Why I left my Church...

I used to work at a church. 2 different Churches actually, and both experiences have grown me tremendously. The one that was the hardest though was the most recent. Partly because I had really connected with lots of friends there and partly because I truly felt like it was MY church, MY home, and I wholeheartlyed believed and worked for the good of it.
It's been almost 2 years since I worked there and the department I worked in has since had a COMPLETE overhaul. It's not the same place that I worked at and I think that is a really good thing as you'll see by what I believe God has revealed to me about that ministry and about how it's grown.
So back up- 2 years ago I was working HARD at what was told by me to be THE hardest job in the church: recruiting and organizing volunteers to serve in children's ministry for Sunday mornings. Anyone who has ever worked in this area knows this to be true. Any position that involved recruiting VOLUNTEERS is difficult. People don't always like to do something they are not getting paid to do, unless there is some other benefit that keeps them coming back for more.
Anyway, so I this my job and it was going well. I had a great team that I thought worked well together, and when I came into it I thought my team would help to build the ministry and that we'd make it the best one at our church. Good goals right?
Then reality set in, I realized it indeed was hard to be rejected over and over again by people for what I considered no good reason, and my "team" didn't really act much like a "team" when push came to shove. Everyone I worked with had TREMENDOUS skills and gifts and was working hard at doing their part to build the ministry, but the team thing, well, it was kind of like every man for himself. So I struggled. The ministry struggled. The team struggled. And then the blow that changed forever my heart and my life at my job: my boss who I loved and worked so hard with and who I had felt was the only person who really was on my team was fired. Discharged, let go, released, call it what you want, but she was no longer going to be working with me.
I was furious. Confused. Mourning. And then God gave me a dream that I will never forget. I've had God give me dreams before to warn me, teach me, edify the body of Christ, etc. but this one was about the future, and something I wouldn't fully understand until last week.
The dream was all about an airplane that had the roof removed from it and was going down while all the people inside were asleep. Me and my husband jumped off the plane and somehow landed safely grabbing hold of a power line and dangled while we watched the plane go down in flames. Translation that God gave me: The plane was the ministry, the roof was the leadership of said ministry and me and my husband were supposed to leave.
I was so confused. WHY was the biggest question I had. Why was my boss fired? Why was the ministry going to be destroyed? Why God? Why was God allowing this to happen? The why's never left me until last week.
I watched as my dream came fully to life. Not only was my boss gone, but other leaders started to drop like flies. Some left of their own accord, some heard God's call to leave and were probably just as equally confused as I was as to why, and some fought tooth and nail to stay, but eventually had to leave as well.
So we left our church. We were obedient. God had told us we needed to leave. We begged to stay, and tried to stay as long as we could but eventually it got too painful to watch as indeed the plane went down, just as God had told me it would.
And then I was left with my persistent WHY's....
For months I struggled, still feeling unsettled with why God would want to destroy a perfectly good ministry. Why God would take something that was working well and demolish it entirely.
My current bible study unlocked a door for me and God divinely gave me my answers just a week ago.
I'm studying about attitude. Wrong attitudes, wrong motives etc. One of the things specifically that led to my revelation was learning about how Godliness plus contentment equals great gain. Not Godliness plus prosperity, not Godliness plus power, not Godliness plus a lot of things, and not even Godliness plus ministry success will equal great gain. That one stopped me in my tracks. Ministry success. As I prayed and worked through my bible study God revealed to me that the ministry that had been built, that i had helped to build was something build not by God but by man. God NEVER allows a ministry to be built by man to survive. It's totally against his nature. I mean it's one of the big 10 no-nos. As I reflected on my time there God allowed me to remember countless times not just me but others said things like "MY ministry" "MY volunteers" "OUR team" "OUR ministry" 'MINE MINE MINE!!!!' Building idols or taking credit for building something of God's is just wrong. It's so goes against our "American" way of doing things but then again this isn't America's world, it's God's world. Eventually anything built by man will fall away to dust. the bible says it over and over again.
So I finally have peace. Oh, such peace. My why's have been answered. And I've learned a valuable lesson. One I will not soon forget because I will carry my mournings memories, my memories of how I did it by myself, my knowledge of what it looks like to build something by man instead of by God. And I pray my future work and ministries I am involved in will benefit from this knowledge and practical experience. Thank you Lord for teaching me through hard times, and for giving me a message to share about my experience.