My Road-trip Route Map

Here's a basic map of my route over the next two weeks, in case you are interested in seeing where I will be for my vacation, and for my attendance at Exploration 2009. Sorry Kansas and Missouri - I'm making a giant circle around you. Maybe some other road-trip....

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In honor of Exploration 2009: My Call to Ministry

Today many UM Young Clergy are writing about their call as part of an encouragement for young people who are attending (or still thinking about attending) Exploration in November, which is a discernment event for 17-24 year olds thinking about ordained ministry in the UMC.

I think sharing my own call story can be both frustrating and encouraging for others considering a call to ministry. Frustrating and encouraging, because for me, everything about hearing, responding, and following through with my call to ministry went well. I have very little in the way of discouraging horror stories about people trying to prevent me from seeking to become a pastor. I have a story about what happens when everything goes like it is supposed to.

As a small child, I attended Westernville United Methodist Church, in a little, two-road town. Somewhere at about age 5, I thought I wanted to be a pastor, and started collecting the bulletins after worship each Sunday. I kept them in a pile on my corner shelf in my room, so they'd be all ready for me when I was the pastor. Of course, that desire went away, as I soon wanted to be a truck driver, ballerina, actress, and other things. But the huge benefit I received from that tiny church was that I had, by the time I was in 6th grade, experienced at least 3 clergywomen. Women often got appointed to little churches like that - appointments, I learned as I got older - that no one would want - it was part of a three-point charge and must have drained the energy out of every pastor that went there. But for me, it meant that I had no idea at all that it was unusual in any way for women to be pastors. So I am very grateful for that. I also have pastors in the family - including one uncle who is still active in ministry. They didn't all love the ministry in the same way, or model pastoring in the same way to me. But again, the idea of being a pastor was just not unusual to me in those early years, and I can't imagine how much they contributed to my call.

In addition to those foundational pieces, I also grew up believing that I was called to something. That God would call me, and I would have to listen for what that was. Thanks Mom! So, I had the advantage of being on the lookout for God's call from the start.

It was really during my time at Rome 1st UMC that I heard and answered God's call. The pastor during most of my time there was Rev. Bruce Webster, now, unfortunately, retired. Bruce was so encouraging and supportive - not just of me, but of everyone who had something they wanted to try. He was very permission-giving in his leadership. I had been thinking about camping ministry, working at our church camp, Aldersgate. When that wasn't clicking quite right, I was thinking about youth ministry instead. Bruce let me plan and lead a youth service at church - and he really just let me run with it. People started making comments about me attending seminary, which I brushed off. I was *not* headed for seminary. Obviously.

Searching for a college to major in youth ministry was where that plan fell apart. I was, even then, aware that I was theogically - well, I guess I wouldn't have used the word liberal or progressive then - but I was finding it hard to not to feel totally - wrong and out of place - in some of the Christian colleges that offered youth ministry. Bruce helped me again - pointing out some UMC-affiliated schools, including Ohio Wesleyan. Ohio Wesleyan didn't have youth ministries, but it had a pre-theology track, and by the time I started in the fall of 1997, things had just fallen into place, and I was sure I was called to be a pastor. It's hard to recount exactly when and how that shift happened. But once it did, I hardly cast a backward glance.

My journey through the ordination process and accompanying schooling was a positive experience for me, with only the occasional paperwork mix-up. I had a supportive home congregation, who affirmed me and gave me chances to work and learn and experience and preach. Just before I was appointed, I was filling in for a then-very ill new pastor, and the same folks that saw me as a 6th grader were willing to let me preach to them week after week. My first congregation was a bunch of people practically made to support a candidate through the provisional-member process. And here I am, somehow in the blink of an eye, in my 7th year of pastoral ministry.

And so, my call may be frustrating or encouraging. Frustrating if it hasn't been so clear to you. Encouraging to know that sometimes things do fall into place and go smoothly.

What I would most like to lift up though, is that while God might be calling you into ordained ministry (or not,) God might also be calling you to show someone else that they're called. Helping someone see that God is calling them - that's a ministry that is so essential. Who do you see God calling? Can you help them hear?

Thank you, to so many people who helped me hear, and then encouraged me on my journey: Mom, Bruce. The clergywomen who served Westernville UMC: Polly Burdett, Jody Watson, Gail Eddy, and Crystal Markowski. Freddie Stanulevich, and Rich Hartz, my Sunday School teachers. Ruth Dietrich. Jane Butters. Dave Hays. Tom Weiss (whose frequent-flyer miles sent me to Exploration in 1996) and Beth Benham (who talked about Exploration at Annual Conference that year.) Bertha Holmes. Uncle Bill, Uncle Bob. Rev. Van. Rome 1st, Oneida St. Paul's. Thank you.

