10 Things I’ve Learned Doing Ministry Outside the Church Staff System

A Letter For Those On The Margins

I write this post for every single person who finds themselves walking the strange, holy road where the system has no map.

For the missionary evangelist toiling in a foreign country.

For the parachurch ministry leader struggling to find support.

For the street preacher who feels like the local clergy doesn’t know what to do with him.

For the husband and wife volunteering to lead their church’s youth ministry even though there’s no official job position available.

I am writing the article I wish I could have read seven years ago, from someone further down the road.

This is for you.
But first, a little of my story.

For over a decade, I lived inside the structure. I was on staff at a church—eight of those years as a youth pastor, shaping young lives in the rhythms of Wednesday nights, Sunday mornings, retreats, camps, and mission trips.

The job came with a paycheck, a title, a schedule, and a community of co-laborers.

It. Was. Wonderful. One of my fondest seasons of life.

A time where every single day I woke up eager to go to the office and pursue my calling.

I’m not being hyperbolic. I loved my job!

Then…in 2018, God called my wife and I into the wilderness.
We moved to Oklahoma committed to ministry work… but leaving behind the safety net of a church staff position.

While I have come to believe that every Christian is called to a lifestyle of full-time ministry—no matter their vocation—my wife and I felt a clear conviction: our work hours, our skills, our energy… they were meant to be spent teaching, preaching, and discipling as much as humanly possible.

We didn’t feel released to pursue a typical job—not because those aren’t good or holy—but because God had placed a specific fire in us for a kind of work that takes a specific amount of focus and energy.

However, I did not find any local opportunities at local churches that were the right fit for my family.

So, we joined a local church as members, and I channeled my ministry efforts into becoming what some would call a tentmaker—part-time freelancer, part-time missionary, part-time theology teacher, full-time disciple maker.

I started a School of Discipleship for young adults in my town, mentored students and younger youth pastors, traveled to speak at other churches and youth groups, wrote late into the night, and tried to keep a theology podcast alive.

All the while juggling voice acting gigs, freelance web design, and writing contracts just to keep the ministry breathing and the lights on at the Salvato home.

In pursuit of this calling, I’ve turned down full-time offers in the tech world—jobs that would have meant stability and comfort—because they would have pulled me out of the river of God’s specific calling. I have turned down these offers not as a matter of principle, but as a result of many prayers and tears together with my wife as we sought God’s guidance for our family.

We have decided to obey Jesus no matter what the cost.

That decision has not made life easier.

In fact, it has made it lonelier, scarier, and, at times, absurdly difficult.

But it’s also led me to some of the most profound lessons of my life.

So if you, like me, find yourself doing ministry on the fringes—without a title, without a salary, without the security of a church payroll… I want to offer you these hard-won lessons.

Not a map. Just a scratched-up trail marker from someone who’s limped this road before.

Here are ten things I’ve learned doing ministry outside the system:

1. Faithfulness Is Not the Same Thing as Visibility

This one shattered me slowly.

When I left the church staff system, I had no idea how much I had been relying on the scaffolding of visibility to validate my calling.

I can say with total sincerity, I wasn’t chasing platform.I loved my students and my priority was their care and discipleship above all else.

However, I was used to being seen. I was used to the nods of affirmation after sermons. The full youth room. The budget line in the church spreadsheet with my name on it. The built-in infrastructure of volunteers and staff members who were dedicated to helping me bring the vision to life.

Once that was gone… it felt like I disappeared.

It’s a strange thing to be doing some of the most meaningful, holy work of your life… and yet feel invisible. I’ve sat with college students, eyes full of pain, and watched the Spirit do something undeniable… then gone home to an inbox filled with freelance deadlines and no one asking how it went.

No board meeting. No paid staff photographer documenting my ministry in high-res glory. No Instagram story tagged “so blessed to be discipled.”

Just the quiet click of the tea kettle and the internal ache of wondering if any of it mattered.

But over time, in the silence, God started whispering a new truth:

Visibility is not the measure of faithfulness.
Fruit doesn’t often look like followers.

Sometimes, it’s a student who texts you a year later, “That night you stayed up with me answering my questions…I think that saved my faith.”

Sometimes it’s your son watching you pray when no one else is around. Sometimes it’s just you, staying in the fight when everything in you wants to quit.

Faithfulness is not a performance. It’s a long obedience in the same direction.

And if no one claps, but Christ smiles… that’s more than enough.

2. You Don’t Need Permission to Be Who God Called You to Be

I spent too many years of this season waiting to be chosen.

Waiting for someone in authority to notice me. Waiting for a bigger ministry to open the door. Waiting for an “official” send-off or affirmation that I was legit. Waiting for a guys in my tribe to acknowledge that I was still a real pastor, not just “a podcast guy.”

I didn’t realize I was still living like an orphan—longing for someone to tell me I was allowed to do what God had already asked me to do.

The Gospel is not a company ladder! It’s not a denominational club. Jesus doesn’t ask for credentials before He calls someone.

He just says, Follow me.

