Wisdom Keys For Transitioning Out Of A Ministry

Wisdom Keys for Shifting with God!

• Leave Honorably
• Avoid Gossip
• Avoid The Victim Mentality
• Draw Nigh Unto God
• Break Soulties
• Deliverance and Healing:
• Addressing the Congregation During Transitions

Leave Honorably Schedule a meeting with your leader/s and share with them what God has spoken to you. Be respectful and honoring no matter how they respond. Let them know that you are simply being obedient to God, but do not defend what God has led you to do. Speak honestly, and do not add more to what God has said. If you do not know everything God has prepared, be honest in sharing that, and let them know you are open to sharing as God further reveals information to you. Give a date of departure, and tie up any ministry duties, etc., say your goodbyes to those you have done ministry with, bless them in their continued endeavors, and move forward with God

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It is always good to equip successors while you are in a leadership position. However, if you did not do this, seek God on what day you are to leave, then share this with your overseer, and encourage them to find a replacement for you. If you know of those within the ministry that are equipped to replace you, then recommend them to your leader. If the leader agrees in them replacing you, ask them if they are open to taking your place.  If they accept the position, pray a blessing impartation over them, release all duties to them, and encourage them and those under them in being able to carry the vision further. Share any revelation and duties that will enable their transition to be smooth and successful. If there is no one to take your place, then move forward, while trusting God to provide for the ministry.

Avoid Gossip If people become messy and gossipy regarding your transition, do not get into this type of conversation with them. Do not have conversations about flaws and issues regarding the leader and the ministry, or regarding your hurtful challenges and any concerns you may have relating to your experience. Simply focus on the fact that it is your time to go and SHIFT, while dealing with your hurts and challenges in prayer with God, a Christian Counselor, or a mature saint who can keep you focused on where God is taking you. Shut down all conversations that will try to draw you into dishonor as even if it is true, when you yield to gossip and slander, it is dishonor to God, and to the fact that he SHIFTED and separated you to steer you away from mess.  Tell the gossipers you have nothing to say, and if cutting ties with them is necessary, then do that. When I left my previous church, I shut the gossipers down by blessing the leadership and the ministry, and simply contending that it was just time for me to transition and therefore, I was being obedient to God. There was no room to entangle me in their gossip, so they hushed with trying to engage me in conversation.

If you are being slandered by gossip and betrayal due to the leader and/or the ministry because of leaving, do not seek to defend yourself, and do not try to have others within that ministry to comfort and support you in your time of transition. Those that would try to comfort and support you from that ministry are going to be torn between you and that ministry.  Any assistance they give you will be mixed with confusion and turmoil, and will still connect you to something God has brought you out of. You can be cordial and friends, but receive your support and healing from people who are not attached to the situation, and that can focus you on healing and SHIFTING with God. When I left my previous ministry, my God sister and brother still attended that ministry. They are like blood family to me, and my God sister is one of my main life supports. But for this situation, I did not go to her to help me with this transition. I did not want to put her in a position to choose, be torn, or draw her from what God was still requiring her to do in the ministry. I also did not want her to feel like she had to fix or defend how others were responding to my transition.  That was not her responsibility as I simply was doing what God was leading me to do. Though she and I remained close, and she was in my everyday life, I went to my overseer, my mentor, and two close friends who lived in other states, to help me process through my thoughts, feelings, and experiences with the SHIFT that had taken place in my life.

Avoid Victim Mentality Do not go to broken saints and saints who are still wounded by church hurt for support and counsel when you are transitioning out of a church. I mention this because even if you do not seek them out, they will find you. I do not know if the devil sends them or if it is because you are in a vulnerable place, and possibly even wounded that they smell the blood of your wounds and flock to you. But whatever the case, when they come, do not rely on them for support. Give up your need to have people understand you for the sake of just healing in a healthy manner and SHIFTING with God.  You do not need a support group of wounded folks who only want to drown in their pain, and validate that leaders and the church are a farce.  Such people are out for revenge, and to tear down leaders and the church, thus becoming an enemy of God and his will to advance his kingdom in the earth. Your focus should be to build up the kingdom, so do not attach to this crowd.

Do not get stuck in rehearsing your pain that it drowns out your ability to be healed and to hear God for the next revelation and moves he has for your life. When you constantly rehearse your pain, you are stuck in a victim mentality. You have become your own offender, because you are now the one continuing to reopen and inflict pain upon wounds that God has healed or wants to heal.

