Ministry is difficult. One of the challenging parts of ministry is how to cope with the reality that our spiritual lives and our relationships are often intertwined.

As a minister, I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes when someone pushes away from church, I take it personally. I view it as a personal failure. I wonder if there’s a mistake I made in the relationship. Sometimes, I can point to something, sometimes I cannot.

So, how do you cope? How do you make that adjustment so you don’t take things personally? Honestly, I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know if I have any answers–I’m still pretty new to this. So I lean on the wisdom of other people.

Yesterday I read a post by Carey Nieuwhof that hit home, and I wanted to share it with you. Carey has a 30+ year history in ministry, is a podcaster, blogger, and pastor. He has an uncanny ability to tackle the tough issues in truthful ways, regularly challenging me.

So, as I read his post yesterday, I couldn’t wait to share it today. Here’s a snippet from his post “7 People You Can’t Afford to Keep in Leadership“:

And as someone (or several people exit), the discussion at the leadership table will end up with someone saying:
Look, we can’t afford to lose people. 
Trust me, there’s always someone at the leadership table who thinks we can’t afford to lose anyone.
That’s simply not true.
There are a few kinds of people you can’t afford to keep.
In fact, sometimes the people you are most afraid of losing are the people you can’t afford to keep.
Here’s the strange paradox of leadership: some of the people you think you can’t afford to lose are the very people you can’t afford to keep.
So how do you know the difference?

I think you’ll be surprised by what follows, so give it a read!