Alex Enfiedjian 00:11 Hello, and

Alex Enfiedjian 00:12 welcome back to another episode of the worship team podcast. My name is Alex Enfiedjian, and I am your host, today’s episode 20 of the podcast and we are talking about how to leave your church. Well, how to leave your church? Well, why? Because worship leaders leave churches all the time. And I don’t think anyone’s really talking about this very much. And I think it’s an important topic. Because if you are like most worship leaders, you’re probably not going to stay at your church for 40 years, you’ll probably stay 510 15 years. But eventually God will call you on to something else, whether it’s a different vocation, or he’ll call you to another church. And what we want to do when we leave, is to leave our church. Well, we want to build up our church, we want to prepare it for our departure. And we want to put everything in place for them to succeed. And so that’s what we’re going to be talking about on this episode. I have my good friend Brenton Collier who has been a guest in the past. And he and I discussed this very, very important topic. So let’s jump right into it. Our discussion about how to leave your church well.

Alex Enfiedjian 01:30 Hey, everybody, I am here with my good friend Brenton Collier, who has been on the podcast many times. Hello, Brenton. Hey, Alex. Hey. And I also wanted to say something cool about Brenton he actually started a worship leader blog called Brenton Collier calm and it’s a really great worship leader blog. And I would highly encourage all of the listeners to subscribe to that blog. So read and spell your name for them. b r

Unknown Speaker 01:56 e n t o n coloyer.com.com? That’s right. Very clever. Very original,

Alex Enfiedjian 02:04 very original, very easy to remember. Hey, so we’re talking today about leaving your church? Well, I think this is a really important topic. And I’m honestly a little nervous to even talk about it just because I think it’s a heavy topic. And it should be something that’s done thoughtfully. And the reason we’re talking about it is because I feel like most worship leaders don’t stay at a church for 40 years. You know, at some point in a worship leaders career, they are going to move on whether it’s on good terms or you know, not so great terms. I think most worship leaders at some point in their career have this new opportunity, but they have to move on to a new church. And I think if you’re a good, godly Christian leader, you’re not going to want to leave your church in a lurch. I like the rhyme. But yeah, you don’t want to leave your church and alert, you don’t want to leave them in a bad place. You want to leave in a way that honors your staff, your leaders, your congregation and your own family. You want to do it well. And I know Brenton, you and I have both left churches, in our careers as worship leaders. And we actually both left on really good terms, our church, we loved our church, we, we loved our leaders, we enjoyed our jobs there. I know some people listening maybe don’t have that luxury, but for you and I we had that opportunity to be in churches that we love. But it was the time to move on. It was it was the time to do something else. And it’s something that I’ve actually done pretty recently. And so what I wanted to do was first talk about some reasons why you shouldn’t leave your church and then talk about some reasons why maybe you should leave your church. And then I also wanted to give our listeners a walk through of how to leave your church. Well, because we have a long list here in front of us of things we think you should do to leave your church. Well, and you said before we hit record, you said Oh, yeah, I did the exact same. Yeah. So if both of us do it, it must be the right thing. It must be certainly. So okay, so let’s let’s talk about leaving your church. Well, not leaving them in large. Breton. Just give us your thoughts on what are some bad reasons to leave your church?

Unknown Speaker 04:26 Yeah, I think there’s probably a number of reasons that aren’t quite right. And you know, Alex, I’m really glad we’re talking about this today. This is the kind of thing that I don’t hear or see a lot of people talking about, but I think you’re right on that it does happen. And it’s better to kind of share some insight pave the way and I’ve actually had one on one conversations with a number of different people over the years from churches around the country, who are kind of in this bind of feeling like it’s time to move on, but really feel like they can’t or shouldn’t and I have kind of sought some wisdom on, when is the right time? What are the right reasons. So, like you said, it is happening. And it’s best just to just to talk about it a little bit, and kind of get it out there. So some reasons you shouldn’t leave your church. I think one, every church is imperfect. So small disagreements, or things that you’re dissatisfied with, or discouraged by, or, you know, don’t agree with or things like that, those are just going to come up. So I would just say, invest in your church family. And don’t let these small little bumps in the road kinds of things be like, Okay, I’m throwing in the towel. That’s it. You know, if you’re going to move on from your church, it should be something substantial. So that’s one reason not to leave your church. And I would even back up one step and say, you know, step one is before you even join a church or the staff of a church or, or even as a volunteer, that should be something you really pray about, really seek the Lord on. And if you do that, that’s going to really protect you down the road from these little things that may arise. So things like little disagreements aren’t a good reason to leave a church, filling your head with this idea that when you go somewhere else, it’ll just be easier. It’ll just be better. Everything will work out. You know, the the grass is greener on the other side kind of mentality. These are all kind of reasons that really aren’t substantial enough. Yeah, church.

