FAITH: I didn’t really leave ministry

People sometimes ask me, usually well-meaning with kindness and a little curiosity, why I “left ministry.” 

I understand the question. For nearly twenty years, much of my life was shaped around church calendars, Sunday mornings, choir rehearsals, youth trips, conferences, small groups, sermons, lock-ins, hospital visits, mission projects, and all the beautiful, exhausting rhythms that come with local ministry work. But ministry, in that sense, had a schedule. It had a building. It had a title, an expectation attached to it. 

So when I stepped into a new role leading in a local nonprofit, it may have looked from the outside like I had left ministry, a calling, a purpose, behind. 

But the longer I live, the more I believe “ministry” was never meant to be solely confined to a pulpit, a program, or a Sunday morning service. Those things can and should matter deeply. Faith spaces matter. The gathered community matters. But “ministry” itself is bigger than all of that. 

Ministry is also what happens when love takes on work clothes. 

It is what happens when someone’s facing a critical need, and another person says, “We can help.” It is what happens when an older adult has a need that, when completed, allows them to remain in their home with dignity. It is what happens when a family who has carried the weight of instability finally receives a set of keys and a place to breathe. It is what happens when people who could have looked away choose instead to move closer. 

Jesus once said, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). I do not think he meant that as a religious slogan, or a cute tagline. I think he meant it as a way of seeing the world. The need in front of us is never just a need. It is a neighbor. It is a story. It is someone beloved, and someone who has holiness within them. 

That truth has followed me from church ministry into nonprofit work. At Habitat, I do not feel like I am doing something less spiritual than I did before. In many ways, I feel like I am standing in the same stream, just farther down the road. The process may look different. The meetings may sound different. The funding and paperwork certainly feel different. But the heartbeat is familiar: people need hope, people need love, and people need other people willing to show up and to do the right thing.

Frederick Buechner once described vocation as the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep hunger. I have always loved that idea, because it refuses to separate joy from responsibility. We are not all called to do the same thing, but we are all invited to pay attention to the hunger around us. (and we should) 

That hunger may be housing. It may be loneliness. It may be grief. It may be a single parent needing encouragement, a coworker needing patience, a teenager needing someone to listen, or a neighbor needing a ride to an appointment. Sometimes ministry looks like building something. Sometimes it looks like simply making a phone call. Each time should leave whoever it is to simply feel this: “You are not alone.” 

The prophet Micah gives us a beautifully simple framework: “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). That is not just a church job description, even though I’ve seen it as such, it is a human one. 

I do not believe everyone has to use religious language to participate in holy work. Some people call it service. Some call it compassion. Some call it community. Some simply call it doing the right thing. But whenever we help repair what is broken, protect what is vulnerable, and honor the dignity of another person, I believe we are standing near the heart of hope. 

So, no, I do not think I left ministry. 

I think “ministry” grew wider for me. 

And maybe that is the invitation for all of us. Not to wait for a title, a platform, or a perfect moment, but to begin where we are. To notice who is hurting. To offer what we have. To become the kind of people who make life a little more bearable, a little more hopeful, and a little more whole for those around us. 

Because ministry, at its best, has always been bigger than Sunday. We should begin to consider that even more deeply in the days ahead. 

It is love, made visible.

Adam Johnson is a strategy consultant and ordained minister with two decades of experience in nonprofit leadership nationwide, currently the CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Jackson TN. He holds advanced degrees in nonprofit organization from the University of Memphis. Adam lives in Jackson with his wife, Kayla, and their daughter Josephine.