Earlier this month, speaking before faith leaders and political officials at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Donald Trump pledged to “protect Christians in our schools, in our military, in our government, in our workplaces, hospitals and in our public squares.”

But with 26,000 federal jobs axed and widespread layoffs in the name of government efficiency, pastors in the Washington, D.C., area and Christians working in civil service have seen morale plummet. Those who felt called to live out their faith and serve their country in federal jobs worry that the moves threaten their mission and livelihood.

“I’m not going to talk about government spending. That’s not what I’m most interested in. But what I am interested in is that we have some of the brightest, hardest-working people I’ve ever known in my life who have lost their jobs this last week without cause,” said Bill Riedel, lead pastor of Redemption Hill Church in D.C.

Redemption Hill is a politically mixed congregation with many young professionals—some single, some married with kids—who work for the government.

“We know that we can’t pay rent for a third of the church if a third of the church gets laid off,” Riedel said. But the church has tried to do what it can, much of the support springing up organically from within the pews.

Redemption Hill members who have been affected by the government layoffs, furloughs, and job uncertainty have joined a WhatsApp group where they post devotional readings, updates, and prayer requests. Others have compiled a Google sheet with job opportunities and contacts for people preparing resumes in case they do lose their jobs.

Trump campaigned on promises to slash the size of government. At last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland, the president described the federal workforce as full of “fraudsters, liars, cheaters, globalists, and deep-state bureaucrats.”

Billionaire Elon Musk, at the helm of a special Trump commission called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has moved quickly to offer bureaucrats buyouts, institute furloughs, and lay off probationary employees, all accompanied by a flurry of emails and shifting guidance.

“We have escorted the radical-left bureaucrats out of the building and have locked the doors behind them,” Trump said at CPAC. “We’ve gotten rid of thousands.”

But the departments and jobs targeted, federal employees told CT, don’t match his characterization. The cuts being made in the name of eliminating waste, efficiency, and liberal ideology go far beyond that, targeting employees who are doing good work, including Christians, conservatives, and even Trump supporters who otherwise support reducing government bloat.

Evangelicals working for the government said they initially saw excitement among some conservative believers who saw the administration take swift action. But then the cuts began to hurt them and their work.

“A lot of Christians who are actually seeing the effect from the inside are starting to realize that maybe this is not what we thought or what we wanted—it’s too much, too fast, and too indiscriminate,” said one agent with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). “You’re destroying almost everything in your quest to find waste and abuse.”

Amid the firings, furloughs, and barrage of confusion, several employees said that they face new levels of hostility from their own bosses, who are on the lookout for people who dissent. For this story, Christianity Today agreed not to name certain federal workers whose jobs are at risk.

The DHS agent challenged whether the layoffs, such as eliminating immigration judges when courts face a backlog of millions of cases, would actually make the government more efficient.

In the scramble to institute mass layoffs, some of the hasty firings have had to be rescinded. The National Park Service laid off around 1,000 people, then reportedly brought back around 50. The U.S. Department of Agriculture ended up having to “rectify” the firings of frontline employees who were a part of the response to the H5N1 bird flu virus. The administration ran into difficulties rehiring National Nuclear Security Administration officials after not recording their new contact information.

At his church on Capitol Hill, Riedel has focused on addressing the uncertainty people are facing, pointing to “God’s unchanging character in a city that seems to only change.”

He hopes his preaching and pastoral care can help congregants “feel like the work they’re doing is worthwhile in a time when they’re being told that it’s not.”

Riedel hopes the larger body of Christ will react in a clear-eyed, sober-minded way, rather than being captivated by their preferred partisan talking points or misinformation.

“It’s really important for people to pursue truth, to tell the truth, and not to be angry or defensive but to be clear on the human implications of government decisions,” he said. “It’s not all corrupt politicians. For Christians, they are brothers and sisters in Christ. To be coldhearted about it doesn’t feel like an option.”

Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, is one of the architects for the cuts to the civil service. A Wheaton College alumnus and the founder of the Center for Renewing America, Vought said in 2024 he wanted bureaucrats to be “traumatically affected” and not want to go to work “because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.”

