Life After Ministry

When I left the ministry one of the biggest fears I had was what I would do for a living. My education and training where focused in the area of a church. I didn’t want to go back to school because I didn’t want to go into debt without the guarantee of a job. There were fields that I believed a pastor could transition to such as social work, counseling, or teaching. There was no guarantee that anyone would hire me. Plus those areas of work are not easy. Social work and counseling are not places where people who come to you are generally happy. The work that these people do is very difficult and emotionally tolling. I didn’t know if that is where I wanted to be for the rest of my life. 

One thing I did have going for me were people skills. Generally speaking, pastors tend to be  friendly personable people. The service industry seemed like a good fit. I had already been bartending at one place but decided to take a course on how to bartend and make a living out of it. 

After doing that for awhile I realized that this was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. You can make money as a bartender but you have to be in the right bar and you have to pretty much sell your soul to the service industry. There are late nights and hard work. You are totally dependent on tips because generally speaking, bartenders and waiters make $2.13 an hour plus tips. There are no benefits such as health care, 401K or PTO. All of that comes directly out of your pocket. 

I still didn’t know what I would do. That’s where someone on this site helped me. I won’t repeat what has already been written in a previous post but only to say that ministers do have marketable skills. He was able to show me the potential of what I could do outside the ministry. He helped me with my resume and put me in touch with people who were hiring. In a matter of months I had a new job that has potential for an entirely different career path. 

This post isn’t so much about how to get a job but rather knowing that there is hope of a good job after the ministry. Once you decide to leave the ministry, there is a lot of wringing of hands.