I read the sharing of one minister on this site and I thought I would offer my story. I suppose we never truly understand how another feels until we have experienced what they have. I know my example is very unusual, but the result has still equalled burnout.

The church I founded 12 years ago had finally arranged to meet in its own site… a shopping center space. The local town leaders harassed us with zoning codes trivialities until it took us nearly a year to actually using the site.

Incredibly, in this shopping center that had been vacant for 7 years, another church moved into the adjacent site right after ours did. We are a white Evangelical Covenant Church. The newcomers were a black pentecostal group.

I have no problem with a Christian being black or pentecostal. The problem was the minister and his music director blasted us through our shared wall every Sunday morning. These folks felt they weren’t worshipping God unless they were screaming at the top of their lungs. Throughout their minister’s sermons, every time the music director liked a point he made, the organ would play and the drums would start pounding.

I met with the minister repeatedly and asked him, in the simple spirit of Christian fellowship if he could understand that our folks were being blown out of the church they had been a part of for years. His answer: “That’s YOUR problem!” He made it clear that it was “the spirit” that compelled him to harass us and disrupt our services. (Now I know what spirit it was!)

The owners of the shopping center are based half way across the country and couldn’t have cared less about how our needs were being met. The only option we had was a costly lawsuit which we could not afford.

Then, with the economic downturn, a number of our families lost employment and we just could no longer pay our bills. I took a fulltime job in addtion to my church of nearly 100 people. Within 7 months, I had developed health problems, my wife hated the ministry, and I was very depressed. We decided we couldn’t go on any longer.

In order to try to keep the work together, I met with a pastor friend down the street. His church is similar to ours, so we began a merger last spring. Tomorrow we will give over to his church about $40,000 in assets from our ministry. They are a good church and I don’t mind doing this. In fact, it seems the best answer at this point in time. I have, however, been unemployed since June because of this terrible catastrophe.

I think my greatest pain though was the fact that, when I shared the problem with my minister friends, they started keeping their distance. None of them had any sympathy. It’s like they couldn’t believe that such a bizarre thing could happen, so they just shake their heads and say, “Ummm…”

Every minister needs to look again at the letters of Paul who wrote of false believers who sought power over others, preached for money, and did harm to him. Even then, there were devils in the churches. They’re still there. It’s so cowardly to affix the blame for burnout on the poor pastor. He’s the easy target and the people who claim that he just wasn’t spiritual enough or in sin are the very kinds of insensitive critics that were probably the real problem anyway.

Yesterday, I mentioned to my wife that, perhaps, we should use the assets we retain to begin a new church. Her face told me she would probably kill me if I tried to do that.

I’m left with a very disturbed feeling inside. The person (I won’t call him a man) who did his best to see our ministry destroyed now uses the site we worked a year to upfit as his “fellowship hall.” I have spoken my forgiveness of him to the Lord. Yet I can’t even think about all that happened, even a year later, without a sick feeling inside. And I feel, if offered a ministry, I would have no joy in it.

If anyone wants to respond, you can write me at . (Change onetwothree to numbers).

Thank you.