Forced Out: The Pain of Pastoral Termination

Forced Out: The Pain of Pastoral Termination

Feb. 11, 2025

Host: Dr. Jamie Mitchell

Guest: Deanna Harrison

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 2/11/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Jamie Mitchell:

Well, good afternoon friends, and welcome to another edition of Stand In the Gap. Today I am Jamie Mitchell. I’m your host and the director of church culture at the American Pastors Network. Today’s program may be convicting or sobering. It may cause anger and even a measure of skepticism from experience. Today’s topic has a way of generating a variety of emotions and even disbelief across the landscape of evangelical believers. So my appeal to you is right from the onset to listen carefully, openly, honestly, and allow the spirit of God to speak to you. The fact is we all may have a chance to make a difference in our churches after this program. With all that said, today we want to explore and consider the topic of pastoral forced termination. Now, we recognize that being a pastor has some occupational hazards. Ministry is difficult at times when dealing with people and then adding to it the reality of spiritual warfare.

There can be times of conflict and disappointment, struggle, and as wonderful it is to preach the gospel and equip people with the word of God and be right on the front row of what God’s doing when he gets ahold of a heart and brings about life change. There are some times of challenge, and some of the greatest highs of my life came from ministry, and yet some of the devastating lows have also been a product of serving in the church. But consider these facts. A few years back, 63% of pastors said they never seriously considered ever leaving ministry, and 78% said they would never consider leaving their current congregation. But then just two years later, both percentages changed drastically. Now, less than half of pastors, 47% said that they never seriously considered leaving the pastor ministry. And over half 56% said they never seriously considered leaving their church.

What a dramatic change. Nine out of 10 pastors expressed that they would leave because of the conflict in their body. In 2015, 66% of pastors said that they were more confident in their calling when they started their jobs. But then in 2022, only 35% of pastors said that they were really sure that God had called them to be a minister of the gospel. Decade ago, 72% told Barna researchers that they felt very satisfied in their jobs. Five year later, it dropped to 67%. A few years ago, only 52% of pastors reported being satisfied in their job. And it’s even less today. Pastors are having a difficult time, but another destabilizing factor for many pastors is facing the fear of being fired or that they have been fired. Here’s this shocking statistic. 23 to 41% of all pastors will experience a forced termination sometime in their ministry.

That cloud of uncertainty hangs over the heads of many ministers. It is real fear and there is really anything that can be done. And how does this happen? And can we change the environment? My guest today not only has experienced forced termination firsthand, but she’s turned her hurt grief and that painful experience into a ministry to support and give directions to pastors and their families who’ve suffered the same. Deanna Harrison is the founder and director of Pastors Hope Network, and she’s been a guest with us before. She has authored a book about her husband and his painful forced termination and its effect on her life. Pastor’s hope is touching dozens of wounded shepherds, and today we want to learn about this real problem. In the past six years, pastor’s Hope has helped over 300 wounded Shepherds and that represents 1200 family members, and over 600 of these family members have been children. And so today we want to learn how we can avoid this pain in a pastor’s life. Deanna, welcome back to Stand In the Gap.

Deanna Harrison:

Thank you, Jamie. It’s an honor to be with you today.

Jamie Mitchell:

Now, Deanna, when I told people that I was going to do a program on this topic, some of them have said, well, is that really a thing? I think there is a bit of naivety, naivety in the church. How real and how often does this idea of force termination happen and why are we not hearing about it more?

Deanna Harrison:

Well, I think it’s important that we start by defining termination because that’s key to understanding the problem. Being terminated means being forced to leave a church ministry position without cause, and it involves an abusive process that is quite traumatic. The process involves secret meetings of those who want the pastor gone, and it’s a carefully planned strategy of attacks on a pastor with the goal of terminating him. And the astonishing thing is that one out of three pastors will go through this experience at least once in their ministry careers. Now as to why we don’t hear more about it, I think there are three main reasons. One is that many churches require a pastor to sign a non-disclosure document in order to get any severance. And as a result, that pastor is not free to share about what happened for fear of retribution by the church.

