How I Learned to Handle Transitions in Ministry
Did you know that the average amount of time a pastor will typically stay preaching at a church is four years? That means if you, or someone you’re married to, has decided to pursue the Lord’s calling of being in ministry, transitions will be one of those things that “comes with the territory.”
Transitions can be exciting and lead to great things, but they can also be emotional and heavy. In my family, we’re going through a transition that has brought my husband into a new position of leadership. Our big move required us to leave our last church location, a place that brought a lot of healing to our family over the last three years, and a lot of wonderful friendships we made there. We aren’t strangers to transition, but even with some experience, each one is different and requires patience and strength from the Holy Spirit to get through.
A woman in the Bible that gracefully handled life transitions, despite the weight of what she was enduring, was Ruth. In an incredibly short amount of time, Ruth lost her husband, left the life she was used to, left her family, and began a new way of life in a foreign land.
Before Ruth met her husband, she and her family didn’t have God in their lives. Where they lived, in Moab, they worshiped false gods, participated in pagan rituals, and lived life according to a god that didn’t exist. When she met her husband, he brought God into her life, and even after he left it, Ruth couldn’t imagine letting her newfound faith go. In her situation, it would have been customary at the time for Ruth to go back to her family, and back to her old ways of life. She would have the chance to remarry, but going back to that life also meant that she would have to abandon her faith in God. Not willing to give up her relationship with God, she chose to follow her mother-in-law, Naomi, to her home in Bethlehem, where she would be free to believe in God.
When Ruth arrived in Bethlehem with Naomi, she worked incredibly hard to provide for Naomi and herself. There wasn’t much she could do as far as a job was concerned, but she found a way to put food on their table, and make sure she and her mother-in-law were cared for. She put in the work, trusted in the Lord’s provision, and her efforts were abundantly rewarded.
She followed the Lord’s calling in her life.
In the face of transition, because we’re following our faith and our calling, the Lord can take us to places we never imagined going. Ruth had been married into her husband’s family for ten years and had seen the beauty of believing in God for quite some time. While life would have been easier, and certainly more comfortable if she had chosen to stay in her hometown when her husband passed, she knew first hand what it would have been like to stay among pagans trying to stay faithful to the Lord.
When we’re called to a life of ministry, there are many routes the Lord might take us on. Sometimes He leads us to take a position in the closest church to our home where there’s an opening. Sometimes He takes us states away to a church that needs a pastor. Sometimes our husband feels called to leave his dream job, at a dream location, to support a team that is looking for a new leader. Sometimes He calls us to step away from the corporate world and enter the ministry world. However the situation looks like for you, paying attention to where the Lord is directing your steps, and following that direction, will make the transition worth it.
She held her people close.
When Ruth decided to go through a HUGE life change in following the Lord’s calling in her life, she held the people that would encourage and support her close. When my husband left his job at our old church, and began the process of finding a new job in another, we held tight to the friendships we had made for the same reason. Whether you’re moving to a church a few miles away, or across the country, your people are going to play an important role in helping you survive the transition.
When transition comes, and you are no longer attending the same church or part of the same ministry, there will be some friendships that fade away. Because you or your husband works in the church, and you find your faith community in the same space, there will be friendships that require your presence in both to survive. Those friendships can be beautiful and life-giving, but there will also be friendships that last despite where your families are. They may be few, and far between, but those are the people who will be there to live life with, and support you in all of life’s transitions. Keep those friendships close. Keep in contact as much as you can. Put the work into making them a part of your life, because girl, they’re worth keeping around.
She leaned in.
When Ruth got to Bethlehem with Naomi, she knew that to sustain the life she wanted, she would have to work hard for it. She was a foreigner and a widow which made her chances of getting remarried and taken care of by a man very slim. She didn’t wait around for things to happen, she made them happen.
When you find yourself in a new church or ministry, I’d encourage you to do the same. Attend service at different times to meet different people. Serve somewhere in the church, and get to know the people who are making all the gears move on campus. Make friends with the people who are volunteering to watch your kids during service. Get to know the people who make your drinks in the coffee shop, or wave at you in the parking lot. Put in the work to find your people in this new space; to find where you fit in.
She trusted the Lord with the details.
There are a lot of unknowns on the other side of a transition. You won't know what life will look like until you're living it. You won’t know who your people will be until you’re looking back, reminiscing about the first time you met. You won’t know what the Lord has blessed you with until it happens. But you do know that the Lord makes good things happen for those who love Him, and accept His invitation to live according to His plans (Romans 8:28); so you know it will be good whatever it ends up being.
Ruth followed her widowed mother-in-law because the Holy Spirit put the desire in her heart, and she obeyed. There she found a man who trusted the Lord, respected her loyalty to God and Naomi, and wanted to protect and provide for her. She later was honored as one of the five women named in Jesus’ lineage, and will be forever remembered as a woman who followed the Lord and trusted in His provision. If she had stayed home and not followed God’s call to Bethlehem, she would have had a good life as far as the world was concerned. She would have been comfortable and taken care of. But instead, she had a good life according to God’s work in her life, and you can have that too.
(A special thank you to Tori, Abbi, Bri, and Carissa for sharing their experiences with church and ministry transitions with me while I began writing this post. It is a pleasure to call you all friends!)