Why I quit my church of 10,000

I recently quit my church.

I was the worship pastor at a large church of about 10,000 people, and I quit.

This is December 2023, and I want to explain why I quit and help

you process through whether or not your season at your church is done.

I want to share some of the factors

that went into my decision to help you process through your own decision if

you’re considering leaving your church as well.

Sometimes God’s calling you to move

forward, sometimes God’s calling you to stay put.

I did release a video recently called Five reasons You Should Stay and Five reasons

You Should Leave, and I’ll put that below this video in the description.

Go ahead and click that, open it in a new tab, and watch that after this video.

But this video is more of my own personal experience, and I’m hoping that in sharing

my experience, it will help you see yourself in my story,

and then you can take those principles and apply it to your story.

So where do I start?

Well, I’ve been the worship pastor at this

large Calvary Chapel here in Los Angeles for about seven years and just came

in and started building the ministry from scratch, believe it or not,

even though it was a church of about 10, 000 people, there were only 14 people

on the team when I arrived, and so really had to build the team from scratch.

But after about five and a half years, our senior pastor retired and a new senior

pastor came, and he began making a lot of changes.

I know many of you have been in that situation as well.

Nothing wrong with the changes he made, and I believe in what he’s trying to do.

I just started to sense that my season there was over.

I want to share some of the factors

that made me realise my season was over and that I should leave the church.

Now, I want to say I was not hasty make this decision.

I waited for two years.

The first year,

I was waiting and watching, and I didn’t want to leave just because I

was uncomfortable with some of the changes, the changes that happened

to me, the changes that were happening in the church.

I didn’t want to leave just because I was out of my comfort zone.

In fact, I’m really glad that I waited two years to leave because the transformation

that came about through that discomfort in my own heart and in my own life is well

worth the pain and the discomfort that I went through.

I want to encourage you, don’t leave, don’t run away.

I mean, there are some situations where,

yeah, you really got to get the heck out of there fast.

But if you can, just try to be a man or be

a woman and be strong and be courageous and don’t run away from pain or don’t run

away from discomfort, but press into it and let the Lord transform you through it.

I didn’t leave for two years after I

started to sense that my time might be ending.

So that first year was really giving it

my best effort to see if this is the direction that I should move forward with.

After I realised that that wasn’t the case, I started to pray and fast.

I encourage you to do the same, for the Lord to open up a new door, and he did.

I had five or six churches reach out over that second year and really began to pray

and seek and learn and explore what it might be like to serve at those churches.

Now, the first four ended up not being

a good fit, whether it was the role was wrong or the location was wrong,

or it would be a major change for my family, or the pay wasn’t quite there.

I want to encourage you,

don’t just take the first opportunity that comes to you, but really be patient

and prayerful and seek what the Lord actually has for you.

Because it wasn’t until I connected

with the sixth church that I realised wow, this church is a perfect fit for where I’m

at in my life, and it matches my theology, it matches my philosophy of ministry,

my style of ministry, my personality, my giftings.

It’s like a perfect match for us.

That sixth church ended up being

the church that I have decided to accept an offer at.

What I want to encourage you in is don’t just run away from your current church.

Be like, I got to get out of here.

Now, again, sometimes there is that reality where you have to get out quick.

But if you’re able to,

be prayerful and patient for the right fit, because Because what I found

in my transitions in life is that God is usually pushing and pulling.

He’s pushing me out, but he’s pulling me towards.

Really wait for that push and that pull,

that pull towards something better, that pull towards a new season.

You don’t just want to be running from your current church.

You want to be running to your next call.

That was my reality, is I was patient and prayerful

in that second year, waiting for the right fit for me, and God brought that to me.

But I had to be prayerful and patient, and honestly, fasting works.

Okay, so it.

Here are some of those factors of that pushing that I felt from within

my current role, helping me realise that it’s time for me to step out.

Now, it wasn’t just one factor that made me realise I had to leave.

It was an accumulation of all of these factors combined.

It was like this growing pressure

from multiple angles, realising like, whoa, this is no longer my church anymore.

This is no longer for me.

That happens a lot when there’s new leadership.

There’s nothing wrong with where the leader is trying to take the church now.

I just don’t want to go that direction,

and I don’t want to get there the way he wants to get there.

Maybe that one sentence that I just shared describes your current situation.

You’re like, There’s nothing wrong with what he’s doing.

I just don’t want to go there,

and I don’t want to get there the way that he plans to get there.