Leaving the staff system forced me to reckon with how much I craved validation. And not in a shallow way—I think most of us who serve genuinely want to do it in community, with covering, with unity. That’s a good desire.

But when that desire becomes a condition for obedience… it becomes a chain.
There was a moment when I realized: I don’t need anyone’s permission to be a pastor to the students God has entrusted me with.

I don’t need a paycheck to teach the Gospel.

I don’t need a title to weep with the hurting or rejoice with the healing.

My authority doesn’t come from a church logo—it comes from Christ.

That realization didn’t remove the sting of rejection.

But it did set me free.

3. Tentmaking Is Not Second-Class Ministry

If I’m honest, I used to look down on bivocational pastors.

Not consciously.

But somewhere in my bones, I believed that “real” ministry was full-time, salaried, secure. Anything else was… cute. Faithful, maybe. But lesser.

Then God humbled me.

When I stepped into this life—donor-supported, underfunded, stretched thin—I had to learn to write devotionals between web design meetings. To record podcasts after midnight once my son was asleep. To raise support while simultaneously building spreadsheets and sending invoices for my freelance work.

Never feeling like I had the time to dream or innovate, because I had to keep the gears turning to avoid going broke.

At first, I felt ashamed. Like I had failed.

Like if I were really anointed, the money would come.

Churches would recognize and support me. The doors would open.

But then I started to see it differently.

Paul made tents. Jesus made tables.

David shepherded sheep before he led armies.

God has never despised the dirt and sweat of side work. The sacred and the secular are not enemies. If anything, tentmaking forces you to stay grounded—to serve God in the real grit of life, where most people live.

My voiceover work?

That money puts food on the table so I can keep discipling students.

My web design work?

That helps fund the ministry God called me to build.

It’s not second-class. It’s integrated.

And integration, I think, is the future of the Church.

4. Obscurity Will Break You in the Best Way

There’s a strange grief that comes with obscurity in a world of platforms.

A slow dying.

Not dramatic. Just a quiet erosion of your need to be seen, known, celebrated. And for those of us who were handed microphones and stages in our twenties, that death is not gentle.

For years, I believed that if I worked hard and stayed humble, I’d move from faithfulness to fruit to recognition. Not fame.

Not ego-stroking. Just… appreciation. Affirmation. A sense that I mattered.

Instead, God led me into a season where it felt like my gifts disappeared into a black hole. Students I poured into drifted away. Podcast episodes barely cracked a few hundred listens.

My name wasn’t on any “rising leader” lists.
After all my years of training, education, ministry experience… I felt like I had never had more to give… and yet I had never had so few people asking me to share what I had.

I thought I was being buried.

But I was being planted.

Obscurity isn’t exile. It’s preparation.

It strips away your performative self and asks, Will you still love me if nobody sees this but me? And if the answer is yes—if you can meet God in that hidden place—then something unshakable begins to grow in you.

Not relevance. Not platform. But rootedness.

And in a world obsessed with image, rootedness is a revolution.

5. God Doesn’t Waste Your Limits

I hate my limits.

I hate that I can’t go full throttle like I did in my twenties. I hate that I have to say no to things I want to do because I don’t have the bandwidth.

I hate that I can’t take that speaking gig or launch that new project or stay up all night mapping out ideas for the discipleship school.

I hate that I have to pause sermon writing to fix website bugs or hunt down a missing client payment.

But I’m learning—slowly, stubbornly—that God is not disappointed by my limits. In fact, He often meets me through them.

My small budget has made me creatively dependent. My time constraints have made me fiercely present. My fatigue has made me gentler with others who are weary.

And my emotional limitations—the ones I tried to ignore for years—have finally forced me to let others in, to ask for help, to name my needs.

Your limits are not liabilities in the Kingdom. They are invitations.

Every “no” carves out a space for the deeper “yes” of being with Jesus.

6. The Work Still Matters, Even When It Feels Like Nobody Cares

Let’s talk about the ache.

That quiet ache when you pour your whole soul into something and it feels like it vanishes.

You craft a podcast episode for hours—wrestle with the theology, cry during editing, pray over it—and then… 87 plays.

No emails. No feedback.

You send out a newsletter you bled into, and it’s met with polite silence.

You plan a discipleship night, but half the students cancel last-minute, and the other half show up half-awake.

It’s a special kind of heartbreak to feel like your offering is met with indifference.

And if you’re not careful, you start asking dangerous questions: Does this even matter? Did I mishear God? Should I just stop?

But here’s what I keep coming back to, again and again:

You are not the results department.

You are the faithfulness department.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt like giving up, only to get a text months later that says, “Hey, I never told you this, but that thing you said changed everything for me.”

Or someone years down the line shares that a podcast helped them reconstruct faith in a healthy way instead of walk into full deconstruction and despair.

You will rarely get to see the full impact of your work.

That’s by design. It keeps you humble.

It keeps you dependent.

And it reminds you: This is not your kingdom. It’s Christ’s.

And He sees every seed you plant,

even if it feels like the soil swallows them whole.

7. Ministry Outside the System Requires Deep Emotional Honesty

I used to think being a good pastor meant being stable.

