Shattered Dreams

I was walking through a bookshop on tuesday when the title of this book caught my eye: Shattered Dreams by Larry Crab. I have seen this book many times before, but this time I picked it up because I felt as if the title describes a little about what I feel about my time leading the church.

The fact is, I am deeply sad about having to give this up. I am stepping down not so much because I want to, but more because I have to. I just could not go on. While I am relieved to not have the pressure and responsibility, the fact is a part of me is dying as well. It is a deep passion within me to be able to pastor. I love helping people grow, i love teaching things that I have learned from God, i love to see God's kingdom values becoming a part of our lives. My desire is to see a community of people live out the kingdom life together. But now all these seem to have come to an end. The dream dies....

I just do not have the internal capacity and energy to lead the church. The more I lead, the more I see myself becoming someone I am not. The other factor is just a recognition that the church I see emerging, and that I want to see emerging, is contradictory to what others see. The others on the leadership team live and operate from a very different value system and paradigm. I used to be like that as well, but I have shifted a lot in the past few years. I have shifted in theology, in values , in worlview. I thought that I could lead them thorugh it, but I failed. I think it was a matter of time before I left, or they left. But the fact is the majority of them are pretty happy operating as they are, so it makes sense that I am the one to back down.

I dont absolve myself of any blame. The fact is, I failed to lead the leadership team. They could not see the need for change and the new values that were being birthed and maybe thats because I did not help them enough. This and other things just drained a lot of enery from me.

Looking back I do see it as the religious spirit operating and in stepping down it seems as if there is a breakthrough for the church. I am happy about that. But here I am, left with my shattered dreams.