The Conversation Pastors Don’t Know How to Have

There is a conversation pastors have with me that almost always begins quietly: “I think I’m done here.” Then comes the sentence that reveals the real problem: “But I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next.”

I’ve had versions of this conversation more times than I can count. These are good pastors. Faithful pastors. Men and women who love God, love people, and still believe deeply in the mission of the church. They aren’t necessarily burned out, they haven’t necessarily lost their passion for ministry, and there hasn’t always been a blowup, a church split, or a board meeting gone bad.

In fact, sometimes they still have tremendous vision. They want to reach people. They have ideas, energy, gifts, and years of ministry left in them. The problem is that they’re no longer sure they can fully live out that vision where they are.

And that is a conversation pastors don’t always know how to have.

Pastors Are Good at Staying

We talk a lot in ministry about perseverance. Don’t quit. Stay faithful. Keep believing. Don’t make a permanent decision because of a temporary problem. Those are important lessons because every pastor goes through difficult seasons, and sometimes the most courageous and faithful thing you can do is stay.

But there is another side of the conversation that we don’t talk about nearly as much: What happens when staying may no longer be the courageous decision? What happens when you still believe in the mission, still believe God has something for you to do, but increasingly question whether your present assignment is the place where you can best fulfill it?

Maybe you’ve been there for years. You’ve tried new strategies and had endless conversations. Other pastors have encouraged you. Friends have prayed with you. Your board may have told you how much they believe in you. You keep preaching, planning, leading meetings, raising budgets, counseling families, and getting through another Christmas and another Easter.

The church continues, but inside you know something isn’t right. You feel stuck.

The Options Aren’t Exactly Simple

This is where the conversation gets complicated. A congregant can decide it’s time to leave a church and visit another one next Sunday. A pastor doesn’t have that luxury. If you believe your season may be ending, what exactly are you supposed to do?

Do you start looking for another church? How? Do you send résumés, call friends, or quietly put out feelers? And how do you explore another opportunity while continuing to stand in front of your present congregation every Sunday?

Maybe you should plant a church. God still calls people to do that, but anyone who has planted will tell you there are enormous challenges involved. Besides, planting a church simply because you are frustrated with the one you currently lead probably isn’t a great reason to start one.

Maybe you get a regular job and move to a community where you would like to live. That might actually be the right answer for some pastors. But let’s be honest: after spending years—or decades—in vocational ministry, taking a job outside the church can feel like moving backward, even if it isn’t.

Then there are the practical realities. You have a family, income, insurance, retirement, a house, maybe kids still at home. There are real consequences attached to these decisions, and “just trust God” can sound awfully simplistic when you’re trying to figure out how you’re going to provide for the people God has entrusted to you.

So what do many pastors do?

Usually... nothing. Not because they’re lazy, don’t care, or have stopped believing God. They simply don’t know what to do next.

Six months becomes a year. A year becomes three. Three becomes five. And the longer you stay stuck, the harder it becomes to imagine anything different.

Maybe You Haven’t Lost Your Vision at All

This is an important distinction because maybe you haven’t lost your passion for reaching people at all. In fact, that may be part of what makes this so difficult.

You still believe in the mission. You still want to make a difference. You have dreams about what the church could do in a community. You still have sermons you want to preach, leaders you want to develop, people you want to reach, and things you believe God has put in your heart. You just aren’t sure you can fully do those things where you are.

That is very different from simply wanting to quit. Sometimes you’re not tired of ministry; you’re tired of trying to fulfill your calling in a place where you no longer believe you can fully live it out.

And if that tension continues long enough, it begins affecting more than you. A church can keep functioning for a long time. Services happen, bills get paid, programs continue, and people are cared for. But maintaining a church and leading a church into its future are not necessarily the same thing.

That doesn’t make you a bad pastor. It may simply mean it’s time to start asking some questions you’ve been afraid to ask.

I Know Something About This

This isn’t entirely theoretical for me. Near the end of my time leading Coast Community Church, I found myself wrestling with some of these same questions. I knew something needed to change, but knowing something needed to change and knowing what that change should look like were two very different things.

