Leaving Church

On August 26, I concluded nearly 15 years as a Pastor at Beacon Heights Church of the Brethren. This tenure follows another 8 plus years earlier in my career as Pastor of

Ambler Church in eastern Pennsylvania. This follows several years of working in other churches as a seminary intern, while also obtaining my master’s degree, my bachelor’s degree, and being active in church life as a child and teenager. The Christian church, primarily the Church of the Brethren, has been part of my whole life thus far. It is a challenge for me to imagine my life outside of being so intricately involved with the church. But that’s where I’m being ‘called’.

I’ve been re-reading Leaving Church, by Dr. Barbara Brown Taylor. I find Dr. Brown Taylor’s writings speak to my soul in a way other writers don’t. This book chronicles her life in church, both what drew her in and what led her to leave. I appreciated her reflections when the first time I read the book years ago. I am living them now, and her words are a balm for my weary mind, body, and spirit. Pandemic pastoring is exhausting, but the fatigue I feel is much broader and deeper than the past 2.5 years alone.

Brown Taylor writes of the seductive danger of letting the church define what she calls the ‘Divine Presence’ in one’s own life. For those of us called to ministry, it is tempting to make Church and God one entity, and to devote one’s life to Church service, believing that automatically means we are serving God. If not self-differentiated well, this morphing can lead to compassion fatigue, as ministry is a vocation where the needs are many and unending, but the time and energy of clergy to meet those needs is finite. That’s why clergy frequently work well beyond ‘full time’ and in the most toxic church settings (which I’ve thankfully avoided), clergy are basically told their ‘calling’ was to be suppliant victims of their church’s abusive expectations.

I have been asked repeatedly if some event/action/decision happened to cause me to leave Beacon Heights. The question is understandable and the answer is a clear ‘no’.

I am leaving church in order to rediscover my own connection with the ‘Divine Presence’ in the best ways I know how, and I cannot continue to do that while employed in Christian ministry. I am leaving church in order to deepen my own understanding of God and to test my gifts, skills, and capabilities in new ways. I am leaving church because the ‘call’ to do so is clear and palpable. God is in this. I don’t know how or where, exactly. All I can do is to have faith.