Alex Enfiedjian 06:30 Yeah, I think the grass is greener on the other side is something we can do in all the areas of our lives. But it’s never true and right. The truth is, the grass is greener, where you water it who you know, someone said that before, like, that’s good. Yeah, so what Alex original now, I don’t have very many originals. But the grass is greener, wherever you water, it is true. Like, if something’s not working in your church, work on it, like, Don’t run away from it, work on it, pour yourself into it, don’t just bounce and think it’s gonna be easier at the church down the road, because that’s not true, you’re just gonna have different problems at the church down the road, you will still have problems, they’re just going to be different or look different. So yeah, grass is greener, I’d say that’s a good reason to not leave your church because it’s not true. And then the other thing that I was thinking about is some people, some worship leaders feel like they have to like step up, and they’re not really a worship leader until they are at a bigger church or a cooler church or a church with a better worship program. And I would say, if that’s your drive, to leave your church, that maybe your heart’s in the wrong spot, you know, like, and I would encourage you to ask God to give you a heart for your people, and not a heart for a killer music program. Because it’s really not about the program. It’s not about how cool the sound system is, or the lighting is or the band is. It’s about the people you’re serving. And so if you’re like, I want to leave my church because that church has a better pa or better musicians. Like that’s a wrong motivation. Yeah, for sure. All right. Now, what about some good reasons to leave your church?

Unknown Speaker 08:01 Well, I think, you know, the first one that comes up is as as a worship leader, that connection with your senior pastor is so important. I think you even have a podcast about that relationship and the importance of it, and how to foster it. But you know, one reason that when it comes down to it, maybe a good reason to leave if you as a worship leader, just just are on the same page with your senior pastor, you know, your visions aren’t aligning, they’re going in a direction perhaps you don’t believe in or on another level that your theological understandings are your doctrine, you would say biblically, these are unbiblical things. And I’m not talking about small disagreements, or he likes the music this loud and you like it a little more louder, less loud. Those are things you need to support and come under the leading of your pastor, and I’m talking about big picture, long term major kind of differences. If that’s just there, and it’s not going away. That may be the time to peaceably and graciously move on from that church.

Alex Enfiedjian 09:06 Yeah. Yes, not being able to support the pastor’s vision is huge. And, quite honestly, if you and the pastor on totally different pages, and you’re pushing one direction, and he’s pushing the other direction, it’s actually not good for the church, and you’re holding the church back. So you should get out of the way, and let them hire someone who can support the pastor’s vision so that the church can move forward. So yeah, that’s a good reason. Obviously, theological heresy, like they’re preaching stuff that is not in the Bible, you should confront them lovingly. And if they just are stuck in their ways leave and then do you have any other?

Unknown Speaker 09:41 What do you think about this? I spoke with someone not too long ago, who was praying about moving on from their church. And kind of one of the big reasons that I don’t think it was so much full blown heresy from their senior pastor as much as they just felt like they their pastor was just not teaching anything really substantial kind of meandering? So maybe not unbiblical teaching, but they just weren’t being fed. They weren’t growing up. I didn’t really know what to say. So what do you think?

