A Field Guide for the Recently Unemployed Pastor, or Other Church Employee
The Theory of Third Spaces and Why You're Not Crazy
Hello Traveler,
The day I resigned from the largest evangelical church in the US, I thought I was just leaving a job. I was wrong.
If you’re a pastor or a church employee, I’ve got good news and bad news. We’ll start with the bad news: unless you’re the Pope, you will one day leave your position at the local church. Maybe you’ll be one of the few that gets to retire graciously after decades of service. Maybe you get fired, and you didn’t deserve it. Maybe you get fired, and you absolutely deserved it. Or maybe your faith just evolved until you no longer fit the neat little box that makes people feel comfortable staying in neat little boxes—boxes that don’t push boundaries or challenge the status quo.
The reality is, it’s going to end—no matter how much you hope it doesn’t. To quote Chuck Palahniuk, “Even the Mona Lisa is falling apart.” Everything deteriorates, regardless of how beautiful it may be. That’s just the way things are. That’s not pessimism. It’s the narrative of scripture.
Order. Disorder. Reorder.
Life. Death. Resurrection.
It all belongs.
The Familiar Strange
Disorder and death are rarely easy. In the grand equation of life, the reality is only one thing changed—in this case, your job. Your head acknowledges that it’s just one thing, one change, yet your whole life feels…off. You’ve lost your sense of direction, and nothing is what it was. It’s wildly confusing.
If you’ve experienced the journey of leaving a faith community, you’ve likely felt this disorientation—especially if you’re a pastor or a staff member. When I left my role, it didn’t feel as though I was transitioning out of a job, but rather transitioning out of my entire life. When I’d try to explain these feelings to friends, particularly those who were still part of my former church community, I’d be encouraged to remember that my identity was found in Jesus, and perhaps I’d made an idol of my position or church.
That was the case the first few years I was on staff, but the illusion I was somehow special because my church was special had died long ago. I was excited to resign and pursue something new. I was ready to go. I chose to walk away. But still, this season of transition was one of the more challenging seasons of my entire life.
If you find yourself in this situation, take heart. You’re not crazy.
Here’s where it gets interesting—and where you’ll finally understand why you feel so disoriented.
The Architecture of Human Connection
Before we can make sense of why this transition is so difficult, we have to do a little work in the theory of third spaces. In sociology, third spaces refer to a person’s social surroundings that are separate from their family life (considered “first space”) and their workspace (considered “second space”). These third spaces are critical to a human’s emotional, spiritual, and physiological well-being.
Francis Weller, a psychotherapist and grief expert, says it like this:
“We are designed to anticipate a certain quality of welcome, engagement, touch, and reflection. In short, we expect what our deep-time ancestors experienced as their birthright, namely the container of the village.”
A third space is much smaller than your city, but larger than your family. Unlike your place of work, it’s a setting where you’re appreciated for something other than what you produce. It’s a rich place of being seen, validated, and known—and third spaces are becoming increasingly rare in the west. In fact, they’re on the verge of extinction.
The Slow Death and Resurrection
The slow death of third spaces mirrors much of what’s happening in Western culture.
We’ve traded social settings for digital spaces. Theaters replaced by streaming services. Dining replaced by delivery services. Physical retail swapped out for online shopping. While convenient, we’ve eliminated the need for physical spaces where we once gathered regularly.
We could get into all the reasons as to how this has happened and why it’s harmful, but that’s an entirely different blog. What’s important to understand about third spaces is that we have a need for deep connection beyond our families and separate from what we produce, embedded in our DNA—and our culture is set up in such a way that this need is rarely met.
My old therapist said it like this:
“Sometimes we need to borrow other people’s eyes to see the truth about our own worth.”
Without those eyes, something in us withers; with them, something in us comes alive.
Resurrection.
That’s where church comes in. Churches do a great job of functioning as third spaces. Don’t get me wrong, it is by no means perfect, but if you’ve been part of a faith community, you’ve likely known that feeling of walking into a building and having dozens of eyes greet you with warmth. You know what it’s like to have people know your name simply because they cared to remember it.
In short, you experienced the beauty of a village. And if you haven’t had that type of community in years—or maybe ever—a part of you that was dead becomes alive.
And that part of you depends on a third space to stay alive.
The Three Buckets (And Why They Matter)
You’re starting to connect some dots, but I invite you to hold off on filling out the picture quite yet. We need to talk about the other two spaces in relation to the third space. Let’s review our three spaces and reframe them as buckets.
Family. Work. Village.
First Bucket: Family
Family is where you are loved before you accomplish anything. It’s the place you’re allowed to rest, fail, and still belong. The value of family is stability and unconditional presence—it anchors you when everything else feels uncertain.
Second Bucket: Work
Work is where you put your gifts and energy into motion. It’s the place that calls something out of you for the sake of others. The value of work is purpose and provision—it gives shape to your days and dignity to your contribution.
Third Bucket: Village
The village is where you are more than what you produce and not confined by family roles. It’s the place you’re seen, known, and welcomed simply for showing up. The value of a third space is perspective and connection—it reminds you that you are part of something bigger than yourself.
Now, some of our buckets are healthier than others, and not everyone’s family bucket or work bucket provides its intended outcome. However, even in those instances where our family or work buckets are train wrecks, or our village bucket is nonexistent, there’s value in each space being distinct and separate from the other.
It works like a little social fail-safe that ensures that even if my home life is on fire, I might be able to maintain my standing in either or both of my remaining spaces. It ensures a part of my identity remains unscathed when things fall apart, because they always do. Remember, it’s the gospel. Order. Disorder. Reorder.
But what happens when those buckets begin to bleed into one another?
