Proclaimer Blog
Painful goodbyes and lonely ministries
I’m saying goodbye to four colleagues this summer. My wonderful conference manager, Rachel Olajide is going off to have a baby and despite me printing off articles from the Daily Mail about women who return to work 1 hour after giving birth, she is unmoved (rightly!).
Our Cornhill administrator, Becky Hollands is not returning from maternity leave choosing the good option of staying with her newly born son. Good for her! Let not anybody say “she is not coming back to work”. She is working all right. And then some.
My friend Tim Ward is leaving to go to Oak Hill and I will greatly miss his wisdom and contribution. He has kept me on the straight and narrow and I have valued his counsel and input. At the same time Jonathan Griffiths is leaving to go further – Ottawa in fact (a name I have learnt to spell correctly). He has a wise head on young shoulders and our loss is Canada’s gain (where the need is very great).
Partings are always painful. Inevitably one develops working habits where we learn to rely on Christian friends and colleagues. That’s how it should be. We are for each other. And so when partings happen the pain is not simply missing someone, but having to learn new ways of working that will continue to serve others and ensure we are ourselves properly encouraged and accountable.
All of this is not to moan but to observe that this is the nature of ministry in general. People move on. If you are serving in a small church, then the ministry friendships you develop are generally local and even if you don’t move on, others do. In a larger church, there are inevitable changes in staff teams. It means that ministry, in any setting, can be a lonely business. Making and keeping friends requires hard work and investment. It’s too easy to be a loner.
However, there aren’t many people who thrive on being alone. We need support networks and friends, both inside and outside the church. I’m hoping to continue to see my friends, but I have also to be realistic and realise that the decreased proximity means that the nature of the relationships will change. At the same time I need to be building new bridges and friendships to counter the in-built loneliness of ministry.
And you should too.