Alex Enfiedjian 10:12 Man? That’s a really hard one. I think it depends on the situation. But I think if it could go back to the first point, which is the vision, like if the pastor’s vision is to have a watered down message, and the worship leader feels like the pastor should be teaching the Bible, you know, in all of its bruteforce, then maybe, maybe it’s a vision difference. And he should say, you know, what, I, I’ve talked to my pastor about this, I’ve lovingly shared my thoughts, he’s unwilling to budge. I can’t, with a clear conscious support his vision any more than Yeah, then signed, on probably the last good reason, there’s probably a bunch of good reasons why you should leave a church, but I’ve got only three here. The last one would be like unhealthy relationships. And I just mean that in many senses of the word. But I think for me, what’s kind of on my heart is like, if your family is unhealthy, they’re like, if for some reason your family’s not connecting, or your, your wife, you know, just she’s tried, but it’s not working. Like you need to make sure that your family is well taken care of, and that they’re supported at that church, and that you’re doing good job leading your family in that church. And if you can’t do that, then that’s, maybe you need to find another church or another vocation. Yeah. So that would be the last reason is unhealthy relationship. So any other thoughts?

Unknown Speaker 11:24 No, I think those are great. So if you can’t support your pastor’s vision, there’s theological heresy or unhealthy relationships. Those are kind of the three Right,

Alex Enfiedjian 11:32 yeah. So now let’s talk about like, let’s walk someone through leaving Well, you and I have both done all of the things on this list that we’re about to go through. And maybe we can talk a little bit about our experience in each one of these steps. There’s a lot of steps actually to this. But we’ll we’ll move quickly through this. So this is how I think and I think Brenton thinks you should leave your church well. So if you’re praying about leaving, like make sure you’re doing all of this stuff. So first thing on the list is to pray. If you’re going to leave your church, well pray about it like pray, Lord, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to stick it out? Is this just a season? Or are you really asking us to leave? And for, for me, leaving this church that I love. It was hard. And I really wrestled through it with prayer, I wrestled about it with my wife, we really talked to the Lord about it for about six or seven months of just praying, Lord, is it time should we move should we not move? So don’t just be like I’m making a split second decision, I’m, you know, going to leave this church, it should be something you really take to the Lord in prayer for a long period of time.

Unknown Speaker 12:38 Yeah. And I’m glad you said that I was gonna mention that, you know, this is more than just say a prayer. And, you know, hope that you made the right move. But really, over a good period of time, you know, committed to prayer, if you’re married, pray with your spouse together. This kind of ties into another point. But maybe ask some people you love and respect to be praying with you. And just take some time with that, you know, you don’t want it to be hasty.

Alex Enfiedjian 13:03 Yeah. And then as you’re praying, and if you’re feeling led to leave, I think the first thing you should do is talk to your pastor very early in that process. And for for us, I told our senior pastor that we were praying about leaving three months after we started praying about it, and about six months before we actually left. And that might not be the case for you, like your pastor might fire you immediately if you tell him and in that case, you know, I don’t know what you should do. But maybe you should hold your cards a little bit more closely. But I had a long standing open relationship with my senior pastor, we care about each other. And I told him right away, I said, Hey, I don’t want you to be caught off guard. We’re praying about moving. And so he was in on it early, he was able to talk to me about it, give me insight, wisdom, share his thoughts, his concerns. And so tell your pastor early, and that kind of goes into the next step, which is to seek Godly wisdom and counsel, like don’t make this decision in isolation. So I brought in a whole bunch of people around me, I asked them, you know, all of their thoughts on the matter. And, and here’s something that I’ll say that’s really important. Don’t only ask the leaders in your church to do because they’re going to tell you to stay. Yeah. And that happened to me. They said, No, no, no, you have to stay to stay. But when I asked outside of my church, other people that I trust, and that I know and love, and I know they love me, and they brought a totally different perspective. Yeah. So yeah, seek Godly counsel.

Unknown Speaker 14:37 Yeah. And and I’d say along those lines, also, and several of these points kind of tie into one another. But as you’re as you’re doing that, I agree, see counsel, outside of the leadership of your church, seek counsel of friends and peers that that you respect that aren’t even connected to your church in any way. If you have some friends like that, that can just be praying for you. And as you do that, If there are more like strained, things that are happening that are kind of forcing you to leave, just be careful about how much of that you share how many people you tell, you know, there may be some real close one or two people that you may need to just give them the whole story and get some feedback. But But please don’t go from person to person under the name of, oh, pray about this. And I’m going to give you the whole scoop on everything that’s going on, you know, because it’s sometimes it’s just not necessary or really appropriate for all kinds of people to know all the little ins and outs of the whole thing. So

