My pastor got FIRED. What now?

  What advice do you have for a struggling staff in light of a trusted lead pastor being fired abruptly in the midst of a power struggle with the elders? So the elders were like, get out. We want to have power. Here’s, here’s the thing. Leadership, authority, structures in the church. Most worship leaders are not on the elder team. We’re just not in the systems of power. So if the sickle of judgement is swinging, I want to duck and get out of the way instead of be in the way. So if the sickle of judgement is going to swing, I’m going to duck and get out of the way and let it the authority that it’s supposed to hit, because it’s not our responsibility or my responsibility. We didn’t fire that awesome pastor. We didn’t let them go. We also didn’t know all the nitty gritty of what was going on behind the scenes. But it’s so disappointing because from our perspective, this person was awesome. So I think you try to get as much information as you can. You meet with people, you say, hey, I’m in charge of leading half the Sunday service. I need to know some information. I need to be privy to some of this elder levelled information. And I think that’s fair. And maybe you get some more information that’s helpful. Yes, certainly talk to that other pastor. And if they won’t let you talk to that pastor, that’s a red flag because sometimes you do need to get out of these situations. You need to be like, okay, well, I’m out. Give me two weeks. And I’m, you know, I’ll serve for a little bit. But sometimes we’re just not meant to serve in some of these environments and we do need to get out. And then sometimes we need to serve and stay and fight the good fight. But a lot of times I see worship folks fight too long and then they just become bitter. So not the perfect answer, but I totally feel it. I just want to sit here and cry for you. When I think about staff, you’re one of the primary faces of staff and you’re asking how to help the struggling staff who are potentially underneath you, or at least influenced by you and by your reactions. And so you are in a very delicate place where you have to take the high road and say the right things, not the capitulating things. You don’t want to gloss over stuff, but you need to be wise with your words because you have a lot of people who are going to take their cues from you and you want to lead the staff Underneath you really well, because you are an influential person at the church. I’m not saying stuff your emotions, go process your emotions with people outside of the situation. But internally, be that strong presence, that wise presence, that godly presence who’s always pointing people back to God and who’s helping them make the right decisions and do the right things. So I’m not saying fake it, but I am saying help people, honour God. Help your staff around you honour God in their response to this. And I think the Lord will honour you in that. Even if internally you’re having intense dialogue about what happened and this isn’t cool. Help other people respond in faith to the Lord and to keep their eyes fixed on the Lord. And so don’t let the enemy and your flesh rise up and like, allow you to gossip and speak yuckiness. And oh, my gosh, I can’t believe that because that’s what our flesh wants to do. But the Spirit fights against the flesh. And the Spirit says, God’s in control. God is all wise. There are things we don’t know, there are things that we don’t have access to. There’s information we’re not privy to. We have to trust that the Lord is sovereign over all these things. Again, I’m not saying pretend like everything’s okay or people didn’t do things wrong. And if you have to have conversations with certain key individuals to process through whether or not more needs to be done or if you need to leave the church, then go ahead and have those conversations. But to those who are under you, the rest of the staff really try to model what a godly response looks like. And there may be a time when you get through a lot of the information and you realise, wow, these elders are toxic. I can’t serve here anymore. And if that time comes, God will make it clear to you. I have a friend who has been through a lot of shuffles at a very, very large church. And he was like, I just knew I had to stay. There was a lot of crap and drama and grossness and yuckiness, but I knew. God told me that I’m supposed to be there through that, to be the healthy, strong presence in the midst of that. Sometimes God calls you to be that sacrificial lamb who has to lay things down to love and be a good, healthy presence in the midst of an unhealthy place. But sometimes God says, actually, you’re free, you can go, because you can’t support these dudes anymore. You can go ahead and go now. So the Lord will make it clear to you what you ought to do personally. But as long as you’re there, try to help your staff follow your good godly example in your responses and in your words. So I hope that helps. Mike, you want to add to that or anything? Yeah. Get wisdom from older people in the congregation. Try to get wisdom from two or three different sources. I mean, you got our hot take, which could be terrible advice for your situation, but just try to find some people in the organisation to talk to and then some people from outside of it. And yeah, a lot of good will. Come from a difficult yucky situation that you didn’t want, didn’t plan, didn’t foresee. A lot of good will come in your life, in the team’s life. God’s working all things for good. And so I just think that you got to trust the Lord. Hey, it’s Alex from Worship Ministry Training. If you know someone who needs to see this video, please send it to them. And if you’re interested in this kind of personalised coaching, we do these Q and A sessions after every single one of our live expert interviews, which is usually once or twice per month. And so if you’re looking for real. Hands on practical advice, you can join the Worship Ministry Training Academy. You can try it for just $1 by going to worship ministrytraining. com you get access to all our live expert interviews, our live monthly trainings, our 10 in depth courses for worship leaders, all of our docs resources done for you, admin systems and a super supportive community. And you can try it all for just $1 by going to worship ministrytraining. com God bless you guys and I hope this video helped you take care.