By the time Bill spoke with me about the situation, he was eaten up inside. He felt he was somehow an accessory to the charade taking place on Sunday mornings. He'd even confronted the choir director—but was sternly rebuffed and told it was none of his business. When he went to the pastor, he was told there wasn't enough evidence to take any action.

My recommendation to Bill was direct: "You've done all you can to confront and remedy the situation. If the church tolerates the situation, you must leave for the sake of your own conscience."

Trying to make peace when faced with a situation like that can damage our own integrity. It's often wisest to leave.

2. When family needs take second place to ministry needs.

Our immediate families are more important than our youth groups. As God's ministers, our first responsibilities are to minister to our spouses and children; but too often youth ministry—or the amount of time and energy we're putting into it—can hurt our families.

Some scenarios:

• Ministry needs prevent sufficient time with our families.

• Ministry needs cause our families to endure unfair expectations.

• Special health concerns arise within our families.

Obviously in most cases, departures should be among the last resorts—perhaps all that's needed is a bit of focused reprioritizing; but youth ministry jobs that effectively prevent us from carrying out ministry to and care for our families aren't the kind we ought to stick with.

3. When relationships within our congregations deteriorate beyond reasonable hope of reconciliation.

Even as I was preparing this article, I had lunch with a young couple who, only 10 months earlier, faced precisely this kind of situation. Mark and Courtney had been working with their youth group as partners: Mark was paid by the church; Courtney loved kids and loved Mark, so she was right there beside him. Soon, though, a range of issues arose in the congregation. Some of them didn't directly involve Mark and Courtney (budget concerns, a lawsuit against the church, the dismissal of the senior pastor), but when the deal went down, there were false accusations, distortions and open statements of hostility and distrust directed toward the couple by some of the church leaders.

They perhaps could've marshalled enough support to override the church's decision that they leave, but the cost to their students, their family and the congregation would have been painfully high. So they chose to move on.

4. When it's clearly God's will that we move to a specific, new ministry.

This kind of call grows out of mostly positive circumstances—more an instance of being led to a position than of being driven from one. This kind of leading is usually confirmed through three channels (by order of importance):

• prayer

• brothers and sisters who know us and our gifts

• accompanying circumstances

When all is said and done, sometimes even our most concentrated efforts to pray, seek counsel and ask the hard questions aren't enough to give us a clear sense of whether or not we should move on to a new work—or leave an old one.

Perhaps it's beyond the ability of our brethren to comprehend why we're moving on. Perhaps it makes no sense to them or to us. Sometimes only God knows, and sometimes that's all we know. 

There's one rule that takes precedence over every other—and in the long run, should bring comfort: If God says move on, we'd better move on.