Alex Enfiedjian 15:36 yeah, yeah, yeah. Be careful how much you expose or informed to people, right? Yeah. So that’s good. So, so inform your pastor early, seek Godly counsel, discuss and pray with your spouse, and listen to them if you’re married, like, get your spouse as input and really take into consideration what they say, even if it’s not what you want. Listen to them, because there’s nothing worse than being divided about a huge decision. Like, make sure you’re on the same page with your spouse. Yeah. And then then if you have prayed, and you’ve talked to your pastor, and you’ve talked to your spouse, you’ve sought Godly wisdom, then you need to tell people of your decision, and you need to tell them in the right order. And this is really important. Like you don’t want to tell your bass player on your worship team before you tell your senior pastor or before you tell your elders. So for me, what it looked like was, I sat down in my pastor’s office, I invited the executive pastor in and I said, Look, this is been the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make. But I know that it’s what God wants us to do as a family. And so we’ve decided to step out. And I told the senior pastor and the executive pastor first, I told the staff the following Monday, and then I may have told the elders before the staff, but told the elders then told the staff, and then I informed the congregation. I told them early enough, I didn’t want to be like, Alright, it’s my last Sunday Peace out, right? You don’t want to be like, Alright, we just sang the last song. That’s my last Sunday. I’m out of here. Like That’s so unfair to them. So we actually told them about two and a half months before my last Sunday. Yeah. So I said, Hey, this is the situation we’re feeling God is calling us to move on for these reasons. And they had a heads up, I said, I’ll be leaving for another two and a half months, or two months. So I’ll still be here. We can still talk. And yeah, but you don’t want to just be like, last minute peace out everybody. Right? I hate you. Rice drop.

Unknown Speaker 17:39 Yeah. Yeah. Can I throw one other? Maybe it’s upsetting? Yeah. So two thoughts I have on this is when you talk to your pastor, the two of you should agree together on the timeline of informing people and, and the order of telling people. So what I mean by that is, don’t you take the liberty as the worship leader to say, Okay, I’m going to go tell these people, okay, I’m going to go out, you know, because it’s really your you’re serving your church, it’s not yours to say, I would almost think you know, so I would just say, hey, let’s talk this through, let’s agree on this together, you know, don’t go rogue and just start spreading the news. And I would add between the staff and the congregation, if it’s possible to let your worship team volunteers know, before you tell the whole congregation. So that’s just a kind of, I would say, like a courtesy, you know, and the relationships you’ve built with them. What I would do is, you know, say you have rehearsal on Thursday night, I would just the Thursday before the Sunday that you tell the whole congregation, I would do it in person, gather the whole team, give you a chance to share your heart. And that way, you know, as you share it from the platform on a Sunday, your musicians and tech team, they’re not kind of being blindsided, that’s not the first they’re hearing of it. Right. But yeah, that’s a little risky. Because you got to say, Okay, I’m telling you, that maybe don’t tell anyone else, because I’d like to tell them on set, you know, so it gets a little bit. So if you do it real quick, you know, that’s the idea.

