. He told me that the plan wasn't a big deal, just a way to get us on the same page.
The next week, I told him I had no interest in his plan. I disagreed with he asessment of what he called "character" and was horribly offended that my character was in question. I told him that though I might recover in my relationship with him in his eyes and with the board; that he was doing nothing to recover in his relationship with Kim and his support of student ministries.
When I look at it, I probably could have confronted him more. I could have told him more truth when I was upset. I could have said "no" when I was way too over worked, though I thought that saying yes would increase my chances of getting Kim hired. I could have gone to the board and made my case about the student ministry being hurt, but I trusted that the Pastor was making this case for us. I should have told the Pastor when I went to the planters conference before I did. I should have read into the initial red flags better before I got here.
With all of that being said though. I was pissed on.
