You’re fired!

“The Donald” made “you’re fired” a catch phrase but, put anyway you want to, those words still hurt. Monday as I was getting my hair cut I watched as the Washington Nationals “relieved Manny Acta of his duties as field manager.” How lovely sounding, they relieved him, he was under stress and now he is relieved, though I doubt he sees it that way, it sure sounds nice.
Running “The Scoop Blog” I end up intersecting with a good number of preachers who are also “relieved” of their duties. Churches don’t use that terminology. They’ll say “we believe it’s time for a change”, or “we want to go another direction”, or “we are going to give you the opportunity to find another place to preach” or “we’re going to let you resign if you want to” (of course if you don’t, you’re leaving anyway, so it’d be advisable to take this “opportunity”).
Bitterness ensues. I’ve been told that most every preacher will be given this “chance of any unanticipated” move at least once in their ministry (so far through the grace of God and the patience of His People I have been spared that “growth gift”). I understand how a root of bitterness could spring up.
My barber, who at the time didn’t know what my job is, said about Manny “must be hard being fired in front of everybody. When they fire somebody here they call them in a back room and unless the person says something, nobody even knows until after they are gone.” It occurs to me that part of the pain when “we” are “fired” is that it is so public. But then our job is public so that just goes with it.
All of this got me to thinking a thought that had never crossed my mind. While I have never been “fired” I have fired churches several times. But we do it not even realizing that is what we are doing. We do it and try to justify it in ways that if churches dismissed us with the same words we’d be furious. We do it and then expect the church to still love us and don’t understand why they don’t understand. But if the shoe was on the other foot we wouldn’t understand: “...we don’t want you here -vss- we don’t want to be here.” “We think it is time for a change -vss- we think it is time for a chance.” “You’ll be OK -vss- you’ll be OK.”
When I left the little church I preached for in south Alabama I told them an opportunity had come my way that I didn’t feel I could pass up, a church I had always wanted to work with (Hamilton). But what if they’d had a preacher they wanted more than me who had come to them and said he wanted to work there and they said to me “we have had an opportunity come our way that we can’t pass up” and they’d dismissed me? I figure I would have been crazy angry. When I left Hamilton I loved the church but was really just ready for a new challenge, but how would I have felt had they said they were ready for a new challenge and dismissed me? I left GW saying I had done about all I could do there and it was time for someone else to come in that could maybe move them forward, but if they’d released me saying they thought I’d done about all I could, I think I would have been bitter.
I’m not sure I have anything here but it was just a rather shocking thought to me. Frankly I’m not even sure what to make of all of this or what I think about it. It was just my strange mind thinking, I’ll look forward to hearing your thoughts too. Remember light not heat!