I don’t think you’ll ever know the impact you’ve made on my life. I have grown up in the Assemblies of God denomination (my dad is a pastor), and...
...always felt the “call” to a pastoral type of ministry. I went to Bible college, became credentialed in that denomination, and began as a youth evangelist.
Although I accepted all of the statements of faith that pertained to my tradition, there were many elements that I have questioned for years. Often I wondered why we were some of the harshest on other Christian denominations (let alone the rest of the world), and yet there were no A/G hospitals and few homeless shelters/soup kitchens associated with our tradition. And yet, we would make such stink of our Catholic, Presbyterian, [even] Baptist brothers and sisters – who were serving their communities through exactly those things.
I would preach the “pre-defined” formatted sermons that my tradition wanted me to preach, support the “right” causes (no pun intended), and we would be happy little “saved” Christians in our happy little “saved” world.
And I would scratch my head and think, “This can’t be what this is all about!” This was years before I’d ever heard of postmodernism, and certainly before Terra Nova or “Emergent” became news to me. Only in the last two years have my wife and I read “A New Kind of Christian” as well as works of Stan Grenz, Tony Jones, and even Jim Wallis, and we kept nodding our heads going, “That’s exactly right! Yes! Amen!” (I am from an emotional denomination, so I still have to throw in my “Amen’s” from time to time.)
Sorry it took me so long to get to the point. Here it is:
I was fired last week from my youth pastor position in XXX. My wife and I had begun our jobs only two months ago, and there had been some political junk that we were unaware of when we sort-of walked in with targets on our backs. There were some parents who were not crazy about us (we had been known to use some different methods of reaching out in the postmodern world – yes, even in XXX), and when they threatened to leave the church, my wife and I were canned. She’s … pregnant with our … child, but at least they’re giving us … months of severance pay.
My question is (again, so sorry to be so “long-winded,” but I’m a preacher – I can’t help it) this: How do we approach ministry from here? I don’t feel I’m experienced enough to be taken seriously as a senior pastor at this point (I’m xxx), so I am looking to be a youth or associate pastor. What kinds of questions should we be asking? We’re becoming very involved in the “emerging” conversation. And where should we look? Where are some places more opened to our ideas and methods?
Answer: This is such a sad story, and there are many people reading this who have experienced something similar. I wish I could give you personal counsel at a distance, but I think the wisest thing for me to do is encourage you to find some friends and mentors – hopefully in your area – who can be of some support to you. You might be able to hook up with a cohort via emergentvillage.com. Please know that you are in my prayers – and I hope that all who read your post will join in prayer for you as well.