You are extremely excited, because you just are on the phone with the senior pastor telling you that the congregation voted and an overwhelming majority voted to hire you as the new Minister to Youth. You hang up the phone, and start to think what your ministry is going to look like, and how you are going to make a difference, not only in the church, but in the community. You finally start your first day, but you could not have imagined that nine months later you would be leaving, moving on to another job.
I am sure some of you have had an experience like mine. You are all excited about this new opportunity, but almost as soon as it started, it was over. My experience was short for a number of reasoning, and I was hurt about the whole situation, but I was able to get through my hurt through three different steps.
Prayer
First thing I did was pray. Prayer is important when you are hurting. We have a God that loves and cares for us, so in my mind it made sense to pray during this season of hurt. I prayed that God would make this hurt go away, I prayed that God would continue to use me for his will, and I also prayed that the church that I left would find someone that would be a good fit for them.
I’m not a failure
It was so easy for me to sit there and think that I am a failure because I was at a church for only nine months. That is where prayer also came in to change my thinking. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that God will keep in the same place for a long period of time, nor does it say that if you stay in one place for a short period of time, you are a failure. Realizing that I am not a failure help take away a lot of the hurt that I went through.
Stop talking negative about the short season at the church
There are going to be times that you will have to talk about the short season at the church, and what you went through. At times I caught myself talking down about the short season at the church. I realized that the more I talked about my short season in a negative sense, it brought back the hurt. Instead, I learned to think about the positives. Though my time was short, I still learned something from my short time, and that is what I keep in mind when I think about my time at the church.
These three steps really helped me overcome that hurt that I received by leaving that particular ministry. Those nine months at that church was a season that God had me go through, and though I wish, at times, it would have worked out, using the three steps really made me realize not my will be done, but God’s will be done.
Zane Kaehr, along with his wife, Staci, are Family Teachers at Boys Town, located just outside of Omaha, Nebraska. Zane enjoys spending time with his wife, watching movies, and the San Antonio Spurs.
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