So I prayed. I had conversations with people I trusted, and I began thinking strategically—not simply about how to leave something, but about what God might be leading me toward. I didn’t want to run away from something. I wanted to move toward whatever God had next.

Eventually, a path began to emerge that I could not have completely mapped out when I first started asking the questions. Today, I’m serving in a different role, and I genuinely believe I’m making a significant impact in this season of my life.

My answer won’t necessarily be your answer, and that’s not why I’m telling you my story. I’m telling you because I discovered that there can be possibilities on the other side of an honest conversation that you simply cannot see while you’re desperately trying to make your present situation work.

Sometimes the answer isn’t one of the options you’ve been turning over in your head. Sometimes God has another way.

But Who Can You Talk To?

This may be the loneliest part of the whole thing. You can’t always talk openly with your staff because one conversation can create uncertainty throughout the church. You may not be ready to talk with your board because the moment you say, “I’m wondering if my season here is ending,” they may hear, “I’m leaving.”

So you talk to another pastor, and he tells you to hang in there. A friend suggests that maybe you need a sabbatical. Someone else tells you to start sending out résumés. Another person reminds you that God called you there and you shouldn’t leave until He makes the next step perfectly clear.

Maybe some of that advice is right. The problem is that you often walk away from those conversations with the same questions you had when they started. Then Sunday comes, and you preach. You smile, love people, encourage everybody else, and quietly keep wondering, “What am I supposed to do?”

That is a lonely place to live.

You May Not Need the Whole Answer Yet

I wish I could give you five simple steps for knowing when it’s time to leave, but I can’t. Frankly, I would be suspicious of anyone who thinks they can.

A difficult season does not necessarily mean your assignment is finished. Discouragement, conflict, or slow growth don’t automatically mean you should leave. Sometimes God does His greatest work in us—and through us—because we stayed when leaving would have been easier.

But fear isn’t necessarily evidence that you should stay either.

Maybe the place to begin is simply by telling the truth and asking some honest questions. Do I still believe God has called me to lead this church into its next season? If nothing changed here over the next three years, could I faithfully and joyfully continue doing what I am doing? Do I still have vision, but increasingly feel unable to pursue that vision in my present situation? Am I staying because I genuinely believe God wants me here, or because I’m afraid of what leaving might mean?

And maybe the hardest question is this: Have I known for a while that something needs to change, but I keep waiting because I don’t know what comes next?

You may not need to know the whole answer yet. You certainly don’t need to resign tomorrow, become reckless, or abandon your responsibilities. Maybe the first step is simply giving yourself permission to prayerfully explore what faithfulness could look like if staying exactly where you are isn’t the only option.

Maybe the prayer is simply, “God, I don’t know what’s next. But I’m willing to ask. Show me.”

Leaving an Assignment Is Not Leaving Your Calling

I think somebody needs to hear this: Your calling is bigger than the position you currently hold. Your identity is not the name on the church sign, and finishing an assignment does not mean you failed the assignment.

There may be another church. There may be a church plant. There may be a different kind of ministry role. There may be a season when your paycheck comes from somewhere outside the church. Or, as I discovered in my own journey, there may be an option you haven’t even considered yet.

You don’t have to figure all of that out today, but you shouldn’t have to wrestle with it alone.

If you’ve been reading this thinking, “He’s describing me,” we would be glad to talk. At Pastor to Pastor, we aren’t going to tell you to stay, and we aren’t going to tell you to leave. We don’t have a list of churches waiting for pastors, and we aren’t going to pretend there is an easy answer to something this complicated.

But we can listen. We can pray with you, ask questions, and think strategically with you about possibilities you may not have considered. Maybe together we can begin discerning what your next faithful step might look like.

Sometimes the first step forward is simply having a safe place to say out loud what you’ve been carrying by yourself.

If you need that conversation, reach out to us at help@pastortopastor.life. You don’t have to have the answer before you start the conversation.