How to Leave When They Fire You
Ministers and religious leaders get fired too. Pastors get fired, youth pastors get fired, even general officials or seminary presidents can get fired. I don’t like to tell this to young people preparing for the ministry, but we all know it happens. It may never happen to you—but it does happen, and in a lifetime I bet most ministers see a friend get fired. Ministers get fired in a unique way, but they sometimes get fired. So how should you leave when they fire you?
1. Don’t get even in your resignation letter.
You’ll be tempted to lob grenades in your resignation letter to settle some scores. It is an enticing thought—to get even with whoever hurt you or ripped you off. You’ll be tempted to “explain your side of it” or lace the resignation letter with hints so people “find out what really happened.” Resist this temptation. A grand old wise man of my denomination once told a younger man who surprised people by resigning, “Don’t explain yourself—your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it.” He’s right. Write a short resignation letter with as few details as possible and don’t defend yourself in it. The cleaner the better.
2. Avoid dwelling on the “way they did it.”
Just watch. You’ll be tempted to switch your focus from your firing (which you’ll eventually accept was their right to do) to focusing on how they fired you—how badly they did it. Churches and religious organizations hardly ever fire people well. An email form the Radio Shack headquarters is nicer than the way most religious organizations do their firing. Churches and colleges not only for people poorly, they often do it wrongly, hiding the truth and exaggerating the accusations against you. The governance structure of religious “organisms” often does not lend itself to firing people nicely. It is usually messy—more like expelling people from a family which is why religious firings are more like a divorce than getting a pink-slip at the factory. Avoid dwelling on the sloppy (and even evil) way they fired you. Where will that get you? Spending too much time brooding on injustice won’t hurt the people flubbing your firing; it will only make you bitter. Bite your lip, force a smile, and leave the vengeance to God.
3. Don’t try to karate chop the leaders on your way
out the door.
If you feel your senior pastor or board chair did you dirty why not give them a whack as you leave? If they took you down, why not take them down with you? It won’t be hard. People will ask, “—I’m shocked, what happened?” All you have to do is get a tear in your eye, assume a hurt look on your face, and softly say, “I was shocked too—he never said a thing until Tuesday.” ZAP! You get to chop out a bit of support for the senior pastor or board chair. You won’t even have to fight back if you can coordinate a campaign of the victim. Just a few comments will fire up your supporters to march off to war against your abuser. Why not give the senior pastor or board member a fatal would as you leave? Why not plant a few anti-personnel land mines to take these bad people down after you’re gone? Wouldn’t that be nice? It would not. Resist this temptation. When people ask questions, be diplomatic and respond with, “No sense talking about that—let’s talk about what I might do next.” Or, turn their attention to celebrating your good years of ministry. Say, “everybody moves on” and pat them on the shoulder then change the subject. Remember, people will use whatever you say against others long after you leave. Why leave division—will they help your memories as an old man or woman? Is this what you want to remember about this period of life? Of course not. Refuse to supply weapons for their warfare. Don’t give mortar shells to the enemies of the Senior Pastor or board. Let God get even for evil—that’s His job.
4. Get your soldiers to lay down their guns.
If you
really got a raw deal your church or institution will be divided when you
leave. Good Christians always will rise
up to prophecy against injustice. In
fact the best Christians will often risk their own necks to demand the
shenanigans cease. If you really got a
raw deal, by the time you leave there will be a sizable army of Christian
soldiers marching off into war for you. They’ll settle the score and bring the
bad guys down! They lost you and they’ll
be willing to turn you into their own personal
Those four are my take on what to do when you’re fired. Admittedly I am biased toward the person getting fired—I care more about them than the place or people that did them dirty. For instance, some DSs disagree with this advice heatedly—they say that sometimes we need a “gunslinger” to go in and destroy the death grip of board member even if it destroys the pastor and family. I disagree though—perhaps because I have two sons in the ministry. But what do you think? Is it sometimes in order to “fight and destroy entrenched power” even if it almost destroys the church or institution? Are some institutions deserving of destruction? At5 what cost and to whom?
So what
do you think?
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Originally published 2002;
Updated version published October 24, 2006
Keith Drury