The unshakable one. The guy people come to when their world is falling apart. The reliable one with the answers and the Bible verses and the coffee mug wisdom.

But when I stepped out of the system—no team meetings, no mentor on payroll, no conference to encourage and equip—I quickly realized that I couldn’t fake it anymore.

There’s no backstage anymore. No green room. Just me, God, and the sound of my own anxious thoughts at 2:43am.

To do this kind of ministry, you have to get brutally honest with yourself.

You have to admit when you’re lonely.

You have to name your jealousy when friends in ministry get opportunities you wanted.

You have to grieve when your dreams don’t pan out.

You have to confess the weird guilt you feel when you have to say no to a ministry opportunity in order to take on a freelance project to provide for your family.

No one is helped by a ministry leader pretending they’re above the chaos.

What people need is someone who can say:

“Yeah, me too… and here’s how Jesus met me in it.”

8. You Will Be Misunderstood—Love Anyway

I wish someone had warned me about this one.

Because it’s one thing to struggle.

It’s another thing to be misread in your struggle.

People will assume you’re just between jobs. That you’ve given up. That you couldn’t hack it in “real ministry.”

Some will assume you’re lazy. Others will think you’re overly idealistic.

Some won’t say it out loud, but you’ll hear it in the subtext.

And honestly? That hurts. Especially when you’ve given your life to this.

Especially when you’ve turned down bigger offers because your conscience wouldn’t let you walk away from the small, faithful thing God told you to do.

But here’s what I’ve learned: You can’t control how people see you. All you can control is how you respond.

When they misunderstand you, love them. When they forget you, pray for them. When they assume the worst, keep showing up with kindness.

Jesus was misunderstood constantly. He was accused of being a glutton, a drunkard, a blasphemer. He was seen as a failure by the very people He came to save.

If He could stay the course… so can you.

But yeah—it stings. Don’t pretend it doesn’t.

Let it hurt. Then hand it over to Christ, and keep loving.

9. You Can’t Do This Alone

This lesson came with tears.

Because I tried. I really did. I thought I could white-knuckle my way through this calling. I told myself, “You’re strong. You’re resourceful. You can carry it.” And for a while, I did.

But eventually, the weight of it—finances, schedules, spiritual warfare, self-doubt—cracked me open. Not dramatically. Just slowly. Subtly. Until I realized: I wasn’t just tired. I was soul-weary.

You cannot carry Kingdom work alone.

Even Jesus didn’t. He gathered friends. He delegated. He cried in front of people. He asked them to stay awake with Him in the garden.

You need a few trusted voices who know the full story.

You need someone who can remind you that you’re not crazy. You need encouragement that doesn’t come with strings.

You need people who will pray for you when you forget how.

And if you don’t have that right now, please hear me: start looking.

Ask God. Send the awkward text.

Join the random Zoom call.

Be honest about your need.

The enemy wants you isolated. Don’t give him that power.

10. The Kingdom Is a Road, Not a Ladder

This might be the lesson I keep learning until the day I die.

Because there’s a part of me—if I’m honest—that still wants the ladder.

Not to be famous. Not to be rich. Just to feel like I’m moving up. That my effort is getting me somewhere.

That there’s a promotion coming for all this work.

But the Kingdom doesn’t work like that.

The Kingdom is not a career path. It’s a road. A long, winding, dusty road.

Sometimes uphill. Sometimes through the valley.

Sometimes joyful. Sometimes humiliating.

Sometimes it feels like you’re moving backward.

But the miracle of the Kingdom is that the road is the reward. Because Jesus is on the road. Walking beside you. Washing your feet. Breaking bread with you. Speaking resurrection into your dry bones.

I used to chase the ladder.

Not when I was a youth pastor… I was content then with simply serving young people.

I chased it AFTER I left… because I became less visible… and when that happened, I felt I was letting people down because I wasn’t living up to my potential.

I remember a key moment, after I had been toiling for the Kingdom for years, a friend said to me “Hey bro, when are you gonna get back into real ministry?”

That gutted me. I had continued to preach, teach, mentor and disciple… but since leaving a church staff, my work was now basically invisible. My teaching was no longer from a stage at a church, it was done in small coffee shop bible studies, podcasts, and home groups.

It took me a long time to realize that Jesus wanted me to experience that pain of feeling small… because in it, my view of Christ became much larger.

Now, I’m learning to love the road.

I still feel small, but I’m not bothered by it.

I’m learning that success is not up, but with.

With Christ. With others. With the hurting. With the obscure. With the outcasts. With the unseen.

And if I die on that road… I think I’ll be okay.

If you’ve made it this far—if something in this stirred you—I just want to say:

You’re not alone. You’re not forgotten. You’re not off-track.
You’re just walking the slow, beautiful, excruciating road of Jesus.

And you are doing better than you think.
Keep going.

—Aaron

P.S. If this blessed your socks off, feel free to send it to someone who’s walking this road too. Let’s remind each other that the road matters.

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For more on this topic, check out the book, Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor, by D.A. Carson. Wonderfully encouraging.