On Being Nobody Where I Used to Be Somebody

The Great Identity Earthquake

It's been over a year since I stepped away from being on a church staff, and I'm only now finding words for this peculiar season. That should tell you something about how bizarre this experience has been—when someone who writes for a living takes fourteen months to articulate her own life, there’s more than a little necessary nuance.

How do you write about the strange territory of being nobody, where you used to be somebody? How do you explain what it's like to go from having keys to everything to needing to ask if someone can let you in?

This feels like trying to explain the color blue to someone who's never seen the sky. But maybe the year-long delay has been necessary. Maybe some experiences need to marinate in awkwardness before they're ready to be shared. And trust me, there's been plenty of awkwardness to marinate in.

For over 30 years, my name has come with a spiritual job description. "Shannon? Oh, she's the one who teaches the Bible study." "Shannon from the church staff." "Shannon who writes the stuff.” “Shannon leads the _______________ Ministry.” “Shannon is the Associate Executive blah blah blah.” My identity felt as secure as a person wearing both a belt and suspenders—redundantly attached to my function. And it could have reasonably stayed that way forever, frankly. After all, I’m a church girl.

And then, I found myself in the unprecedented position of being just Shannon—regular Shannon, Shannon who sits in the umpteenth row, Shannon with no special anything. And I did it on purpose, in faith, and out of obedience. But I wasn’t ready to realize that my identity WAS actually wrapped up in my function… even though I knew it shouldn’t be. Dang it. And suddenly, an identity earthquake arrived, right into my 48-year-old reality.

When you transition away from church leadership, you don't just leave a job—you lose your immediate answer for who you are and what you do. You lose the assumption that your biblical insights carry extra weight because of your position. (They don’t. And never did.) You lose the comfortable busyness you equated to faithfulness and discover you have no idea what to do with yourself on a Tuesday.

What remains when the title falls away? Who are you when the weekly meetings no longer need your input? If they don’t miss a beat without you, did they ever really need you? These questions played over and over in my first few months like that one annoying song that’s mentally on repeat and you can’t get it out of your head.

After all, you don’t return to the office once a week when you leave the law firm. When you quit teaching, you don’t go back and hang out at carpool. You don’t show up at the company picnic after you quit your corporate job. But when you leave the church staff, you enter a weird no man’s land of not just a congregant, but no longer a leader. You’re still supposed to show up every week because, after all, it’s a church family… right?

The Awkward Dance of Staying Put

Perhaps the most disorienting aspect of this journey has been remaining in the same church where I once served. We knew unequivocally that we were supposed to stay put unless God called/led us to engage elsewhere. Jeff and Ali are still serving, but I felt like the question God prodded me with was, “Are you okay being nobody where you used to be somebody?”

(Btw… the answer was no. I wasn’t okay with it. I wanted to immediately sign up to serve everywhere, attend everything and be the most committed, all in, A+ volunteer and Stakeholder on earth. Ya know… maybe not being somebody, but at least being everybody and not being nobody. Ugh.)

But the Lord said no. So did my wise counsel. “No, you can’t serve in Children’s Ministry. It would be weird for them since you used to lead it.” “No, you can’t attend Women’s Bible Study and be a table host. It would be weird for them…” “No, you can’t volunteer for camp. It would be…” Well, you get the idea. I basically feel weird all the time. Going is weird. Not going is weird. Serving would be weird. Not serving is weird. Sitting here is weird. Sitting there is weird. Coming late is weird. Being there early is weird. Nobody ever told me how weird it would be. Before this, my transitions took me to a new role, in a new church, so I’ve never left staff and stayed in the church. Until now.

So I told the Lord (begrudgingly) that I wanted to be someone who was okay being nobody where I used to be somebody, but in all honesty, I wasn’t. I thought surely He could figure out how to get me there. While I prayed (and prayed) for the humility to do this without an attitude (as if the Lord didn’t have bigger world affairs to manage), I began to feel convicted that a few familiar things would have to be disallowed in my weird reality if I was actually going to embrace this. OH GOODIE.

In this new bizarro world, I didn’t allow myself to:

• enter special doors where I could slip in and slip out as though I were Beyonce.

• sit in special sections where I would be seen (and more candidly, be seen talking to all the somebodies.)

• hang out in the green room or backstage, where I could feel like somebody surrounded by somebodies.

• avail myself of special rooms, special snacks, or special Diet Coke stashes. *This one was hard… Diet Coke is SPECIAL INDEED.

