Last Post of 2024: My meaning in life isn't gone, it has shrunk.

I went to a Leadership Conference with some of the most gifted communicators in the world

and the whole time

I kept thinking about a vegetable garden.

This was my most popular post of 2024.

18 months ago, I was a Church Planter and Lead Pastor in New York City. Now I drive a minivan to my nonprofit job in rural PA. I no longer have a congregation to lead, most of my decisions at work are driven by the higher ups and my free time is spent shuttling kids to Taekwondo and Dance Lessons with a quick trip to Chick-fil-A drive thru thrown in.

Some days, it can be a real ego bust.

In my most vulnerable and honest moments, I feel like my calling from God has escaped me. People used to look to me for leadership, guidance, advice and help and now my life is predictable, sanitized and if I am honest, pretty boring most days.

Yet, I had a realization a few weeks ago while attending a Leadership Conference that I would have eaten up at a different point my career, in my early 20s when I had “something to prove” to the world.

The dynamic speakers spoke about building high trust environments, having courageous conversations, and leading with vision. My realization is that I really don’t care about this stuff.

Well, not that I don’t care but I already know most of this stuff and struggle to do it, so it’s just reinforcing the same thing my dietician told me: more water, less Coca-Cola. But I like Coca-Cola.

During the majority of the conference, I was daydreaming about how I could convert a section of my yard into a vegetable garden. Not sure if I needed to know the 7 levels of Influence to grow some cucumbers.

Helping countless pastors transition from full time ministry into bivo ministry (or out of ministry) though I Help Pastors Get Jobs, I know my feelings are normal and to be excepted. As Collin from Holy Shift shares, “Leaving Ministry is a Death”

However, I am often reminded that leaving behind a church or a title isn’t leaving behind a calling or anointing. Ministry comes in all shapes and sizes and shifts based on seasons. This is something I preached to others, now I need to preach to myself.

My eldest daughter is 6 and struggles to fall asleep in the evenings. Over the course of the past 2 weeks, I have been laying down next to her in her bed, cuddling her and reading a chapter or two of Scripture to her before bed. We talk about what we are reading (well mostly I do) and she listens. She’s been falling asleep easier as a result.

It hit me last week that in my 15 years of pastoral ministry, laying here in this dimly lit room reading scripture and talking about it with my 6 year old is truly the richest discipleship I think I’ve ever engaged.

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