If that sets you free and makes you

realise, Okay, you’re not in alignment with the new leadership, then that’s okay.

It’s okay.

People parted ways all the time in the Bible.

I also want to encourage you, don’t just be faithful to a fault.

Yes, we’re supposed to be faithful and steadfast, but if God’s pushing you

and telling you to move on, it’s actually disobed to stay.

It can be lack of faith that keeps you where you’re at.

It can be dishonouring to God to stay

where you’re at when you’re supposed to be, when he’s trying to move you onward.

I just want to encourage you in that as well.

Some of you might need to take a step of faith and might need to be called out.

Others of you might need to stay planted.

That’s where I would refer you to that video that I have linked

in the descriptions, Five reasons to go, five reasons to stay.

But this is just my experience, and I’m hoping it’s helping you.

Here are some of the factors that were pushing me out.

Number one, my role changed.

I went from the worship pastor to creative

pastor, and there was a season where I didn’t even have a role.

I didn’t really have a title. I was a catch-all.

And that’s okay, too, because we’re called to be servants of Christ.

But what ended up happening was I found

myself in a role that was no longer a good fit for my passion and my giftings.

And I’m not saying you always have to love your role in the church.

You don’t always have to love everything that you do.

None of us have that reality.

Most of you are bi-vocational, and so you’re working a full-time job

and then coming and serving at church as a volunteer.

And God bless you for it.

But the role that I had at the church

ended up being very out of alignment with where I felt called to go.

I was doing a lot of project management, and I was doing a lot of admin tasks,

and I’m able to do all of those things, but it was draining the life out of me.

I love to lead people.

I love to lead teams.

I love to develop people and speak life

into people, and I was getting very little opportunity to do that.

So I ended up feeling like my gifts were being wasted.

And if you find yourself in a season where

your role and your giftings are out of alignment, and if you’re feeling like

you’re not being a good steward or you’re not being the most effective servant

of Christ that you can be based on how God has wired you and made you,

then that might be one of the factors that’s telling you your season is over.

Again, I’m not saying this has to be

that way because I remember Jeremy Riddle, and Bethel before he left Bethel,

he was leading the young adults ministry for a season.

We should all be willing to do anything for the Kingdom of Christ.

But it was this prolonged period of being

outside of my sweet spot that I realised I’m no longer being effective

with the gifts and the call God has placed on my life.

And that was one of the factors that made me realise it was time for me to step out

and that my season had changed at the church.

So assess your role. Assess your role.

The second factor that changed in the church was the theology.

Now, there are certain pieces of theology

that are minor, and there are certain ones that are major.

There was nothing major that was being

changed at the church, so I don’t want it to sound like that.

But again, it was just another factor that accumulated with all these other

factors that made me realise this season is over.

And for me, the church ended up into a lot

more Pentecostal and emotional type of environment.

I’m not opposed to those things, but I’m not at home in those things either.

I felt not at home in the services when

people would start speaking in tongues or things like that.

There were some changes or the beginnings of changes towards women in leadership.

Again, that’s a whole other topic, and I don’t want to offend anybody,

but I have my views on that in terms of the title shepherd, overseer, pastor.

For me, again, it’s not that I’m completely against it.

It’s just I didn’t feel at home anymore

in the direction that the church’s theology was heading.

Again, for you, really assess, is the church’s theology pushing you out now?

The next factor is that the worship style

changed dramatically under the new leadership.

The songs we were singing the words we

were singing in the songs, the types of songs we were singing,

the type of production, I have a very strong view, as you know,

if you follow Worship Ministry training, of the corporate worship experience.

Obviously, it’s very subjective to say it

should be these types of songs or this of production.

However, I do think there are best

practises in terms of helping the church engage, helping the church put their eyes

on Jesus, helping the church sing the truth of God to one another.

There are certain things you can do that I feel like really help facilitate that.

That’s what I teach in the Worship Ministry Training Academy.

But for me,

the style of worship and production changed so drastically that I just didn’t

feel comfortable supporting it and engaging in it there.

It was another brick in the wall that was

being built of Alex, your season is ending.

That’s another fact factor for you

to consider is, is the style of the church changing?

Is the style of ministry changing?

Is the style of the music and the production changing in a way

that you no longer feel comfortable supporting it?

The next factor was just the leadership style and the leadership change.

We had a brand new leader, and he had a very different vision,

a very different direction, and a very different way of leading.

They’re more spirit-led and on the fly,

in the moment, making decisions, making changes as they feel.

