Canyon Community Church Part#3 - leaving

Things were going incredibly well and we were excited. I was working Graveyard at the steel company, going to school part time, and serving in the ministry part time. Ministry is never part time. It was a full time deal, but I needed to support me and my family. The busier I got, the more people wanted me to do. I was expected to do bigger and better things. Parents had ideas of how I should be doing things better. Never had anyone actually come in and saw what we were doing, but lots of people thought we should be doing things their way. About this time, Jen had gotten really sick. She had brain surgery for her Arnold-Chiari Malformation and it took A LOT out of her. Please read the link and you'll get an idea of what she was and still goes through. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold%E2%80%93Chiari_malformation 

She wasn't able to be involved as she was. She needed me more than ever. She wasn't able to come to church except for a few occasions. When she did, she felt guilty for not being more involved but also unwelcome.  I felt more pressure from the church to do more "activities", was being told that I should teach so much kids just want to have fun, constantly reminded too bad you'll never be full time like all the other churches. I felt like I was failing and letting everybody down. I was becoming just this guy doing this job. My passion was left dying by the side of the road. Worst of all, I was having to leave my wife at home when I did all this "fun" teen stuff. Life was sucking. No easier way to put it. I asked some of the ladies at church to reach out to my wife. I shared how she was really down and it was hard for to come to church both physically and emotionally. The response I received caused my jaw to hit the floor. "Its hard to get to know someone when they're never here." This combined with my inner struggles of trying to keep the plates spinning faster and faster caused me to make a hard decision. I pulled the plug on the ministry. I quit taking classes, I announced my resignation, and did what I had to do. Nobody really asked me to reconsider. The only time someone said anything is the day I cleared my things off the platform. I was asked if I was really taking my guitars too.  A lady who heard I resigned asked me if I was still going to attend church there. She was surprised and saddened when I told her no, I was leaving. A couple of people tried to get me to stay. "Who's gonna take care of the teens? Don't you care? You can't just give up. Do you really think that is what God wants you to do?" The teens were mad at me. They told me that I sucked and that they hated me. Even months later, when I'm out at a store, they'll go out of there way to avoid me. I was getting calls from an individual who wanted to fight me because he heard how I was talking trash on people at the church. Every single time, I had to explain why I left and how talking trash on anybody  wasn't going to benefit me in anyway, so why would I bother. Each of the phone calls ended with, "cool brother. Let me know if you need anything. Lets hang out sometime". I don't know why, but I called my dad and told him that I had just quit the ministry. "Great glad to hear it. Uh, I gotta go. Call me sometime." Thanks, Dad for always being there. I stopped going to church for a while. Any church. I spent a lot of time trying to think about what had taken place. Not just the last couple of months I was there, but the whole time Jen and I had been working with teens. Did we fail somehow? Did I waste my time and their time? I need some time to think.