Breakthroughs Through Journaling

My father passed away exactly one month ago today.

I was at a retreat this morning, and as much as I had been looking forward to it, I found it difficult to engage fully. I found it challenging to sing songs of worship, even though my mind was agreeing with the lyrics on the screen and my heart wanted to throw my hands up in the air in praise of our God.

It wasn’t all due to grief about my father, though. This weekend, it became apparent that I was still grieving the loss of my former church community.

Wounds, triggers, and flashbacks

As much as I love our new church community, the unhealed wounds that I have allowed to fester have become triggers for grief over our old one. Being at a retreat brought back memories of all the retreats that I had worked on in the past: the long hours and stress behind the scenes, which were worth it when we’d see resulting breakthroughs, laughter, and tears in the community we did life with.

Come to think of it, “gave me flashbacks” is probably a more accurate way to describe what I felt than “brought back memories.” There are times I feel like I have some form of PTSD.

About a month ago, I volunteered to teach Sunday school at our new church. Didn’t think it’d be a big deal, since I’d taught kids’ classes countless times before. But during the class, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the familiarity of it all: the smell of crayons and markers, the sight of a neon-green stack of children’s Bibles in the corner, the sound of children talking over one another. I froze for a second and had flashbacks of all the challenging, frustrating, exhausting, but rewarding Sundays my team and I spent running the children’s ministry at our previous church.

The pain was too great to bear. It wasn’t because of anything any of the children in my classroom had done, as they were well-behaved.  It was because the familiar setting reminded me of the most painful chapter in my spiritual journey: my transition out of pastoral ministry.

Yes, technically, I am the one who resigned. I agreed to resign and left full-time ministry after God spoke to me through a roundabout, but the circumstances leading up to that decision were not very fun. I realized this weekend that I still harbored an unhealthy amount of anger and resentment towards that church over what happened.

The need to forgive

As a former prayer ministry pastor, I am well aware of the need to forgive others, and I have done my best to forgive and bless the parties involved. Yet, no matter how many times I’ve prayed to forgive, the bitterness seemed to linger. (A friend reminded me that in Matthew 18, when Peter asked Jesus how many times we need to forgive someone, Jesus replied, ”Seventy times seven,” a figure of speech suggesting infinity.)

I prayed and asked God what I needed to do to find closure and move on. I prayed for a breakthrough at the retreat this past weekend.

The breakthrough didn’t come during worship, as much as I wanted it to. It didn’t come through the main sessions, as good as they were. It didn’t come through small group sharing time, as much as my group shared with transparency and authenticity.

Instead, I found closure by cracking open my journal during the last main session.

Breakthroughs through journaling

I kept a journal when I was a children’s pastor and wrote entries during the monthly silence and solitude retreats my team would go on. I brought it with me to this retreat just in case I needed it.

I began to flip through the pages. The journal hadn’t been updated since November 2016. I swiped back a few chapters to the entry dated August 1, 2016– just eight days before the fateful meeting that marked the beginning of my long transition out.

I was on vacation in Kansas City at the time. My wife and I were in the prayer room at IHOP, the International House of Prayer, while our two boys attended summer camp. After a time of soaking in prayer, worship, and God’s word, I began to jot down my reflections in my journal, and here’s part of what I wrote that day:

Pastors who are shepherd types are not valued at large churches. Perhaps they are by the congregation, but organizations need pastors/leaders who can raise up big teams to keep the church healthy financially. Shepherding gifts are affirmed in lay persons but not in paid staff.

So shepherds shouldn’t be paid by the church? Only leadership types?

Bi-vocational: Paul was a tent-maker. In 1 Cor. 9, Paul wasn’t prescribing bi-vocationalism but rather declaring that he is no less of an apostle just because he was not paid as such.

Will God open up an opportunity to make a living outside of (the church)?

God knew that I needed to read these words, written before I had any idea I’d soon be looking at a career change. God knew that tent-making has been on my mind for years. Reading these words, at that moment, offered the closure I had sought.

This was the breakthrough I needed. The pressure cooker in my heart was pierced, and I could feel the bitterness ooze out and swirl down the drain. The relief was that immediate.

I was reminded, through a 10-month-old journal entry, that it wasn’t my former employer that took me out of full-time ministry; it was God.

He reminded me of the episode a decade ago when He convicted me to serve out of love for Jesus, not out of fear of losing my job, and I received the words, “God got you into this job, and He will take you out when it’s time. He’s your boss– not your supervisor, not your lead pastor.”

How can I remain resentful towards my old church in light of this?

I can’t.

God did indeed open up an opportunity to make a living outside of a church, and though I am no longer paid to be a pastor, I still find myself shepherding people– not because I am paid to, but because I am called to.

If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? If others have this right of support from you, shouldn’t we have it all the more?

But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ. (1 Cor. 9: 11-12 NIV)