I much more plan in advance and week by week lay things out.

That was causing a lot of frustration in me, a lot of stress,

a lot of just anxiety of like, why are we changing everything all the time?

It just wasn’t a good fit for me.

There are many people that operate really

well in that type of environment, but it was no longer a good fit for me.

The leadership style change.

Really ask yourself, are you a bad fit for your leadership?

Are you no longer thriving in the environment?

Not only was it bad for me, I was also being asked to lead in a way

that wasn’t in alignment with my conviction.

Are you going against convictions

in something that the leadership is asking you to do?

That might be another sign that it’s time

for you to step out, that your season is over.

Then the last factor for me was the pace changed.

The pace of ministry changed drastically.

We started going 150 miles an hour

and then 200 miles an hour and then a lot faster.

As worship ministry training has grown and had a more global impact,

it’s put a lot more demand on my time for this part of my life.

I couldn’t sustain the pace of Church

of 10,000 going 300 miles per hour and the pace of building and growing

worship ministry training at the pace that it’s growing.

It wasn’t a good season for me anymore to be all in on one thing.

It’s like, you know what?

I really need to slow down

in my vocational thing so that I can keep building what God is blessing

in Worship Minister Training in the community that we have here.

It was just a pace thing and a workload

thing that made me realise, because of the season that I’m

in in my life, I’m no longer willing to give 150% of myself to this one thing.

I needed something slower, and I needed something that better fit

with where I want to be going and how I want to be going and what I want to be

doing in my family life and in my online business ministry life.

That for me was another factor that I considered was the pace.

That might be something that you’re

considering is like, do I really want to run this hard or do I

really want to give 150% of myself to this ministry?

If the answer is no, that’s okay. You don’t have to.

You get to decide.

But some people love that and they want to go all in.

I’m not discouraging you from being that person.

I’m just saying where I was at in my life, I realised it’s time for me to shift out.

And so all of these factors cumulatively made me realise my season here is over.

And then when the Lord opened up a new

door at a new church that seemed to be a perfect fit, it was like, wow.

And here’s the thing.

I knew my gifts could help this church, and I wanted to be somewhere where

my gifts would be useful to the Kingdom of God.

And so it was a very positive change

for me to say, I no longer want to be involved in this.

I no longer want to be associated with this, but I do want to come to this

church and help them rebuild their ministry.

And that’s what I’m going to be doing. I’m going to be working

at Rolling Hills Covenant Church as of December 2023,

and I’m going to be helping them rebuild their ministry from scratch.

So make sure you subscribe to this channel

and follow along with the journey of me building from scratch so I teach you all

the lessons that you need to know to do the same at your church.

Now, if you do decide to leave your church, I do have a video or podcast

called How to Leave Your Church Well, and I will leave that below this.

And if you’re looking for a church, if you’re like, I want to leave my church

and find a job, I’m going to encourage you to subscribe

to the Worship Ministry Training mailing list because because every month I’m going

to be sending out jobs, job postings from vanderbloomen.

Com.

Vanderbloomen is the largest search group in the US, I believe,

and they help place worship leaders and pastors in churches,

and they’ve partnered with Worship Ministry Training and asked

us to send out their job posts to our mailing list.

So subscribe to our mailing list so you

can be aware and alerted of new job postings every month.

You can click the link in the description and put your email in, and every month,

I will send you a summary of all the jobs they posted.

If you want immediately be it access to the jobs as soon as they’re posted,

you’ll have to join the Worship Ministry Training Academy for that.

That’s another perk of being a member in the academy is that you will get those

job postings immediately when they land, and I’ll be posting those in the academy,

and you can immediately apply and get your application in first before everyone else.

Check out worshipministrytraining.

Com to start your $1 trial.

Obviously, there’s a bunch more in Worship Ministry training.

There’s the courses and the live monthly

training and all of our documents and resources, plus our community.

But the new perk is job posting postings as soon as they’re live from Vandebloomen.

Vandebloomen specifically said, We cannot find enough qualified worship

leaders for all the job postings that we have.

They’re desperate for qualified worship leaders, you guys.

Be the first to know.

Either get in the academy or jump on the mailing list.

The links are below in the description.

But I hope this video helped you process whether or not your season is over.

Be sure to check out the next video,

which is the Five Reasons to Leave, Five Reasons to Stay,

linked also in the description or somewhere on the screen here.

But thanks for watching, and I’ll see you in the video.

And God bless you as you serve your teams and your churches well.