• take shortcuts, call in favors, or use discounts. **As a result of this one, I was ONE day late signing up my high school senior for student camp. It was full, and she went on a waiting list. Ugh. After a few weeks, she was cleared off the waiting list, but I’ve never felt more out of the loop or more… generic.

So, without any perks and with only a feeble attempt at obedience to what I felt God was asking, I sat in the seats I once viewed from the platform. I experienced the actual impact of the parking lot circus (that I had never had to navigate before, since I was always first in and last out.) BTW: THE PARKING TEAM ARE THE REAL MVPs. What those sweet people experience weekly from some unhappy “Christians” who’ve just spent two hours worshipping Jesus? Well, help us, Lord.

I’ve been reading communication I used to write, hearing plans I used to help ideate, watching the launch of programs I created, and sitting in messages that a year earlier, I’d have likely been teaching.

It's like being a former restaurant manager who now just comes in for the weekly special. You know how the kitchen works, you have opinions about the menu, but what you're supposed to do is just sit there and enjoy your meal like a normal person. Turns out, being a normal person is harder than it looks.

There are three services… so most people don’t know you’re there. People know you, but you don’t know them, because for seven years, they saw you almost every week in some sort of leadership role, fluttering around, always busy, busy, busy. So they say things like, “You’re alive!” or its close companion, “You’re not dead!” And the weirdness of “normal” continues.

There's a nuance to this dance that they don't teach you in Church Staff School. Do I mention this thing I see, or do I let someone else do it? Should I tell someone this thing is happening that they definitely think isn’t happening or do I just assume someone else is going to take care of it? Is this where not my monkeys, not my zoo comes in? But what about when I deeply love both the monkeys and the zoo?! Furthermore, how do we as former co-workers navigate relationships that seem to have been primarily defined by our proximity to each other on an org chart? After all, no one taught When Staff Members Leave and Stay in Church Staff School either, so none of us really knows how to act or what to do with our hands.

I watch others do what I once did, and I feel like a proud parent and utterly forgotten all at once. I'm genuinely thrilled to see programs and people flourishing because I poured so many years of my life into it/them/that, but there's also a quiet (fine, it’s LOUD) voice that bellows, “See? What you did isn’t special… they split it all among other people when you left.”

The Grief of Going from Essential to Optional

In the early months of transition, a particularly nasty lie occupied my brain: You were only valuable for what you could produce. To be fair, that’s always been a fear of mine… but now it felt like it was coming true. The enemy has a real gift for timing, doesn't he? When you're already feeling vulnerable, he shows up with his greatest hits playlist of personal inadequacy. Fun!

I wondered if people missed me or just missed the things I used to do. Did they value Shannon the person, or Shannon who could __________________? Also, did I really value Shannon the person, or only Shannon who could _________________?

In a world that measures worth by productivity, stepping away from a highly visible role can feel like vanishing into thin air, like all those people in Avengers: Infinity War. The busyness gives way to a quieter rhythm, and suddenly you're faced with the prospect of having thoughts and ideas that aren't immediately useful to anyone.

I found myself thinking about everyone who’d ever transitioned before me. Either generally from the staff, or specifically from my team. I had a different and deeper empathy for what they experienced, no matter the circumstances of their transition. I wished I’d reached out more after the goodbye party faded into distant memory. I wished I’d texted more often when I thought of them. They’d been where I was, at least in part. I wondered if there was a way to make it not so weird for people going forward, or if this is just a club you join and it is what it is. That would kind of suck. There’s not even a cool t-shirt or other merch. But now that I’ve been on both sides, I realize know no one knows precisely how to navigate it.

I also spent time considering if I had made a colossal mistake. Usually while sitting in church. Had I given up something seemingly essential for something undefined? Was I crazy to leave a role where I’d felt needed only for the great unknown of... what was it again, exactly?

Here's the thing, though—I left because God made it unmistakably clear that it was time for a new season. But a side effect of obedience is that knowing you're supposed to move doesn't reduce your love or gratitude for what you're leaving behind. If anything, it intensifies it. There's always a grief commensurate with the love, and I loved that season, that work, those people, SO deeply. I still do. My pastor has referred to sadness and gladness in life… and how you rarely only experience one without a bit of the other.

So I'm grateful for every moment of it. Every lesson learned. Every relationship forged. Every beautiful moment experienced. Every transformational season. Even this weird one. But sometimes loving something well means knowing when to release it, even when—or maybe especially when—it still feels like home.

The Sacred Art of Subtraction

Often the most profound spiritual formation happens not through addition but through subtraction. Sometimes God reveals who we are not by giving us more responsibility but by taking away what we thought defined us.