Alex Enfiedjian 19:14 That’s an excellent point that and I forgot that that’s what I actually did. And do not email your team about it. Right? That’s like, yeah, like you said, gather them have a special meeting, talk to them. And that’s what we were talking about. Tell the right people in the right order. And when you do tell people even if the situation is bad at your church, which thankfully wasn’t the case for us, right? Or if you’re leaving on bad terms with your pastor, because you can’t stand his guts or whatever, like never speak ill of anyone ever. never speak ill of leadership. Never start a fire behind you as you leave, right you want to. What you want to do is you want to leave peaceably. You want to leave encouraging and supporting and not tearing apart the church. Pulling the pillars of the church down as you walk out. So in rumbles behind you, you don’t want to leave a mess. So right. So always speak supportively positively and don’t speak ill of anyone, even if there is reason to speak ill of anyone, right? That’s between you and that person, it’s not for you to start a fire as you leave, right. So something along the lines of what you said, which was to tell the worship team before the congregation totally agree. And one step beyond that is maybe after you tell your worship team or after you tell your congregation schedule some lunches with some of the people that you were closest with, to reaffirm your love for them to like, so for me, when I left, there were a couple people on my team who couple of the young guys who I was training, they were, you know, up and coming worship leaders and or a couple, even the older guys that I just was close with. And I said, Hey, can we have some lunch or coffee? And just, can we talk about this? Because Because I don’t want them, especially the younger guys. I don’t want them to be hurt that I’m leaving, or for them to think like, you know what I mean, I get the wrong impression, or let that circumstance kind of set the tone for their leadership down the road. Yeah, right. I don’t want them to think I don’t care about them, because I’m leaving this church, you know. And so that would be really important, I’d say is to schedule some lunches with the people you’re close to and reaffirm your love to them, and let them know like, just because I’m leaving doesn’t mean I’m leaving your life. You know, you can still text me anytime you can call me I care about you. I want you to succeed. Keep following Jesus. Yeah. So. So let’s see, the next thing you’re going to want to do. That’s kind of the believing side of things, right? Like you’re leaving, but what you want to do now is actually build into the people who are staying in order for the good work to continue. Yeah, right. So I’d say the next step after all that is to start meeting with your worship leaders. If you have other worship leaders, or, or maybe a potential worship leader, if you don’t have one yet, someone who can start to fill in for you meet with them several times and kind of start like saying, okay, here’s the plan I’ve got two months before my last Sunday, we got a schedule you guys to leave let’s, let’s start working on your worship leadership, or let’s start, you know, picking songs together and stuff like that. So start meeting with your worship leaders to prep them to take over in your absence. Even more important than just meeting with a group of worship leaders, you need to actually appoint one person to be in charge during the transition, like after you’re gone, who’s going to be the point person who are emails going to go to, you know, if a band member cancels one Sunday, who should know first so that they can get things scheduled and figure it out?

Unknown Speaker 22:38 And I would say, with all these things, you know, and I think you’re implying this Alex’s, you know, these are decisions that are made with your pastor with your leadership team. So you may have an eye on someone, okay, I want them to kind of be in charge, make sure you get the kind of the blessing from from your pastor or or executive pastor, whoever makes those decisions, to say, does this person sound okay? Are you okay with that? In some churches, you know, if there isn’t a real strong volunteers step up, that may be another staff member on the church to I can see that happening. So but I think the important thing is that there is somebody and that the team knows who that person is,

Alex Enfiedjian 23:13 exactly. And so what we did when I left was, I mean, I hadn’t left yet, but it was we were in this process of building up the current team in order to be ready to take over when I was gone. And that was we appointed our communications director to be the point person for all like, Oh, I have to cancel or Oh, you know, I’m going to change this one song. So she got all the emails, and she left the team now. And then the senior pastor was like the backup to that. So he would get CCD on everything. So just put someone in charge after you’re gone with the blessing of the senior pastor. And then this is probably the biggest thing on the list. And that is to write down all of the processes for all of the things you do every week, in clear step by step instructions so that they can be continued when you leave because like, people are like, what Planning Center? What How do I do this? How do I do that? Like, they don’t know this, you live in it, you breathe it, you drink it, you do all of this stuff all the time. Like, you could probably do it in your sleep, but no one else knows. So the key is to get it all out on paper, or make a video I made a one hour video tutorial, it was titled to my successor. Sounds so epic. And he was like, Hey, my name is Alex, that it up. Here’s everything you need to know about the current team. Here’s their strengths. Here’s where we’re at. Here’s how to do this. Here’s how to do that, that. I did like video screen capture. Here’s how you scheduled teams and I put everything that I do down and I documented it so that whoever came in behind me would be able to pick up where I left off. Yeah, they didn’t have to figure out oh my gosh, how do I use Ableton Live right and I mean, like, it was all Very clearly laid out for them to pick up where we left off and keep moving forward. So I’d say that’s a huge, huge thing is get everything out of your head so that someone else can follow in your footsteps. Yeah, that’s amazing job. It was a lot of work. I bet. Yeah, I like it. And then part of that prepping the team for when you’re gone is going to be scheduling the teams each week for several months in advance because I don’t want to leave and then have them have no team scheduled no songs picked. So I actually sat down with I feel like I’m talking about me, me me the whole time. So feel free to like, yeah, if you’d like. But what I did is I scheduled worship leaders for each week, the teams for each week. And with the worship leaders, we picked songs for each week, all the way through December. So after I left they had for like a three to four month plan of this is what’s gonna happen each Sunday. Yeah, there was no guesswork. It was all laid out for them. Again, because you don’t want to leave your church in a lurch.