Because that’s exactly what happens in vocational ministry.
When Three Buckets Become One
Ask any church staffer with young kids—there’s no time for a life outside the building. I bring that up not as a critique but rather as a simple reality that for most full-time church staffers, having an additional third space outside of their church community is a luxury their calendar can’t afford.
This means our work bucket and our village bucket become essentially one bucket. Now one bucket holds how we contribute to society, provide for our family, structure our days, and reminds us that we are connected to something bigger than just ourselves.
That’s a lot of responsibility for one bucket.
If you worked at the same church I did, you might remember these words:
“We’d like to invite you and your spouse to the Global Interview Event.”
Again, this isn’t a criticism about how churches go about their hiring process, rather the reality that there’s an expectation on not only hired staff but their spouses to support the church in a myriad of ways. At my church that looked like serving, tithing, being in a small group, and attending weekly service.
Once my kids were old enough, there was the expectation that they also serve. There were extra events throughout the year where families were expected to support as well. All of that to say, it’s not long before your three distinct and separate buckets are poured into one—the village bucket—in this case, the church.
Your worlds begin to mix, and mingle, and meld in this single container—not by design, but by default—because the culture demands devotion and devotion is measured in time.
There were seasons, especially when I was at a campus, when I spent the majority of my time with my kids at church events. On summer breaks they’d ride their bikes in the lobby (sorry, risk management), play games in the children’s rooms, and have lunch in the cafe with the rest of us. Don’t get me wrong, it was a gift to not have to arrange childcare and to get to spend time with them while I was working. I’m simply painting the picture of how the healthy and natural boundaries of three distinct spaces so effortlessly dissolve into one.
Gone were the fail-safes of the three distinct places that my life had been oriented around—replaced with one big bucket—that was full of holes.
Welcome to the Fallout
So Traveler, whether you’re jobless, faithless, or just restless—you’re not crazy for feeling this way.
You lost more than you may have realized. You lost the container that was holding your life together. All three spaces converged into one, and it may have even worked great—until it didn’t. You don’t only have to find a new village, but you have to reassess your family space and likely find another job—all while grieving.
It may feel like you’ve lost everything. You have not. You just lost the bucket. The family and the people in the village still remain, but you’ll have to figure out how to reorder them without the bucket—your church role.
But that’s easier said than done. For starters, you have to determine if you’ll remain in your old village.
For most people I know, the old village is no longer an option. For me, I couldn’t bring myself to organize my friendships around a theology and methodology I no longer shared. I had lost all interest in what was happening on the weekend, and I didn’t want to have to pretend that I cared about the same things my old village cared about.
For others, maybe they were let go and showing back up to the village feels like returning to the scene of the crime—especially when you’ve seen and participated in the post-staff-exit conversations.
Even the relationships you thought for sure would endure tend to fade. There’s a reason for that too. Maybe you’ve seen this post make its way across your timeline:
“You can still be friends with people who leave your church. We aren’t in gangs.”
We may not be in gangs, but here’s the thing: friendships need neutral ground. And sadly, churches tend to operate on their turf. When all your shared space belongs to an institution, and you’re no longer part of that institution, you can find yourself on rival turf. You used to meet on common ground—the building, the service, the shared mission. Now one person is asking the other to cross into their territory every time you connect.
That old space doesn’t feel safe anymore. Or it serves as a painful reminder of the village you’ve lost. And over time, you’ll come to realize that you’ve lost the village and with it all of the eyes that affirmed your steps, your value, and your place in the world.
Now What?
So what do you do with all this? I don’t have a roadmap for your journey, but I have some guardrails. If by chance someone has sent this to you and you find yourself navigating this exact path, I pray that this framework gives you language for what’s happening and you might feel a little less alone.
Here are some things to look out for that could unintentionally slow the reordering of your life and cause you undue stress.
This Isn’t Grey’s Anatomy
Look, I’m almost 50 and I don’t watch much TV anymore, so I’m sure there’s a better reference out there, but you get the gist. My point is it’s not your job to save everything. Take inventory of the relationships from your past village that are on life support. How much of yourself are you investing in keeping them alive? How much effort is the other person investing? Is it worth it?
The cycle continues.
Life. Death. Resurrection. It all belongs. It’s okay to let some of these relationships run their natural course. Something better may come from letting the old pass away.
Burn the Box
One of the best things you can do for yourself is to find a new village. However, it doesn’t have to look like it may have always looked for you. I’m not saying abandon church, but explore what church is to you. It can, and I’d argue should, evolve with you through the various chapters of your life.
You can swap the sanctuary for a hiking trail, a youth group for an art class, quiet time for meditation. There are literally centuries of practices, rituals, and approaches to the divine that are so much richer than what you may have experienced.
And there are villages that have nothing to do with dogma or doctrine. We weren’t meant to get everything from one thing. It’s okay to find your village outside of traditional faith spaces. You’d be surprised how holy that ground can be if you simply have eyes to see.
Don’t Change the World
You might have a bend toward justice, or making things right. That’s a good thing. But often when we leave these spaces, we want to change them. That’s a waste of time and honestly a distraction from doing the work that will actually bear fruit. Instead of focusing on changing the world, work on changing your world.
Build the thing you want to see.
Create the community you want to be in.
Let your vision come to life and watch who comes alongside you.
The reordering takes longer than you think it should. There will be days when you miss the simplicity of having everything in one place, even if that place was falling apart. That’s okay. You’re not going backward—you’re rebuilding with better materials this time.
Order. Disorder. Reorder.
You’re in the middle part. The hardest part. But also the part where something new becomes possible.
Welcome to the wilderness, Traveler. You’re right on time.