So, it’s happened.

You, as a staff member or lay ministry leader in the church, have been in the middle of a season of conflict with your senior leader and it turned out to be as disastrous as it could possibly be. Your senior leader, for a variety of reasons both understandable and selfish, abused you spiritually and emotionally and now your time in your current church or ministry post has ended, rather unceremoniously. Very few in the church know the real story, most of the congregation only knows the guarded and curated narrative being spun by the senior leader, making you out to be the one who deserved what you got. Healthy and Godly communication is being shunned by your former senior church leader and now you are sitting out on the cold church stoop, tossed aside with careless malice that has no foundation in the love of Christ. It’s over, and the deed is done. The pain is overwhelming, the confusion is real, and the future for the moment, looks lost.

What do you do now?

The first step is to heal. The false accusations levied against you in negligent human flesh do not disqualify you from how much the Lord loves you and is going to heal you. Betrayal from a senior church leader is a different kind of beast to wrestle with, that’s because shepherds are supposed to watch over and give their lives for the sheep, not feed them to the wolves. That betrayal is baggage that needs healed from by the Lord, because if left unattended it will become the lens through which you will look at your future in the Lord, and it will be the scratched and blurry lens that will look at the church, which is God’s family on Earth. First step, get help from the Lord and others to heal from the wounding in your heart caused by the abusive senior church leader.

But even in the wounding, and in the healing, the Lord is setting you up for the next season. You are still loved, you are still called, and the Lord is setting up the next assignment in the next season of your life. How do I know this? Because that’s how God works with surrendered hearts and lives that long to continue to serve Jesus and gospel. In Christ Jesus there is always a next season of hope. Take a look at Paul. He encountered so many setbacks, baseless attacks, and discouragement along the way, and yet there was always a new assignment waiting for Him. On Paul’s first missionary journey, he and Barnabas saw fantastic fruit for the Kingdom as Jews and gentiles alike responded to their ministry in Pisidia Antioch, but it didn’t end the way they would have wanted it to end.

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When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed. The word of the Lord spread through the whole region. But the Jews incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region. So they shook the dust from their feet in protest against them and went to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

(Acts 13:48-52 NIV84)

In this season of breaking under, I want to encourage you to take the example of Paul. Paul shook the dust off his feet just as Jesus commanded us to when we have been faithful in ministry, and yet were unjustly rejected (Luke 9:1-6). This is God’s personal strategy for spiritual warfare in your own mind because detachment from the lies spoken over you allows your mind to be renewed by the Holy Spirit, and sets you up to be ready to win the next season and assignment He has for your life. So, your job in this season is to fight the lies (often coming from the abusive senior leader themselves) that you are finished and that you’re not good enough for God to use you again. I’m sure Paul and Barnabas were disappointed and even hurt by the opposition, we all are whether the opposition comes from whose we lead, or those who lead us. However, I want you to notice what they did. They not only shook the dust of their feet and their minds, they got on with winning the next season in their life in Christ and ministry. The where and when of your own Iconium is something the Lord will reveal to you as you reject the lies and look to Jesus for the next season.

What you have gone through by being spiritually and emotionally abused by a church leader is one of the hardest things to go through as a Christian leader in the church. However, it is far from catastrophic. The unfortunate fact is that this season has ended tragically and left you with wounds needing healed. My encouragement to you is to allow Jesus to pick you up off the floor and heal you, then shake the dust off your feet and get on with winning the next season and Heavenly assignment on your life, because God is ready and waiting for you to see victory again. So, go and win the future.