Holy Week is a rollercoaster.
If you’ve ever served on a church staff—volunteer or paid—you know what I mean. There’s beauty. There’s exhaustion. There’s laughter in the lobby, tears in the back pew, and a stack of bulletins that were printed three times because someone forgot the communion instructions. Again.
It’s one of the holiest and heaviest times in the church calendar, and for those leading, it’s a blur of late nights, early mornings, and desperately trying to remember which service you’re preaching at and whether you already said that line yesterday. Or was it Thursday?
I used to live for it.
And if I’m honest, I still kind of do.
Because as much as I love my current life, I miss the sacred ache of ministry—the chance to sit with the widow and the skeptic and the teenager who just lost her friend. I miss telling stories that help someone believe they’re not too far gone. I miss walking into Holy Week knowing that even the doubters showed up this time, and maybe—just maybe—hope would crack something open.
But this year was different. Again.
I’m not on staff anymore. Haven’t been for three years.
Not leading, not preaching, not rehearsing the resurrection story one more time in the mirror to make sure it lands just right.
And truthfully? That absence still hurts.
Not because I think God needs me in a pulpit, but because I miss mattering in that space. I miss being part of the moment when someone lets go of shame and decides to trust grace instead.
Lately, I’ve felt the sting even more.
I’ve applied to multiple church or church-adjacent roles over the past months, and each one has ended the same: “We’ve decided to go in a different direction.”
Some of those closed doors, I can now say “thank you” to God for. They weren’t the right fit.
Others, though? I still sit with the ache.
Was it my honesty about my past? Was it my passion for grace that made gatekeepers nervous? Was it the fact that some leaders who once tried to break me now have to watch me walk in a healing they never thought I’d find?
I don’t know.
And maybe I never will.
But this week, while sitting in that foggy place of rejection and longing, God met me. Not in a sanctuary. Not on a stage. But at the dinner table.
Tonight, I wasn’t running between services or mentally editing my sermon between bites of food.I was sitting—present, if still processing—with my family. And that’s when my son started asking questions.
He’s ten now, and for a while he’s been interrogating faith—not out of rebellion, but out of a fierce hunger to make it his own. And tonight, of all nights—Good Friday—he unleashed a flood of questions:
“Why did Jesus have to die?”
“Why couldn’t God just do it another way?”
“Why did He give humanity another chance at all?”
My wife looked at me like, “Well, pastor dad, this one’s all you.”
But this time, I wasn’t rushed.
I wasn’t preoccupied with a service rundown or a pastoral obligation. I had the time. He grabbed his Bible. We read. We asked. We wondered together.
And I got to share the truth that still undoes me: That God’s love is ridiculous. Illogical. Undeserved. And yet… utterly ours.
I told him that’s the whole point of Good Friday. That love went first. That love is so overwhelmingly real that it gave grace that took on the full weight of sin and shame so we wouldn’t have to.
I told him this is why we go to church—not to perform, but to remember. To wrestle. To grow. To be reminded that we are not alone.
And in that moment, I felt it.
That familiar burn in my chest. That sacred space where ministry happens. Not in a sanctuary, but in a conversation. Not behind a pulpit, but between a dad and his son. Not in front of hundreds, but in front of one.
And I thought to myself, For it being a Good Friday I wasn’t serving in a church… this might be the most meaningful ministry I’ve ever done on one.
I still grieve the spaces I no longer get to serve in. I still carry the ache of rejection and wonder why the doors don’t open. But tonight reminded me—God hasn’t benched me. He’s just shifted the playing field. And while I wouldn’t have chosen this path, I’m beginning to see the goodness of the One who did.
If you’re in a season where your gifts feel unused, where the places you long to serve have said no, where your sense of purpose feels blurry—let me gently remind you: You still matter. Your ministry may look different, but it is no less sacred. And God is not done with your story. Not even close.
So wherever you are today—whether leading three services back-to-back or watching them from the back row or skipping them altogether to sit at a table with someone you love—I hope you find the sacred in it.
Because sometimes, the best ministry happens in the most unexpected places. And sometimes, the Good Friday you thought you’d miss… becomes the one that heals you.