Life After Ministry

Every ministry transition comes with both a push and a pull. Sometimes you’re drawn toward a new calling. Other times you simply know you can’t stay. 

For Tim Stevens, those moments have shaped four decades of leadership in the church - and given him a front-row seat to hundreds of leaders navigating their own endings and beginnings.

In this conversation, Tim shares candidly about untangling his identity from the church he helped b...

What if the health of your ministry depends more on your board than you think? Dr. Michael Anthony has spent 40 years in boardrooms - as a member, chair, consultant, and C-suite leader - and he’s seen what works and what breaks ministries apart.

In this candid conversation, Dr. Anthony unpacks common mistakes boards make, the unseen cost of poor governance, and the simple practices that lead to longevity and mission health.

From de...

What happens when a leader transitions not just into a new role - but into their calling? 

In this episode, Matt Davis introduces Ron Henry, the newly appointed Chief Succession Officer at Ministry Transitions. Ron brings decades of experience in executive placement and career development, but his deeper calling? 

Helping leaders find where God wants them next.

This isn’t just a career conversation - it’s a soul-level journey. 

Ron...

What do scuba diving, salary spreadsheets, and severance packages have in common? According to David Fletcher - everything. 

In this episode, Matt sits down with the founder of xPastor and longtime executive pastor, David Fletcher, to talk about the messy, complicated, and deeply human work of leadership transitions in the church.

They unpack the real cost of bad transitions - not just in dollars, but in broken trust. 

Dave shares ...

What if the scariest thing about leaving ministry wasn’t the loss of your job - but the loss of your identity? 

In this episode, Matt sits down with Josh Taylor, former executive pastor turned chief marketing officer, who opens up about what it’s really like to step off the platform and into the unknown. 

From twelve years of trusted leadership in a growing church to a surprising turn through a university layoff and a marketing age...

Alicia Lee didn’t leave ministry. She left Wall Street.

After nearly two decades at Goldman Sachs, Alicia was managing a massive trading floor and rubbing shoulders with IPO titans. She loved the fast pace. She was good at it. 

And then God pulled the plug. A missed promotion became a divine pivot - and what followed was not a sabbatical, but a startup.

In this episode, we dive deep into Alicia’s unlikely journey from investment ba...

What do you do when ministry success comes at the cost of your soul?

In this episode, we sit down with Jon Talbert - pastor, coach, and co-founder of Forte - to talk about the quiet unraveling that often happens behind the scenes in leadership. 

Jon has led at the highest levels of church and nonprofit work, but somewhere along the way, he realized he was losing himself in the process. What followed wasn’t a dramatic exit - but a d...

Bill Simmons thought he was in control - until a child soldier in the Congo held him at gunpoint. In that moment, as the AK-47 clicked into place, Bill realized the terrifying truth: control was an illusion.

Years later, as the CEO of a global nonprofit, he faced a different kind of pressure - leading an organization, carrying the weight of a mission, and pushing through exhaustion. 

But this time, the gun wasn’t in someone else’s ...

Matthew had been hiding a secret for years. A secret that was growing, festering, and slowly creating a wedge in his marriage. 

He was a pastor. A leader. A man who thought he had it under control - until he didn’t. Until Joanna asked him the one question he had spent years avoiding.

In that moment, everything unraveled. Their marriage. Their ministry. The future they had planned.

What do you do when the thing you're struggling wit...

What do you do when life shatters around you? 

When everything you built - your family, your future, your faith - feels like it’s slipping through your fingers?

Bryan Elliott knows suffering intimately. 

A tragic accident left his brother in a vegetative state. 

Addiction nearly destroyed his daughters. 

A brutal murder stole one of them forever. 

His businesses collapsed. 

His marriages unraveled. 

His world should have crushed hi...

The church is supposed to be a place of healing. But what happens when it’s the source of the hurt?

Too often, we hear stories of toxic leadership, forced terminations, and broken congregations. And yet, no one wants to talk about it - not in the pulpit, not in the pews. The result? Wounds that never heal, pastors who burn out, and churches stuck in cycles of dysfunction.

In this episode, we sit down with Kayleigh ...

Stepping out of ministry can feel like stepping into a free fall. For Jonathan Carone, leaving his church staff role wasn’t just a career transition—it was a journey of unraveling identity, reconciling relationships, and rediscovering purpose. In this episode of Life After Ministry, Jonathan shares his raw and honest story of being “coached off staff,” the lessons he learned in untangling his vocation from his identity, and how he ...

What if the missing piece to a thriving ministry isn’t more strategy or programs but healthier culture? In this episode of Life After Ministry, we dive deep with Jenni Catron, a renowned culture coach, to uncover the secret sauce behind teams that thrive. 

Together, we explore how great leaders don’t leave culture to chance - they build it with clarity and intention.

Jenni shares her personal journey from working in...

In this special episode of the Life After Ministry Podcast, Matt Davis, Bill Tom, and Noe Rivera - the founders of Pastoral Transitions - take listeners behind the scenes of their work, sharing insights into the emotional and practical challenges pastors face during ministry transitions.

From navigating grief and burnout to finding new career paths and healing spiritually, this conversation sheds light on the comp...

Why is it that modern churches seem so successful in introducing people to Jesus but struggle to lead them into a life of true transformation?

Brian Fisher doesn’t hold back as he has done a deep dive on how there is something missing in the church experience: a failure to address the deeper stages of discipleship.

Drawing from his own journey through loss, reflection, and rebuilding, Brian shares his vision for a radically diffe...

What do you do when the life you built for the kingdom - your identity, your mission, your livelihood - gets ripped away without explanation?

For Brian Fisher, founder of a thriving pro-life nonprofit that saved over 18,000 lives, the answer wasn’t immediate. In 2020, he and his wife were forced out of the ministry they built. Their possessions came home in cardboard boxes, and their community turn...

Imagine being just weeks away from your wedding and finding out through a third party that you've been fired fr...

Imagine standing at the pulpit after your las...

What happens when you step away from the calling you’ve always known and venture into the unknown?

Jord...