Several federal workers told CT they have seen the administration’s policies have exactly that effect, with probationary employees stressed and unable to sleep over fears of being fired. They and their colleagues are desperate to comply with the new directives, not just in hopes of saving their jobs but to keep meaningful projects going as a form of public service.

“People are really assigning malintent, that civil servants are plotting, trying to subvert President Trump’s priorities. What I’ve seen is that everybody is bending over backwards to be able to comply with them while still doing the good work that we do,” one Department of Defense employee told CT. “They’ve made civil servants to be either these dumb idiots or these evil masterminds. I think they’re well-intended, hardworking people.”

Chris Davis, a pastor at Groveton Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, wrote in a Facebook post that he used to have a stereotype of government workers as “inefficient” and “under-performing” people. But after he pastored a congregation in Northern Virginia with members in the federal workforce, that caricature was shattered.

Civil servants, he wrote, “did statistical analysis of the efficiency of welfare programs. They watched over our imports from China to confirm that they are advantageous to the American economy. … They oversaw the safety of our food for the Department of Agriculture. They kept our parks system—part of what makes America great—operating smoothly.”

“As you see the news of people losing their jobs, don’t think of the sloths in Zootopia. Think of your Sunday School teachers, the men in the Baptist Brotherhood, the women in [Women’s Missionary Union], the deacons, the choir members, and the neighbors around you,” Davis wrote. “These are not the ‘rich men north of Richmond.’ They are as regular American as baseball and apple pie, and they are feeling anxiety as they see jobs being slashed and anger as they see themselves represented as waste.”

The Trump administration has most aggressively gone after US Agency for International Development (USAID) and canceled nearly 10,000 contracts and grants of the agency’s annual $40 billion budget. In an email notice sent Tuesday and reviewed by CT, employees were told they had 15 minutes to collect their belongings from work, which had been left behind when they were initially forced to leave their work.

One USAID employee told CT that over the years she’s gotten used to skeptical questions and occasionally scorn from fellow Christians due to her work in government. After USAID was called a “viper’s nest,” “evil,” and “criminal” by Musk, acquaintances asked her if she was one of the “worms” Musk had mentioned. Her USAID role included working in Iraq to help Christians, Yezidi, and other religious minorities persecuted under the Islamic State.

“It’s really hard to explain to people who’ve never experienced it in their own lives what it means to be mission driven as opposed to resource driven,” she said. “Having a job where I help other people who need help at the absolute worst moments of their lives—it’s meaningful in a way that so many people miss.”

Another USAID employee said it’s possible both she and her husband, who works for the Department of Justice, will be laid off. What she finds comforting is Psalm 37:25, which says, “I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread.”

“What’s harder or more straining on my faith is the gleeful swallowing and repeating of lies that they have found massive fraud and waste,” she said. “I’m not sure that facts are going to move people. People are believing what they want to believe.”

Christopher Ogne, a pastor at Lutheran Church of Our Savior in Charles County, Maryland, has also had Psalm 37:25 on his mind as he has talked with church members concerned about the shakeup of the government.

Over the last 22 years pastoring, Ogne has gotten used to navigating ups and downs with his politically mixed congregation so close to the Capital. He knows that throughout the week, some members tune into CNN while others watch Fox News.

“I’ve got people that are all in with Trump, and I’ve got people that are all in with not liking Trump. I’ve got people all in with what’s happening, as far as the cuts are concerned, and DOGE and all that kind of stuff. And then I’ve got people all in with ‘This is tragic, and this is terrible,’” he said, speaking about the cuts.

In a Facebook post, he encouraged people to remember the human cost of the federal workforce cuts. “We ought to remember that these cuts impact real people, with real children, with real jobs, that have really been cut off and are now frightened.” He said the church has a benevolence fund should material help be necessary for members affected by layoffs or furloughs.

But ultimately, he tries to end conversations by encouraging members to lean into their faith.

“The Christian doesn’t find security in this world. I worship a guy that the state put to death. So I learned a long time ago, my hope is not in that. So when that gets taken away, guess what is not taken away? My hope.”

This article has been republished with permission from Christianity Today.

Harvest Prude is a staff writer at Christianity Today.