6 Months In Limbo (Part 2)

The great weekend at Night of Joy (see Part 1) brought to a close my time of working behind the scenes to help keep the youth ministry of Wesley Memorial UMC afloat.  A new youth pastor was finally in place, and it was time for me to disappear and let him begin to build relationships with those students that I loved so much.  In the meantime, the Children's Ministry Coordinator from WMUMC (whom you may recall I had hired) had called and invited my son Will (a 5th grader) to be a part of their new ministry on Wednesday nights.  I stayed completely away from the church itself, partly because I had signed an agreement to not talk about the reasons I was asked to leave; plus, I just felt like staying away was the right thing to do.  Marilyn took Will for several weeks- and then we got a call from the church leadership telling us that Will was no longer welcome at that program because of me. They accused me of asking some of the Youth Ministry Team to quit on the new YP- they didn't quit, they had babies and were taking time off.  They had already started before I left.  I was accused of doing things to hinder the youth ministry.  I confessed that I had "hindered" it by planning most of their recent Night of Joy experience free of charge.  This was received as some sort of insidious plot on my part to overthrow the church.  Then I was told that Reverend Not-Appearing-in-this-Blog felt like it was inappropriate for any member of my family to be seen at the church.  Not that he actually called; he had someone else do it.  My family was already attending another church; this was simply my son going to a program he had been invited to by a staff member that included many of his best friends.  They yanked the rug right out from under him, and the Reverend Not-Appearing-in-this-Blog didn't have the cajones to do it himself.  I was livid.  It may well be the maddest I have ever been.  I restrained myself, but I wanted so badly to go nail the scripture from Luke 18:15-17 to the church door as a reminder of just how misled they were.  I made more than my fair share of mistakes while serving WMUMC, and I deserved to be let go.  But even if I had been a mass murderer, no church that claims the name of Jesus has any business turning away a child from its ministries.  Forgiveness took time and some counselling...


I was also convinced at that point that I never wanted to work for a church again.  I began to apply for all kinds of jobs (The one I really wanted was as customer service rep for Disney, helping people plan vacations.  I never got an interview.)  At first this was exciting.  Then it became depressing.  My 27 years of youth ministry had left me well trained to do...absolutely nothing else.  To lift my spirits, my incredible wife sent me to the National Youth Workers Convention in Sacramento that October with my buddy Tim Vestal.  While there I met one on one with some great mentors and counselors who helped me see that God wasn't done with me yet.  I got home and called a friend who was the youth pastor at the church we were attending and volunteered to help behind the scenes.  In November, he invited me to attend another NYWC in Pittsburgh with a team from Van Dyke Church.  By the time I returned home this time I was sending out resumes and praying for God to lead me to a new church that needed me.  I was fired up.  I was ready.  Little did I know that God had indeed picked out a place for us- Waycross, GA.  That story is yet to come...


Because of Jesus,