What Makes My Dysfunctional Ministry

One of the experiences in my life that has influenced my goals at Colorado

Christian University would have to be my husband (Jim) and my transition out of

the pastoral ministry a year and a half ago. Together Jim and I have been in the

ministry for 25 years. Sixteen years ago we planted a church from scratch that grew

into a congregation of 400. Our transition away from this church and ministry did

not go well. At our church, Jim had lost several leaders to job transfers out of state,

and so he was desperate for help. Jim took several men through 20 weeks of officer

training and these men appeared to be on board with the philosophy and vision of

the church. Many of these men had only been at the church for a year and we

These leaders wanted to take the church in a

different direction so conflict emerged between them and Jim. At the same time, Jim

hired a new assistant who was insubordinate toward him. Again, conflict emerged

between Jim and the assistant. In the meantime, the congregation was in the dark as

to what was happening in the leadership and we were not permitted to share what

was going on. The congregation could sense that there was a lack of unity in the

leadership, but they didn’t understand the complexity of how fractured the

relationships were. People began to leave the church. To make a long story short,

Jim felt unheard, disrespected, and neutered as a pastor. The new leaders were not

willing to step down, so Jim made the decision to resign. This broke my heart

because we lost our job, calling, Church family and home. We have never felt so

unsupported by leadership before. We felt very sad for the hard work and effort we

put into the church only to see it bottom out. I was now at a place in my life with no

purpose. This experience really shook me down to who I was as a person and