Funny how things sometimes come…

Sometimes the very place you’re trying to leave ends up teaching you how to recognize when it’s time to leave somewhere else.

I didn’t see that coming.

As this year began, I found myself at a familiar crossroads. The organization had changed, but something about the terrain felt eerily familiar. The warning signs weren’t new. Neither was the growing realization that another chapter was coming to an end.

To appreciate the irony, you have to go back a few years.

After seven years at TDOT and four years at Foundation Group, I’d learned a thing or two about organizational culture. Some of those lessons came through exceptional leaders and a few holy handfuls along the way. Others came through contrast. Watching. Listening. Learning as much about the kind of man and leader I didn’t want to become as the one I hoped to be.

Early in my tenure at Foundation Group, I was introduced to the concept of founder syndrome. The idea that an organization can become so closely intertwined with its founder’s personality and preferences that the mission itself risks becoming secondary to the people entrusted with leading it.

Over the years that followed, I had opportunities to observe those dynamics in other organizations. I watched how leadership could shape an entire culture, how accountability could become complicated by personality and insecurity, and how an organization’s public identity didn’t always tell the whole story of what was happening behind the scenes.

It was a valuable education, even if I couldn’t have anticipated where it would eventually lead.

Because while Foundation Group had helped introduce me to those realities, it was also an organization I desperately needed to leave to best tend my mental health and family’s needs. And wouldn’t you know it? Mercy became my way out.

November 15, 2023. My first conversation with Mercy’s founder. During that exchange, she offered a statement I’ve never forgotten.

“Foundation Group never knew what they had.”

Those words meant something.

After months of financial strain, closed doors, and uncertainty about how I would provide for my family, here was someone recognizing my value and extending an opportunity to start again.

And she was right.

What I couldn’t have anticipated was how differently those words would resonate a little more than two years later.

To be fair, my first year at Mercy was genuinely good. The opportunity was an answer to prayer. I stepped into a relatively healthy local leadership structure, developed meaningful relationships, and found myself among people who cared deeply about the mission. Some of those relationships became holy handfuls of their own, friendships I’m grateful have endured beyond my departure.

I’d heard warnings about Mercy, too. From people inside the organization and people well outside it. Concerns about leadership, organizational culture, and what some perceived as cult-like tendencies.

But I took those assessments with a grain of salt. My firsthand experience suggested otherwise. And frankly, I was delighted that it did.

But heading into 2025, things began to change.

The leadership structure that had made my first year so encouraging gradually unraveled. Friendly faces departed. Ultimately, an organizational overhaul ushered in an increasingly toxic atmosphere, one increasingly difficult to reconcile with the environment I’d initially embraced.

And from a front-row seat, I began recognizing patterns that reminded me of what I’d spent years learning to identify.

The irony was cruel.

The organization that had introduced me to founder syndrome had also helped equip me to recognize troubling patterns elsewhere. And Mercy, the organization that had given me a way out of Foundation Group, eventually became another place where those lessons felt painfully relevant.

I don’t pretend to know every motive behind every decision. I didn’t then. I don’t now.

But I know what I experienced. I know how certain decisions affected people. And I know the difference between celebrating a mission publicly and cultivating a culture where the people carrying that mission feel valued privately.

There were patterns I found increasingly troubling. Favoritism. The marginalization of men, who at times seemed to be viewed less as individuals and more as extensions of the very abuse the ministry was working to heal. The patronization of younger staff and the manipulation of their naivety. The belittling of employees whose special needs, mental health concerns, or family responsibilities deserved consideration rather than dismissal. Decisions that seemed rooted more in fear than conviction. Questions about accountability, the treatment of employees, and whether the organization’s internal practices consistently reflected the values it professed.

I wasn’t the only person wrestling with those concerns. Others departed, some for reasons that echoed my own.

Still, I stayed.

Not because I believed I owed the institution my allegiance. I owed my position excellence, certainly, but those are two very different things.

I stayed because I believed there were people and principles worth standing alongside. A radical remnant, if you will. People determined to remain faithful amid the shaking, even as the ground beneath us continued to shift.

For a while, I hoped that would be enough. But there’s a difference between standing firm and refusing to acknowledge when the ground has changed beneath your feet.

By the opening months of 2026, I could no longer ignore that distinction.

I had no desire to abandon the good that remained. Nor did I want to mistake perseverance for an obligation to endorse practices I could no longer reconcile with my convictions.

And somewhere in that tension, the decision became…

March 19, 2026. I said goodbye not only to what had become a Christian corporate version of mean girls but a form of godliness hardly of it.

Mercy had been a genuine gift in a difficult season. It provided an opportunity I desperately needed, introduced me to people I still cherish, and allowed me to grow professionally in ways I wouldn’t trade away.

But gratitude for an opportunity doesn’t require agreement with everything that follows.

I can recognize the good without denying the difficult. I can appreciate what an organization once represented without pretending that my experience remained unchanged. And I can acknowledge what I perceived as unhealthy without claiming to know the hearts of those involved.

Two things can be true at once.

God was faithful when He opened the door to Mercy. And God was faithful when He opened the door out of it.

In the middle of that transition, another opportunity emerged. One that would bring me into a healthier professional environment, surrounded by people whose commitment to a meaningful cause was reflected in the way they worked together.

RHRC.

The work was familiar enough to build upon what I’d learned, but the environment felt refreshingly grounded. A healthier infrastructure. Greater confidence in the people around me. Leadership that, in my experience, demonstrated a willingness to be accountable to the same principles it expected others to uphold.

And something I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed.

Peace.

Not the absence of deadlines, responsibilities, or ordinary workplace challenges. Those come with the territory. But the relief of being able to concentrate on the work itself without carrying the same weight of organizational uncertainty.

It reminded me of how I’d felt during my first year at Mercy, before so much changed. Only now, I had a deeper appreciation for how much a healthy culture matters.

I don’t know what every future chapter will hold. No workplace is perfect, and I’ve learned enough over the years to avoid confusing a promising beginning with a guarantee about the future.

But I know what this transition has meant to me.

I left Mercy having fulfilled my responsibilities and ended the season as well as I knew how. I didn’t need another opportunity to revisit old disputes or convince anyone of my perspective.

I needed room to move forward. And God provided it.

Looking back, I can see how the opportunities connected. The State prepared me for Foundation Group. Foundation Group became part of the journey that led me to Mercy. And Mercy, for all its complexities, became part of the road that eventually brought me to RHRC.

Not every stretch was pleasant. Not every lesson came from someone I wanted to emulate. But none of it was wasted.

For years, I’d learned what I didn’t want to become by observing the environments around me. Now I was being reminded of what I wanted to help build.

A culture where people could contribute without fear. Where integrity mattered more than image. Where the mission was greater than any individual entrusted with leading it. And where belonging didn’t have to be manufactured.

For the first time in a while, I wasn’t simply grateful to have left somewhere. I was grateful to have arrived.

A new path on bedrock and many the miles ahead.