The second reason is that the pastor and their family are so traumatized and isolated, isolated that they’re basically stunned into silence. And the third reason I believe, is that many denominational leaders would rather sweep the problem under the rug instead of acknowledging that there is a problem and working toward a solution. I know that right now denominations are concerned at the low number of people going into ministry or going into the pastorate. And I wonder if they’re not afraid if young seminary students hear about termination that they might walk out the door. So it’s just not being talked about and we’re trying to change that. And I appreciate you for the opportunity to talk about this today.

Jamie Mitchell:

Yeah, because part of this is that something happens within the church. Maybe they’re dissatisfied with the pastor, he’s not performing like they might want him to, and instead of dialoguing and working out a plan, they just up and say, that’s it. And once that happened, Deanna, the dominoes get pushed over and one after another difficult experience comes into a pastor and their family’s lives, number one, because they just didn’t expect it. But because the tentacles of a pastor’s life, his job, maybe his home, maybe his relationships, his support, all of that goes when that sudden termination takes place that in most cases, they just never saw coming. Well, we’re just getting started, friends, so do not go anywhere when we return, we’re going to consider why pastors are so ill prepared to lose their jobs and why it’s more devastating in their lives than in any other profession that we may consider.

We’re talking about how to care for your shepherds. We want you to stay with us here on Stand In the Gap. Today we’re discussing with Deanna Harrison from Pastor’s Hope Network, the reality of forced terminations of clergy and the effects on a pastor, his family, the church, the testimony of Christ. Deanna. One of the things that many churchgoers do not fully understand is that when a pastor is suddenly forced from his ministry and the place of employment, life becomes challenging and difficult. Can you explain what a pastoral couple and family face and what are some practical considerations that our audience should be aware of?

Deanna Harrison:

Well, Jamie, the thing that most people don’t consider is that when a pastor is suddenly pushed out of his ministry, he and his family lose their faith community and their social community. They’ve lost a lot more than their income. The pastor is often ostracized by other pastors in denominational leaders. In my personal case, denominational leaders would not return my husband’s phone calls. They wouldn’t respond to his emails even though he had done nothing to justify being terminated When a pastor’s terminated, his kids go to school and their friends and teachers want to know what happened at the church, but they have no answers. The pastor’s kids also have to endure hearing their friends whisper behind their backs or worse read negative and things that are being said about their dad on social media. And as you mentioned, sometimes the pastor’s family lives in a church owned house. And if that’s the case, they may suddenly have to move. I mean, their whole world is turned upside down.

Jamie Mitchell:

It affects relationships. I think of the relational aspect as being so tant. I mean, just think of it this way, Deanna. If someone in the church loses their job, they usually come to the people in the church to give them support, to pray for them, to encourage them, to help them find a new job. When that happens to a pastor, he doesn’t have that available to him, does he?

Deanna Harrison:

No, that’s exactly right. And that’s part of the pain of being terminated is how many people you have been there for, how many people you have walked alongside and helped them through the traumatic situation of losing a job. And yet, when it happens to you, you have no one. Those very people have turned against you. And so there are so many long-term effects of termination. I mean, as a result of being terminated, pastors, they go through depression, low self-esteem. They have incredible financial instability. We, we’ve had clients that when they contact us, they have gone through their entire savings just trying to survive. PTSD is one of the long-term effects and the inability to trust people, especially church people, is one of the effects.

Some ministers and their spouses are unable to set foot in a church in any church because of the trauma associated with being terminated. Some of the very practical, very practical impacts of termination are, number one, losing your health insurance. I mean, just think about that. You can no longer afford to take your kid to the doctor for steip or whatever it might be. If you’ve come down with the flu and you’re deathly ill, your first thought is, I can’t afford to go see a doctor. I’ve got to get through this without any kind of medical help. So losing your medical insurance is a huge, huge thing. Believe it or not, being able to put food on the table becomes an enormous challenge. I’ve known of pastors wives who have stood in line at food banks just to get food to feed their kids. And that’s a pretty sad commentary on the local church who terminates a pastor.

