When the Foundation of Leadership Shakes
Thoughts on "An Open Letter to the Pastor Unjustly Fired"
This past week, I came across an open letter posted on May 5th entitled “An Open Letter to a Pastor Unjustly Fired”, written by Sam Rainer on ChurchAnswers.com.
It’s heartfelt. It’s raw. And if you’ve spent any time in or around church leadership, it might hit a little too close to home.
What struck me most wasn’t just the empathy Rainer shows toward pastors who’ve been wronged or his observations on the secrecy and ambiguity in how leadership communicates to the church. It was the way the letter quietly affirms something that many in ministry rarely say out loud:
This isn’t rare.
It’s not just a bad fit.
It’s not just burnout.
It’s a pattern.
There’s a kind of holy heartbreak that sits just beneath the surface of the piece—a grief not just for one pastor’s experience, but for the reality that many shepherds have been wounded in the very place they were called to serve.
What Happens When the Church Feels Like the Wrecking Ball?
One of the hardest parts about reading a letter like that is how many names and faces come to mind. Not hypotheticals—real people. Real pastors. Real churches. Real fallout.
But here’s what stood out to me most:
Even in the pain of betrayal or misunderstanding or dismissal, Rainer never turns to cynicism.
He points to Jesus, who was also misunderstood, opposed, and abandoned by His own.
Which brings me back to something I wrote in The Jacked Up Life:
“We think our life is jacked up because of what others did to us, but sometimes the deeper issue is what we believed about ourselves because of it.”
That’s the slow poison of spiritual trauma—not just what happened, but what you start to believe because of it:
I’m disposable.
I’m not called.
I must’ve failed.
Maybe I deserved this.
This is where shame gets into the wiring.
And this is where grace has to break in like a sledgehammer.
Grace Doesn’t Excuse What’s Broken—It Rebuilds What’s Worth Saving
If you’ve ever felt seen by a letter like that—whether you’re a pastor, a leader, or even just someone who loved the church and got burned by it—hear this:
You are not alone.
You are not weak for hurting.
And you are not disqualified.
God doesn’t discard the jacked up.
He jacks up the structure to fix the foundation.
He lifts what others tried to bury.
He reclaims what others tried to write off.
He builds again—not in spite of the scars, but through them.
To Everyone Who’s Still Standing in the Rubble
Maybe that letter brought up more than you expected.
Maybe you’re in a season where the applause stopped, the support vanished, or the trust crumbled.
You don’t have to fake it.
You don’t have to move on in a straight line.
And you don’t have to carry the whole thing on your own.
The Jacked Up Life isn’t about perfect healing or happy endings.
It’s about honest beginnings.
It’s about the God who meets us in the mess—not to shame us, but to start the restoration.
So if you read that letter and quietly thought, That’s me…
You’re not crazy.
You’re not broken beyond repair.
You’re just at the beginning of being rebuilt.
With grace,
—Michael
P.S. — There’s a chapter in the book that addresses “The Jacked Up Church” that I recently expanded into its own book and, at 213 pages, it’s even longer than The Jacked Up Life (180 pages!) I can actually say that after writing and re-reading the book, it actually caused me to think, “This could be a game-changer for our churches and leadership teams.” Make sure to subscribe to this site to get early access to excerpts of the book!
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