Should I leave my dead end job, even if it means leaving my church too?

Somebody emailed me recently with a very important question, and I thought other people might benefit from an answer, so with permission I’m posting (a slightly paraphrased version of) the email here:

“I am currently in the midst of making a difficult decision. I think my current job isn’t really helping my career anymore. The work is boring and not very exciting. The way the company does software development just isn’t right.

The problem is that as a Christian I am part of a church in area which has really helped me grow in college and in my first year of work. If I quit this job, I might not be able to find another suitable job in the vicinity and would have to move state. I struggle with this because it feels like I’m not placing God first in my life, but at the same time I don’t think it would be helpful to remain at this job.”

Firstly, let me start by saying that I relate to this problem 100%. I know firsthand how demoralising it can be to work in a job where you feel like you are stagnating – and how this can sap all your energy in a way that affects far more than just the 9-5 that you’re actually in the office. I also know the internal struggle of wanting to put God first, and not wanting to let your career drive decisions about church rather than the other way around. This can sometimes be made even worse by the amount of guilt that well-meaning Christian friends can lay on your shoulders as they encourage you to stick in your current situation no matter what.

But secondly, let me encourage you to listen to your conscience on this one. Though it may well be right to seek a change in your circumstances (and we’ll come to that in a bit), you definitely do want to approach this in a way that seeks God’s will first, and leaving a good church should always be something that we treat very seriously and with great reluctance. This isn’t something that we need to do with a heavy heart, but a path we can embrace with joy: as Jesus said “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things [that God knows you need] will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). The way of the cross often means sacrifices in the here and now – and it often will look like foolishness to the watching world, but no matter what you miss out on in this life, if it’s for the sake of obeying God, then you will not regret it in the life to come. In once sense, so what if your career languishes in the duldrums because you chose instead to commit to your church family? When Jesus returns, “those who are first will be last and the last will be first” – and all the value systems of our culture will be overthrown. I once turned down my dream job making computer games because it would have meant leaving my church and moving cities, and though it’s probably completely changed the course of my life, I don’t regret it one bit.

Thirdly though, I’m pretty sure that God doesn’t want us to be miserable just for the sake of it. Yes, he’s more concerned with our holiness than he is with our happiness, but often we’ll be much more able to serve him with enthusiasm if we’re joyful and excited about life than if we’re feeling drained and burnt out. I’d suggest seeing what work you can find in your local area that would allow you to stick at your current church – even if it’s not necessarily your dream job, you might find that just having a bit of a change helps you feel like you’re growing and learning something. And in the mean time, I’d fight to find joy and thankfulness in your current role. Make a list of the things you can be thankful for about your current job – the fact that it does allow you to be part of a great church, and conversations you’ve been able to have with colleagues about your faith, the income it’s provided, the contributions you’ve been able to make to the business and so on. Being able to choose our jobs is a luxury that has not been available to most people throughout history.

The book I’ve found really helpful in times like this is Kevin DeYoung’s “Just Do Something“. We often spend so much time fretting about “what is God’s will for my life?” and trying to find exactly the right job to choose, exactly the right path. Ultimately, God has revealed very clearly what his will is: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3) – he wants us to be holy. Pretty much anything else is up to us to choose – using the wisdom and the brain that he has given us.

I can’t tell you exactly what to do, but I would strongly encourage you to find a way to stick at your current church if you can, whilst also trying to find ways to restore the joy that you’ve lost. Maybe it means finding fulfilment in some more extra-curricular software development activities – getting stuck into an Open Source project, launching your own mobile app or web service, whatever it is that helps you feel like you’re growing (and which in turn will open up more doors for taking another job as it’s all stuff you can show on your resume). Whatever you do, if you do decide you need to move state, be doubly sure that there’s a faithful, Bible-teaching church in the area you move to before you apply for a job there.

And keep praying about it! God will lead you where he wants you if you keep trusting it to him.