To the Reader: this poem is an attempt to reflect on and redeem a very painful season of my story. I have been trying to tell the story for months (almost a year) but only this week felt free to let these words hit the page. I was one of three volunteer Pastors serving with a Lead staff Pastor for a period of about 2 years. All three volunteer Pastors resigned around the same time in the Spring of 2020.
We Were Pastors Once
We were pastors once
Full of hope and vision
Though lacking experience
We leaned on each other.
We had friendship
A working partnership
The seeds of kinship
That never had a chance
To grow into trees
When our people
Were limping and leaving
Bleeding and broken
Through the side door
Too scared to say why
Our burdened curiosity
Weighted with questions
Our thoughts
Our questions
Became unwelcome
Our friendship
vaporized
You became fixed
Immovable
Unwilling
To have any other view
To consider your assumptions
To consider your theology
To consider your demands
The friendship
It turns out
Was a sham
A mere functionality
To complete tasks
The cost
Was becoming too high
As the carnage grew
For integrity’s sake
For our own health
And those we loved
We left,
Devastated
Destabilized
What sense
Could be made of this?
Rubble, ruin
How could this be?
Why this story?
The saddest thing
Most painful part
Was how quickly you turned
Against us
Labeled us
Disloyal
Irrelevant
All we had lived
All we had planned
All we had prayed
It was now worthless to you
I hope you have what you wanted
A church all for yourself
Sadly your only reward
I fear the Lord left
Long before we did.
Lampstand removed?
Though you wrote us off
Once friends, now enemies
I would welcome you, I think
If you began to reach out
And seek to know
more than
Your Theology
Your Control
Your Influence.