I know of pastor’s kids who’ve just, they’ve had to shut down their social media accounts because they see lies and slander on Facebook or Instagram, and it’s like they can’t answer, they cannot comment, they can’t defend their dads, and boy they want to. And so the best thing is just to shut down those accounts. And then again, one of the biggest challenges for pastors who are terminated is finding housing. Even if they own their own home, they may not be able to make a mortgage payment, so they might have to sell and find a place to live, which is very difficult when you don’t have a job. You can’t even rent an apartment if you’re unemployed, and it takes a long time to get employed. So the very practical impact of termination is just mind boggling. And you’re right, I don’t think church members realize the devastating impact of

Jamie Mitchell:

Termination and the roadblocks that are in front of a pastor because let’s delve a little bit deeper on this subject, Deanna, is that if a pastor goes to get then another job, one of the things that the next church or the next ministry asks, they’ll say, well, where did you minister before? And what was that like? Why did you leave? If you have signed an NDA, you’re bound to not be able to tell everything. If they then go and contact the other church or the other ministry, a lot of times what they’ll say is things like this, well, we’re really not at liberty to talk about it, which then casts this huge cloud over the pastor from being able to then pursue anything. So in some respects, the forced termination is not the pastor’s fault, but in many respects, the former church still has control on what he does in the future. I mean, you’ve dealt with some 300 pastors, that must be the same story you hear over and over again.

Deanna Harrison:

Oh, definitely. Yes. And one of the things we do that we’ll talk about later is in working with the pastor in the resume, we will coach them on how to answer those questions because those are questions that do come up when the pastor is interviewing at another church, or sometimes the pastor is so wounded they need transitional employment. Well, you go to apply for a transitional job, and while it is possible to get post jobs, you still have a resume that has a whole list of churches as being your former employers. Your education most likely is a degree from a Bible college or a seminary, and a lot of hiring managers look at that and just pass over you. So it’s definitely a challenge. It’s very difficult for pastors to land that next job. And I think it takes on average about a year to get that next job. And in the meantime, you’ve got to have some way of supporting your family and putting food on the table.

Jamie Mitchell:

And I want to be fair though, as we have talked, sometimes pastors do need to leave, and sometimes a church is right in asking a pastor to leave from performance or conflict or whatever it may be. So there are times when a church, a board, they may ask a pastor to leave that we’re not saying that should never happen, but what are we saying?

Deanna Harrison:

What we are saying is, if you have to ask a pastor to leave, there is a right way to go about it and a wrong way to go about it. And if the pastor is blindsided, then clearly you’ve gone the wrong way about it. There are clear scriptural teachings that say if you have problems with somebody, you go to that person. You go to them and you try to work out whatever the issue might be. And whenever a client comes to us and says, I was completely blindsided. Clearly the church leaders did not follow scriptural teachings. And a lot of times it comes out of just grumbling and being upset about something. And instead of going to the pastor, that church member or staff member, whoever will go to a deacon or an elder and complain. And when that happens, that deacon or elder needs to say, first of all, have you gone to the pastor? Have you taken this concern directly to the pastor? And if you haven’t, then there’s no reason for us to even have a conversation because you haven’t followed scriptural teaching. And that’s just the start. There are good ways, there are sound ways to go about asking the pastor to leave that doesn’t destroy them. And first of all, just giving them an opportunity to find another place of service is huge. If unless they’ve done something immoral or illegal or unethical, they need to be given time to find another ministry.

