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What Happens When Pastors Feel TRAPPED in Their Jobs?

I want to bring up something that church people don’t talk about very often.

Why don’t we talk about it? I don’t know. Lots of reasons. I suspect the biggest reason is that talking about it would require us to take an honest look at the lives of our ministers. And I’m not sure we want to do that.

Church ministers do more than lead our Bible studies and our worship services. They do more than run the administrative parts of the church.

Our ministers represent an idealized state of spirituality that we want to believe is possible for anyone.

Maybe we haven’t achieved that state ourselves, but we like thinking that Brother Jones or Father McGee has gotten to the Promised Land. And maybe he can lead us there. 

Therefore, anything that reminds us of the basic humanity of our ministers can be uncomfortable.

Here is the thing that we don’t talk about:

There are thousands of ministers out there who no longer wish to be ministers.

They no longer want to work in churches.

They don’t want to do it anymore.

But they don’t know how to leave.

They don’t have anywhere to go.

They don’t know what to do.

Yes, I said thousands. I thought about it. Hundreds is too low a number. It’s thousands.

Thousands of ministers working in churches and wishing they could leave.

It’s very common. I know this because I used to be a minister.

And I reached the place where I wanted to leave.

And I wasn’t alone.

Maybe you want to know why.