If you are like me you may have tuned your ears to the mega podcast The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill as Mike Cosper carries you along a sea of broken testimonies and the hope of God in the midst of failure, confusion, and anguish. The podcast has resonated with many so much so that other podcasts are talking about this podcast because the implications of “this could be you” echo throughout the series. I want to share a little about my time in ministry where I was broken and distraught but ultimately lead to holiness by a gracious and loving God.
The Rise
In the summer of 2018 my wife and I felt lead to move closer to family as we began our own journey of starting one of our own. To make that happen I submitted my resume to churches in and around Texas where my wife is from. One stuck out, a church in the same town where my wife went to college. I knew my wife had friends there so I decided to apply. A week or so later I get a call to schedule a phone interview with the senior pastor where he tells me it is a church revitalization project and he painted this picture of the gospel being proclaimed in the church and the community. We were sold and the church was sold on us. We moved to Texas in July of 2018 so I could serve as student pastor of this once thriving church now in need of revitalization.
I entered into my first paid church staff position with expectations of friendship and camaraderie amongst the staff and church members. Things started off well and my wife and I were excited to be ministering to the students and families of the church.
The Fall
But almost as soon as we started red flags began to appear. I don’t remember what order they occured in but I do remember them vividly. The first was in a coffee shop where at 28 years old I was told by the senior pastor that I was too old for student ministry and that he would have prefered someone younger so he could shape and mold. By that time I had been to seminary and had been a member of a church for several years and had many of my beliefs nailed down, he wanted someone that he could develop from the beginning. The second was when he told me that he was much more a preacher than a pastor. In a church revitalization project what the people need is a pastor and that is not what they got. He was divisive and did not listen to others and surrounded himself with yes men who were actually just barely out of college or still in college.
My wife would come home after Wednedsay nights and would begin to weep. Having been a part of a healthy church before I began to realize that it wasn’t the members that were the problem it was the leadership. So after six months as the student pastor I stepped down just before Christmas. My wife and I moved to another church in the area where we were cared for and loved but I couldn’t help but thinking of “was that it?” My first church staff job ended in failure after only six months and my wife wasn’t sure if she ever wanted to go back into ministry again. I was broken and my faith nearing the dryness of the Sahara I could only cling to Jesus.
The Reclamation
While at the next church where we were loved and cared for we began fostering a little boy who we would end up adopting. As it turns out with little kids your parents now suddenly facetime you a lot more than before. We were going back and forth to my wife’s hometown nearly 3 hours away once to twice a month and on top of that some of her family were having health issues and our soon to be son had some medical needs that couldn’t really be met in the small town that we were in. So just before the infamous shutdown of 2020 we decided to move to Waco. The first thing I did was look online to see what healthy churches were in the area. We found several but settled on one. We had no intentions of stepping into any sort of leadership roles but just wanted to be faithful members. However, the pastors and members poured into us love and grace and my heart began to soften from a defensive posture to the kind of openness that allows a seed to turn into a flower.
My family came to this church with our scar tissue barely healed when like a healing balm they lavished us with the gospel and gospel community. It was clear that God had allowed us to be broken that we might be rebuilt with a stronger infrastructure. My family has endured a number of challenges and loss this past year but we could not get through it without the love and support of our church family.
With that being said my wife now serves as a deacon of childrens ministry and I have several roles, deacon of member care and students, pastoral resident, and ministry resident. They last one is my full-time job. I am currently a support-based ministry resident where I serve alongside the pastors serving the members of the church. I did not know what was going to happen in December of 2018 when I stepped out of my church office for the last time. Would I ever serve at a church again, would my wife ever be ready for me to do that again, would she ever be ready to do that again?
I’m sad to say that the church that I was a student pastor at recently had to merge with another church in that town as the attendance and membership dwindled under the leadership of that pastor. That pastor is now gone and in the wake of that is more brokeness and heartache. I got out early as I saw the warning signs while others stayed because they were deeply invested in that church and my heart breaks for them knowing that many served at that church since its founding decades ago. I pray for them that God would mend their broken hearts, that the desert that many find themselves in would begin to spring forth trees and flowers that cry out God is good and has a purpose and that he knows what it means to suffer.
Thoughts Redeemed 