Unknown Speaker 25:56 Yeah, so one, one thing that may be different between your years and my circumstances, Alex’s. So when you moved on, there wasn’t a specific person that was being hired, you know, you leave on this week, and they’re there the next week, so that all this preparation was really necessary, in my circumstance, was a little bit similar in the sense that after it was established that I was leaving, there were another three, three and a half months that I was still on staff. I wanted my commitment to them was I said it was it was an October, I think we kind of established that. And I said, You know, I want to take you guys through Christmas season, the Christmas Eve services. And then at the beginning of the new year, that’s when I’ll move on. And I and I felt like that was I feel like they really appreciate that that gave them plenty of time to begin seeking out interviewing other people, but they actually found and we’re preparing to hire the next worship leader before I had left. So if that’s the case, if that’s the case, in your circumstance, some of these steps may look a little different. Like what I did was, I actually met with that person, there was someone I knew from before, and talked through some things with them and met together. And that was really nice. And so I didn’t do the video, although that sounds awesome. And then I didn’t schedule the volunteers or the sets, because you know, that’s their job, though. Yeah, so but I kind of gave as much insight as I could. But I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to give the impression, you know, you have to do things this exact way. I just told them what I did. And and then it was kind of in their hands.

Alex Enfiedjian 27:33 Yeah, that’s really good. So yeah, these are all going to apply to everybody listening. But the general principle is do a good job, taking your church through this transition, don’t just leave them high and dry and be a jerk and be like Peace out. Like I don’t care about you. Because you should you should care about your congregation. Oh, yeah, you should care about their spiritual walk through this process. And you should care about setting up the next person for success. Yeah, and you have the nice opportunity to do it person to person, you know, like, train him on, you know, on the job. So that’s nice. So, so schedule your teams once in advance or don’t if you’ve already got the worship leader there to take over that. And then the last thing I would say, as far as it concerns, your current church is on your last Sunday, ask your senior pastor, before your last Sunday, ask him for a chance to share your heart with the congregation like, you know, and again, when you get up there, and you share, I love you guys, thank you for letting me serve you, thank you for letting me you know, lead you in song each week. You know, just keep it positive, keep it helpful and encouraging. But ask for a chance to share it to share your heart and to tell them that you’re grateful. Yeah, and do that on your last Sunday, if your pastor will let you

Unknown Speaker 28:45 know the thing that would be really neat, if possible is you know, if you have the support of your pastor and the staff, if they would say, Hey, we want to we want to pray for you publicly in the service. And if they’re not technically perhaps sending you out, per se, but it’s just a way of saying, we believe that this person has prayed about this, that the Lord is leading them. And we are in support of what the Lord is doing. So let’s pray for them. Maybe even have some of the others up, lay hands on them. Just pray for them, bless them bless their future and, and that’s just such a such a powerful thing. And just a way to encourage that unity. You know, you can always do that. Even if you even if you’re not super happy about it or it that’s kind of irrelevant if the Lord is leading you and both the leadership team of your church and you believe that Well, that’s all you need. You can in confidence. Be in unity on that. Yeah, that’s good. make every effort to publicly be unified and supportive. Yeah, and praying. Having them pray for you is a really good way to do that.

Alex Enfiedjian 29:50 I’ve got like four more things on this list before we wrap up. So we’ll wrap up here real quick, but a couple thoughts. If you can give your church a hit. head start on the search process. So you told them, hey, I want to get you through December. And I told my church, Hey, I’ll stay with you for another two and a half months, hopefully you can start on your search process. And we can, my desire was to have them hire somebody before I left, so I could cross train them, right? That didn’t happen. But if you’re in the place where you can stay for a few months at your church, to help them by some time to find somebody else, try to do that. And then if if your church is healthy, I would say you should even try to help your church find somebody. Yeah. Like I came to you Brenton and said, Hey, do you think one of your worship leaders would be interested in that position? Like I tried to snag one of your guys for that for our church, because because our church is healthy. Yeah. And it was a, you know, a good church. And then I emailed off a whole bunch of my friends and said, Hey, I’m leaving my church. It’s a very healthy church. It’s a great church to work at. It’s got a great salary. You know, I talked it up. And I emailed all my ministry, friends, I was I was trying to help my church, find a replacement. So if your church is healthy, and you can support your leadership, when you’re leaving, try to help them find somebody like you’ve got networks that they don’t have, you’ve got email lists, you’ve got maybe a Twitter account, like just put it out there and help them find somebody. Yeah, if you’re able. And then I would say this, I’d say, don’t take a job at the church down the street. Yeah, at least not right away. If you do end up taking a job at a church down the road, put a big cushion in there. So there’s kind of an end point to your ministry at your one church, and then there’s a break, and then there’s maybe a beginning later on, but if you can avoid it.