Jamie Mitchell:

And then that is the Ministry of Restoration as well. And that’s a whole other conversation. But the fact of the matter is, Deanna, my guess is a great lion’s share of our audience today have never even thought about these things, and especially that the pastor loses their natural support system. But there’s another group of people who are affected, and that is the spouses and the children. And so when we come back, I want to discuss the price that they pay. Join us back in just a few moments here at Stand of the Gap. Deanna Harrison from Pastors Hope Network is my guest today. And our program title is Forced Out The Pain of Pastoral Termination. Deanna, I want to give you a moment to tell people how they can find out about Pastor’s Hope Network. And if there are a pastor and they find themselves being forced out of ministry, how can you help them? What is available for them?

Deanna Harrison:

Well, Jamie at Pastors Hope Network, we provide crisis care for pastors and their families when they’re forced out of ministry. This care includes financial guidance. We provide resume help, and as I mentioned earlier, we help pastors figure out how to answer those difficult questions that will come up in an interview. We provide mediation and counseling for the entire family. Our approach is to care for the whole family because the whole family is deeply impacted by termination. The simplest way to learn about us is to visit our website@pastorshopenetwork.org. And if a pastor needs us, they can simply complete the online form and we’ll reach out to them and get them connected to the resources needed to help them through an extremely painful chapter of life.

Jamie Mitchell:

Well, I know that that would be a tremendous help both for the pastor but also for their family. And Deanna, you are a pastor’s wife, and when your husband was removed from his position and experienced that forced termination, you paid a price. Can you shed some light on what spouses feel and what they go through? But also, what about pastor’s children?

Deanna Harrison:

Yeah, oftentimes termination results in the pastor’s family having to move. And so that means the spouse might have to find a new job. It means that kids have to leave their friends and start over at a new school sometimes in the middle of a semester that really impacts their academic performance. If a child is in college, it might mean they have to drop out for a while, maybe get a job to help out. And probably the biggest price that is paid is the broken relationships and the feelings of betrayal that result from termination. But for me, as the spouse, I was incredibly angry, very angry at how church leaders had treated my husband and the intense grief they had caused. And this is why at Pastor’s Hope Network, we provide counseling for the whole family, not just for the pastor who was terminated. We’ve helped children, I believe, as young as 10 on up to however old because it impacts them deeply and especially teenagers. It impacts their spiritual life and their relationship with God. So it’s very important that we minister to the entire family.

Jamie Mitchell:

Let’s talk about the anger for a minute. It doesn’t just get resolved overnight. I mean, there’s lasting effects, and that anger then spills over to other relationship to other people. And obviously we should resolve anger, we should resolve bitterness. But one of the problems, Deanna, that happens, and I talk to a lot of pastors like you do, is that a lot of time the church is told, don’t have any contact. Don’t call them, don’t reach out, don’t be around them. And almost this zone of isolation occurs and it cuts off the chance of being able to either resolve or talk to anybody. Why do churches do this? What is behind this? Keeping people away, keeping people from talking and allowing some of this resentment to just stew and brew and get bigger.

Deanna Harrison:

Well, to me, it’s a red flag. If the church leadership says, oh, don’t call this pastor that we have just terminated. To me it’s like, well, why not? What is it you are afraid is going to happen? And so yeah, anybody who comes to me and says, Hey, I was told not to contact the pastor. Well, I think what I would tell them is they need to follow biblical teaching and that the Bible clearly says we are supposed to bear each other’s burdens and that they need to do whatever the Lord leads them to do, not what they’re told to do because ultimately, they are responsible for following biblical teaching. They can send text messages, they can send handwritten cards, they can send emails. They can send gift cards to restaurants or gift cards that can be used anywhere such as a Walmart or Visa or an Amazon gift card.

One of the most important things church members can do is to shut down the gossip. And even if someone doesn’t know why their pastor was terminated, they can stand up and just say, guys, gossiping is a sin and it should have no part in our church. That I understand. That would take a lot of courage. But I think the lack of courage and the lack of people willing to stand up and say, this behavior is sin and doesn’t belong in our church. That’s what allows this whole process to continue within the church and ultimately damage and wounds so many pastors.