And let me tell you, having your identity stripped away is about as comfortable as wearing a wool sweater in July when it’s hotter than a thousand hells. It's itchy, uncomfortable, and you spend a lot of time wanting to take it off. But this is how God operates—sometimes through the divine art of holy discomfort.

In the stripping away, I've discovered parts of myself that were buried beneath to-do lists, weekly meetings, and program deadlines. I've found dreams that were filed away under "someday when I have time." I've reconnected with gifts that the urgent needs of organizational maintenance had overshadowed. After all, Sunday comes at the same time every week!

This season has been painfully sanctifying in the way that really good medicine tastes terrible but actually works. In the quiet moments when I wondered who I was without my title, God whispered reminders of whose I am. In the vulnerability of no longer being needed in familiar ways, I've learned to trust that His plans for my life extend beyond any single role or performance of tasks.

The Freedom of Functional Obscurity

Here's the plot twist I didn't see coming: there's something genuinely liberating about being nobody special on Sunday. About not being "on" or responsible for everyone else's experience. About just being a regular person who can focus on her own heart without simultaneously considering fifty other details. What a concept!

This functional obscurity has become a gift I didn't know I needed. I now pray for it, at some point in life, for ALL my church staff friends here and elsewhere.

What Now Remains (Besides All My Opinions)

Over a year later, I'm still learning to navigate this new normal. I'm still discovering who I am when I'm not defined by what I produce. And yes, I still occasionally have phantom limb syndrome, where I fantasize about reaching for responsibilities that are no longer mine and wonder why no one asked me what I thought. But why would they? I opted out of being asked.

So here’s what I know for certain: the God who called me into several decades of being a church staff member is the same God who called me out of it and now has me in a season of still being in full-time ministry at QAVA, but being church-adjacent while doing it. I like this new seat! The One who used me in that season is using me differently in this one, and His definition of "useful" is much broader than mine ever was.

To be crystal clear, this isn’t a post about anything that went wrong. Just because something’s weird doesn’t mean it’s wrong. This isn’t a calling out of mistreatment, or a veiled accusation against “they” or “them.” This isn’t a leadership failure exposé. This isn’t about what anyone has or hasn’t done. But it IS about how I’ve experienced this, and how I’d imagine these things always feel… this is just the first time I’ve felt it. It’s important for me to finally put language around something that has been just out of the reach of easy explanation. But it’s still very real, so it needed some words as part of my processing.

I'm also writing this for anyone else who finds themselves in the strange territory of being nobody where they used to be somebody. It’s for those navigating the awkward dance of staying put when everything has changed. For those wondering if they've made a terrible mistake or discovered a beautiful freedom. It's okay that it takes time to find your footing in this new space. It's okay that the questions outnumber the answers. It's okay to grieve what was while remaining open to what might be. And it's definitely okay to still have opinions about how things function, even if no one asks for those opinions anymore.

The beautiful thing about God is that He's not finished with us when we're finished with a particular chapter. Sometimes the most important work happens in the margins, in the spaces between what was and what will be, in the holy ground of not knowing every detail of what's next but trusting that He does.

I had such a sweet season on staff, with beautiful teammates. I served Jesus and some of the finest humans Franklin has to offer. Some great work was done. And everything is always preparation for the next thing. Everything in that season happened exactly as it was supposed to. Everything this year has happened exactly as it was supposed to. And everything that happens next will happen exactly as it is supposed to. That’s what building one’s life on a robust theology of the sovereignty of God means. That nothing touches me that’s not first sifted through His hand, and that everything will work toward His glory and my ultimate good.

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A few weeks ago, I emceed a conference that took place in my church, in the room I spent so many years in, on the stage I experienced so many wonderful memories on. And it snuck up on me… this opportunity God was giving me, as a person who likes to intentionally mark moments where and when I can.

Here I was, “coincidentally” one year to the day after my last day on staff, and I stood in the auditorium that has represented so much in my life. I was alone. Everything had been loaded out; all the attendees had gone. It was big, empty, and silent, and I felt God offering me the chance to raise an Ebenezer. To thank Him for His faithfulness, to remember fondly, to pray for those continuing on, and to mark the moment… while saying goodbye. That conference will be in a different church next year. So this was a moment of holy consecration.

God didn’t have to extend me that kindness. But He cares so deeply and specifically for all that concerns us, so He’ll even orchestrate a profound Ebenezer moment right when and where we least expect it, in the very place we need it. And when we need holy closure, He is The Closer. Now, I know exactly what it feels like to be a nobody deeply seen and loved by Somebody. And as it turns out, that’s enough.