Unknown Speaker 31:37 Yeah, it’s hard to it’s hard to cover every circumstance. But I think the idea is that you don’t want to just be hopping around from here to there for different kind of non essential reasons, you know,

Alex Enfiedjian 31:48 yeah, totally. And then the last two things are trust God with your future, like, he’s got you if he’s calling you to leave, and move on. Like, he’s got you. He’s got a plan. He’s gonna work it out. And you’re in his hands. You’re fine. Yeah. And then this is a correlation to that, which is trust God with your churches future? Yeah. Because I feel like a lot of times we can be like, I can’t leave because who’s gonna? Who’s gonna disciples, you know, Johnny? Or who’s gonna lead this? Or what about the choir that we started or the praise? You know, who’s gonna continue that on? Like, you know, what? It’s Jesus, his church, he said, He’s going to build his church, like, you shouldn’t feel the weight of that, right. Your ultimate responsibility is to trust God to do what He tells you to do, to take care of your family, and then to serve his church, and that might not even be in a vocational fashion. Yeah, I mean, so yeah. So trust God with your churches future, don’t feel the weight of the burden of who’s going to do this. Who’s going to do that? God will provide the right person. Yeah, that’s huge. Yeah. So that’s all I’ve got for leaving your church? Well, if you do these things, we think you’re on a pretty good track to leaving your church well, and not, you know, messing them up pretty bad.

Unknown Speaker 33:01 Yeah. And I think, you know, kind of the one thing that I’m really impressed with through this whole list, I’ll just reiterate it one more time is, you know, it’s so tempting, if you are leaving a real rough situation, to talk about it. Just don’t, you know, just don’t, it’s not your place. It’s not good for the church family. If you’ve got a strained relationship with the leadership of your church, or whatever, that’s between you and them. And if you think that they’re in the wrong that’s between them and the Lord. And it’s just not your place to say and, you know, and I think the temptation comes afterwards when people ask, so why did you What happened? You know, you don’t want to lie. But you know, you know, and I think I think if you just make it a point at the beginning to say, you know, I’m, I’m not going to like what you said, speak ill of this church are their leaders, that’s going to honor the Lord. You know, the Bible has so much to say about that. And it honors God when you do that. And it really dishonor the Lord when you don’t. And so, and so I think big picture leaving your church, well, there’s so many steps. But I just think, you know, support that church, love that church, if it’s time to move on, do it carefully. prayerfully and just, you know, do it graciously, as well.

Alex Enfiedjian 34:19 Awesome, man. Thanks, Brian, for being here and sharing your thoughts and your wisdom. And I know that you’ll be praying and I’ll be praying for all of our listeners who may be considering leaving. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Thanks, dude.

Alex Enfiedjian 34:38 All right. Well, that’s it for today’s episode. I hope it was helpful to you. And if you are listening, and you really are considering moving on from your church, I just want to encourage you to pray, pray, pray, pray about it. ever really asked the Lord, if he would have you stick it out. Because we don’t need worship leaders who are moving from church to church every couple of years. We need people who are Willing to plant and press through the hard times. And go long term because that’s that’s where some long lasting fruit will come from, is when we dig some roots down deep. And one final thought that I had before we close things out. And that is, as soon as you get a job at a church, it’s a great idea to start already replacing yourself, start delegating responsibility, start training others start giving others a chance to lead and just start become somebody who raises up a whole bunch of other great worship leaders while you’re still at that church. And that way, when you leave, there’s going to be people from within the walls of your church to replace you. So that’s just the final thought for today. For now, may God bless you as you go as you lead worship for your church this weekend, and I’ll see you back here next month.