One thing you were mentioning, we were talking about forgiveness, and I think one of the reasons forgiveness is so hard is that we have not done a good job teaching what forgiveness really is, and that forgiveness is a process. And I laughed earlier when you said the anger doesn’t go away overnight. And I can tell you it’s been been over 15 years since we experienced termination. And there are times, not often, but there are times when something will really trigger in me and the anger will sort of rear its ugly head and I have to deal with it all over again. You never get over termination. You learn a new way to live, and you’ll work with the Lord to help forgive the people who wounded you, but the scars are always there and the scars can get hit and they’re very sensitive. So it’s a process. It really is. And I know the longer it goes, the better we get, the more we heal. But we never, ever get over what’s happened. And when we move forward, we’re moving forward in a very different person. We may move on for the actual event, but we’re moving on as a different person who has learned from what happened, hopefully healed some from what happened, even though that healing process is also something that it’s a long, long process.

Jamie Mitchell:

Deanna, I want you to comment on this because the other side of this is I think sometimes church leaders could be shortsighted when they force a pastor out and they may tell the church not to talk to anything. They think they’re protecting the church, but the church has some long-term effects upon itself that may show itself later on as you’ve been working with pastors and families, but you’ve also seen some effects on a church. How does pushing a pastor out and not giving a real explanation and not giving some resolve, how does that affect the church? We have about a minute or two left for this segment.

Deanna Harrison:

Yeah, sometimes churches get reputations and pastors know, oh yeah, don’t go to that church. They’re pastor killers. But it impacts the congregation in that there is a loss of trust in church leadership. And then for whatever pastor comes in next, the congregation is, they’re so wounded they haven’t since. They don’t even know what happened the last time they’re wounded. And so it impacts how they relate to the next person who comes to be their pastor. It’s a very detrimental thing to do for not only the church, not only the pastor, but the church members as well, because of all the broken relationships. It’s just so devastating all the way around. And I think it also, the church is they give a very bad witness to the community. Folks who don’t even go to church anywhere. They’re like, man, what’s going on down there? They’re firing or they’re terminating their pastor for no reason what is going on. And so it’s a bad witness for the body of Christ who’s supposed to be a body of love and unity, and as you said, restoration. And yet too many times churches had rather talk out the pasture than to deal with the conflict.

Jamie Mitchell:

Well, I hope you’re thinking hard about this type of circumstance and that you must remember that a pastor and a family have needs. They’re hurting, they’re a part of the body. You need to provide care. When we return in our final segment, how can we see hope come in the lives of broken pastors? Stay with us here at Stand In the Gap today. Well, we’ve been looking at a very difficult situation in churches when a pastor is forced out of their ministry. Most time the church doesn’t even know it. It’s a decision made by the leadership, or maybe even by just a few select leaders who have the power to do that. Deanna Harrison has been our guest, her ministry Pastors Hope network ministers to a plethora of these pastors yearly, Deanna. I recently read an article and it listed reasons why pastors are leaving the ministry.

Here are the top five reasons, finance, leadership, conflict, family, loneliness and toxicity in the body. I can say amen to all of those. I’ve heard from pastors who share with me those reasons and others why they’re leaving. And so a pastor may leave for issues like that, but also may suddenly be surprised and asked to leave either way. As we’ve talked today, it’s painful. Now, I want to finish today by talking about some solutions and specifically, I was looking at your website like I have done in the past, and something caught my eye. It was a name, Harbor Churches. What is that and how can a church become one and what’s the purpose behind it?

Deanna Harrison:

Well, the purpose behind it is to give pastors and their family the safe place to worship and to heal. Basically, for our church to become a harbor church, it has to start with the lead pastor, A lead pastor who has a heart for pastors, who have been terminated, and basically a Harbor Church is a church that has counselors and financial experts and employment professionals within its membership. And the church is willing to partner with Pastor’s Hope Network and work with us as together. We walk alongside a pastor and his family during a time of transition. If a lead pastor is interested in leading his church to become a Harbor Church, they can reach out to me at Deanna at Pastor’s Hope Network, and I would just be so glad to visit with them.