You do not need to talk to 700,894,842 folks about what has happened to you. Especially when all they are doing is agreeing with you, and validating that it should not have occurred. True encouragers sympathize with you, while seeking to bring healing so your pain will end. They do not feed into your pain where it continues or deepens. If you continuously need attention and validation for your wounds, then you are bound by a victim mentality and have become your own offender. Get a few accountable, mature, healthy people that can be sympathetic to you, yet SHIFT you to being delivered, healed, and advancing forward with God.

Draw Nigh To God Though it is important to have a few mature supports who can encourage you, support you, provide deliverance, healing, and wise counsel, everyone is not going to understand your transition.  Even people that support you and provide guidance, will not fully understand your SHIFT. Transitions are supernatural. They are a time of really treading in the truth, power, faith, and encouragement of God. He is the only one who can FULLY comfort, support, instruct, guide, and help you comprehend what is happening to you and for you.  Transition is a time of drawing near to him. Those who are supports will confirm what he personally does in, through, and for you. Study the story of Jesus as he transitioned from leading the disciples to dying on the cross. It will provide significant keys and revelation of how to draw near to God and transition with him.

Break Soulties Break soulties with anything that will try to keep you stuck or focused on your past ministry or church season, where it is a hindrance to you being focused on the "new." Lots wife looked back because her soul was still tied to Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:26).

If the relationship or dynamics were unhealthy, you may have to break soulties with:

·     Your leader/s.

·     The people in the ministry. You may have to break soulties with friends and acquaintances. Sometimes it is difficult to leave when we are tied to people we love. The soultie is unhealthy if it is hindering or causing a struggle where we cannot SHIFT with God. The soultie may need to be broken and then re-established in the new place you are in.

·     The ministry itself.

·     Prophecies or promises you believe you have aborted due to leaving. Declare they will come to pass in your future seasons.

·     Drama and messiness that you were a part of or that was present within the ministry.

·     False promises and promotions that never came to pass or that was only given in measure.  Declare they will come to pass in your future seasons.

·     The potential you saw in the ministry and hoped would manifest.

·     Disappointments, pains, and hurts that you endured from the leader, the ministry, and during your transition.

·     The community and region if you were SHIFTED to a new community and region to minister in.

·     Ministry positions and platforms you held that may be pulling on your heart and soul.

Deliverance and Healing If you are going to be a progressive person, it is necessary to focus on SHIFTING forward. That means anything that is going to keep you stuck or bound in the past should be removed.  As much as you will be justified and want to hold on to your emotions, do not do it.  Use the strategies and revelations throughout this book so you can be delivered and healed.  SHIFTING comes with its own set of emotions that you have to conquer. Do not confound your transition by holding onto unhealthy or challenging emotions that will keep you bound and stifled. Work through them and commit to being made well of anything from your past. Please understand that when a SHIFT has occurred, the foundation has been cracked. When your emotions are driving you, you are subject to fall into one rather than having the focus to jump over hurdles and obstacles.

Transitions display your maturity and faith in God. You will learn where your character is strong, and where you need improvement and further development.

2Timothy 2:3-4 Take [with me] your share of the hardships and suffering [which you are called to endure] as a good (first-class) soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier when in service gets entangled in the enterprises of [civilian] life; his aim is to satisfy and please the one who enlisted him.

Endure the trials of SHIFTING with integrity and character, while taking your pains and hurts to God so he can deliver and heal you. Seek your close support system for further deliverance and healing of areas that may be difficult to heal or be free from. Some areas will require a continual battering and release unto God before breakthrough occurs. This is a transition, so it is a process that is occurring. Therefore, you will have to be processed to wholeness even as you are being processed to your “next.” God is also doing some new things in your mind, heart, and soul to build you in your “new.” Some things will happen quickly, and some will happen over time. Let God lead you in the process of transitioning into the “new” with him. As you surrender your process to God, receive deliverance, and healing in the following areas:

·     Forgive anyone who hurts you, does not understand you, or betrays you.

·     Cleanse and heal from all bitterness, anger, rage, resentment, retaliation, murder, slander, and gossip.

·     Release all expectations and hurt from not being supported, being overlooked, not being understood, and being betrayed.

·     Break powers of shame, guilt, condemnation, accuser of the brethren, gossip, slander, and word curses against your “next”.