There’s so many pastors who, when they’re terminated, they have no place to go, no place to worship, and it is so important for pastors and their families to continue their relationship with the Lord. They need to continue worshiping. When we went through this, well, one of the first things my husband said to me was, worship is not an option. We are going to go to church. We need to find one. And thankfully, we lived in a very large metropolitan area, and we began going to a mega church, probably five to 7,000 people. We could just go in and be invisible, but sit under biblical teaching. We could worship and then we could slip out. And that’s what we did for many, many months because we knew that our relationship to God had to survive. We just could not ignore it. We knew that while God had allowed this to happen to us, it was not his will. He did not cause it. He just allowed it for whatever reason. And so for us to keep our relationship with him strong, we had to continue worshiping. And so a harbor Church is simply a church that it’s a place where pastors and their families can go to heal, but also get the resources they need to move forward.

Jamie Mitchell:

What’s interesting, Deanna, is that if a pastor hears about another pastor, let’s say in their town that has been pushed out of their church or forced termination, and he invites him or even asks him, if you don’t have a place to worship, come and worship with me. That pastor who’s trying to do something benevolent and kind and encouraging, they can catch the ire. They can catch the displeasure of the former pastor’s former church because they don’t like the idea of someone coming around them because it almost gives them cover. It gives them somebody who will stand up and give testimony. And the reality of this is so crucial. A matter of fact, I heard of a church in Georgia that encouraged some of their people to help buy some houses up, and they have a series of houses that are available for pastors who have been forced out of their church to go and to have housing there be able to get a job and in some respects, to rework their resume to get ready for their next assignment. So practically, things like that are just a tremendous help, aren’t they?

Deanna Harrison:

Oh, they’re a tremendous help. If a Harbor church or a church like you just described, if they will even respond to a terminated pastor by saying, Hey, we can’t pay you. We can’t make you a paid staff member, but we would like to put you on, give you this responsibility at our church. Maybe it’s making hospital visits or heading up a prayer chain. I don’t know what it might be, but if they will give them a responsibility at their church, then as you say, the resume part then changes because then the last church that the pastor served is not the one that terminated them. It’s the one in which they are serving in a specific role at that church. And then the pastor and the staff at that church become the references. And so even if a new search committee contacts the church that terminated the pastor, they can also contact the church where the pastor is currently serving, even if it be a non-paid position. But those people, that pastor and staff can become references as well. And that goes a long, long way to helping a terminated pastor move forward

Jamie Mitchell:

Forward. Deanna, we have about a minute left. Our listeners, they’re sitting in the pew in churches. Their church may be fine, something then may happen. Give us one or two words of wisdom. If they’re a member of a church and you seem that this is happening in your church, that your pastor has been pushed out, what one or two things could they do to make a difference and help this situation?

Deanna Harrison:

Well, as I mentioned before, reach out with a text message or an email or a phone call. Now, odds are they may not answer your phone because you have to realize that the pastor and the pastor’s spouse are grieving. And so they’re not going to respond to your text or your emails like they might normally respond. Remember that grief aspect. But secondly, keep reaching out. Be persistent. Keep sending those cards or text messages, letting them know you’re praying for them. Don’t pray for dirt. Just let them know that they are not forgotten. And as I mentioned earlier, gift cards, good old cash will help them put food on the table. Now, Jamie, I am sure that you’ve got listeners out there who are thinking, but I would not know what to say. Well, let me give you the words to say, here is the message. A terminated pastor, and his family needs to hear you say, pastor, I don’t know what happened, but I am so sorry. I’ll love you. I believe in you, and the way the church treated you was wrong, and I am so, so sorry.

Jamie Mitchell:

Amen. Amen. Pastor. Amen. Deanna, thank you so much. Those are good words. Listen to what we’re saying. Check out the ministry Pastor’s hope, network friends, thank you. To be that kind of church member, you’re going to need courage. So live and lead with courage to church desperately meet courageous Christians. God bless you. See you here tomorrow.