·     Cast out and break powers of fear, inadequacy, insecurity, and feeling unworthy of what God has for you. Consistently declare out who you are, and what God is requiring of you. Command the earth, region, and new place to receive you as God’s chosen vessel (See Romans 8:22). Refuse to be denied, and know that you deserve to be where God is taking you.

·     Have your personal confidants praying and covering you as you SHIFT. Be specific in what they should pray for, so they can agree with what God is saying.

·     Deal with the grief and loss of your transition. Do not stuff your grief, ignore it, or wallow in it. Typically, the stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It is very easy to get stuck in one of these stages during transition. The main reason is because we expect everything about the new to be glorious and easy. We assume that there will not be challenges, hardship, new things to learn and conquer, etc. We quote “new level - new devils,“ but we expect blessings and overflow. We become challenged and fixated on all that we loss and have given up. Such a focus plagues us with grief. Your feelings are real and understandable, and God cares about how you feel. Tell the Lord exactly how it hurts and sucks, but be willing to let the feelings go. Receive his deliverance and healing when he strives to exchange your grief for comfort, peace, joy, love, and healing.

·     Immediately complete and implement whatever God tells you. Some of it will sound farfetched. Remember that God uses the foolish to confound the wise. His methods are not of this world. They are conventional. Some matters you will not understand until you implement them, or until future seasons of your life. I am still learning and understanding things that God had me do in a major SHIFT that occurred years ago. I had to give up my need to understand so I could flow with God.  It was totally worth it.  You will not regret trusting God.

·     Embrace your new relationships and connections. They will be different, and some will not be what you are used to and expected. But God is not trying to establish the old, he is about the “new.”  Trust who he has put in your life and do not make them be responsible for what others have done and have not done in your life. Just because they are new, it does not guarantee that you will not be hurt again. Neither does you putting up walls and being resistant to embracing these relationships. God does not control our freewill to be messy. But as you go through this transition, it is important to accept people for exactly who they are, flaws and all. Learn to engage people from the truth of who they are, as then you will be able to accept and heal from challenges you will encounter in your relationships. This helps in discerning drama and challenges before they occur, and dealing with them quickly so you can keep it moving with God.

Addressing The Congregation During Transition A lot of times we move forward and act like nothing happened when people leave the ministry, however, the challenges that occur when people transition out of the ministry need to be addressed. We must be open and available to discussing, and bringing healing to the people and the ministry organizations, as regardless of whether people leave in a healthy or unhealthy manner, it is still a loss. Addressing the loss especially needs to be done if the person was a major leader within the ministry or if offense occurred with various people within the ministry.  Be open to the following:

·     Meet with the congregation, and or members of specific ministries, and deal with feelings and issues of abandonment, grief, and loss. People will feel abandoned because of unresolved issues of abandonment in their personal lives.  People will not even know that these unresolved issues are there, and will feel voided and hurt due to the person’s transition. A lot of slander and gossip can be avoided simply by dealing with this area, and helping people to process their feelings. As I transitioned out of my previous church, I had several meetings with my leaders before leaving.  I believe people would have handled my transition better if this information was shared with them by leadership.

·     Pray for the entire congregation, and for people who may need more personal processing in the areas of abandonment, grief, and loss, and provide people with healthy tools and supports to process their thoughts and feelings.

·     Demonstrating genuine support of the person that is leaving is key to helping members transition in a healthy manner. If leaders are silent regarding a transition, it leaves room for the enemy to cause division and confusion, and for people to form their own interpretation about that person’s transition. When people see leaders giving genuine blessings despite challenges of losing that person, they are apt to deal with their feelings in a healthy manner.

·    Do not preach about the issue over the pulpit, or make public remarks regarding your challenges with the person’s transition. This provokes gossip and slander, and causes people to take sides.

·     Do not lend to gossip and slander, and discourage people from engaging in such negativity. Promote unity and respect of the person’s right to make their own decisions.

·   Provide people with wise counsel regarding their own thoughts and feelings concerning being challenged by the person leaving, or them feeling they should leave.

·     Be kingdom minded and not church focused. Kingdom minded leaders recognize that we are all one body advancing the kingdom of God. Church minded leaders are focused on building their own little kingdom and gathering people unto themselves.

Decreeing that transitions will be smoother as people learn to respect God’s will and flow in the process of SHIFTING with him. SHIFT!  

Annihilating The Powers of Church Hurt is available at Kingdomshifters.com