Revgals Friday Five: Forks in the Road

I don't often 'play' Friday Five, but given my own current state of transition, and my own recent thoughts about "What Might Have Been," this "fork in the road" Friday Five caught my attention. Over at RevGalBlogPals, Singing Owl writes: I am at a life-changing juncture. I do not know which way I will go, but I have been thinking about the times, people and events that changed my life (for good or ill) in significant ways. For today's Friday Five, share with us five "fork-in-the-road" events, or persons, or choices. And how did life change after these forks in the road?

1. My path into ordained ministry was like my own faith journey - marked not by a 'conversion' moment, but by what I would describe more as a 'strainer' experience. The jumbled pieces of what I thought constituted a call from God into first camping ministry and then youth ministry were all poured into a strainer, and what was left behind was a clear calling into pastoral ministry. That's the best why I can describe it. A critical decision for ordained ministry happened in my college-search process. I just couldn't find a school that fit my hope: to major in youth ministry. The schools I looked at were all Christian colleges with an orientation that was much too conservative theologically for me, even in my high-school days. I finally visited and applied to Gordon College. My visit was awful. I attended chapel, and found myself so upset by what I was hearing in worship that I sobbed as soon as it was over. I had no idea where to go or what to do. My pastor suggested some UMC-affiliated schools, including Ohio Wesleyan, which seemed the best fit of the four he mentioned. I applied without visiting (although I visited later,) and found out they had a pre-theology major. Somehow, by the time I started my first semester, I was planning on ordained ministry, without even realizing how it quite happened.

2. Like my friend Amy, I strayed from the 'typical' pattern of education. I didn't skip a year in elementary school - I graduated a year early from Ohio Wesleyan, completing my BA in three instead of four years. I'm not really sure what even started me on this path - I had the plan to try it before I even arrived for my first semester. I looked at the course catalog and the requirements, and I realized how easy it would be to do, with my semester of credits I would start with thanks to high-school/college level classes. Just before my third year, I began to have doubts about my decision. I was really enjoying my time at OWU, and I knew I would miss my friends. If I stuck around a fourth year, I could add a second major. It was actually at Exploration '98 that I wrestled with a lot of these questions thanks to a workshop on discernment I almost didn't go to. Ultimately, I think I made the right decision - I was ready to move on from OWU. But I still wonder sometimes!

3. Choosing my seminary was another fork-in-the-road decision. I visited Drew, Wesley, and Boston. I loved the city of Boston. I loved the emphasis on religion and the arts at Wesley, and their program with religion and politics. But as soon as I visited Drew, I knew I would go there. It didn't have any particular program that compelled me. It was just a feeling. A widow of a pastor in my home congregation said to me, after I told her I was going to Drew, "I prophesied you would go there." She'd never said this kind of thing to me before, and never did after, but if there's anyone I would totally believe, it was her. I knew I'd made the right choice, and never wished I'd gone elsewhere.

4. In my last year of seminary, my childhood pastor invited me to commute to Drew and serve as his assistant pastor at his new(ish) appointment. We'd worked together with me as an intern when I was in college, and we worked well together. I agreed to take the position. And then - it just didn't sit right with me. I did not have any peace in my decision. So I sheepishly changed my mind. That spring, the then-pastor at my childhood church fell very ill. Because I wasn't working elsewhere, I was able to fill in at my home church almost every Sunday, preaching, teaching, visiting, etc., during an extremely difficult time for the congregation. I was so thankful I was available, and knew my difficult decision had been the right one.

5. Both coming to this appointment in New Jersey and leaving it are fork-in-the-road times. I struggled with the decision to come here, and I struggled with the decision to move back to NCNY. For me, making appointment decisions is so complicated because you ask questions not just about how the transition will affect yourself, but about how it will affect entire congregations, the one you serve and the one you might begin to serve. I've been blessed with congregations that have been particularly supportive and affirming in the midst of transition.

One Year Later

One year ago, (on August 29th, to be exact) I moved to Franklin Lakes, NJ, to begin my second appointment. Today is the one year anniversary of the official beginning of my appointment here. In some ways, I can't believe I've already been here a year - the months have gone by so quickly. In other ways, I feel like this has been a long year - the first year in a new appointment is full of so much learning, meeting people, familiarizing, transitioning - this year has been so full that it seems like I must have been here longer than a year already.

This is only my second appointment - my first year here has been much different than my first year in Oneida. The learning curve in a first appointment is huge. Here, I come with knowledge and experience, even if it isn't decades of ministry yet. But I'm also in a much different place and, in some ways, a much different congregation. I'm serving outside of my annual conference of membership, North Central New York, the area I grew up in and lived in for all of my life, outside of time at school. I went to seminary at Drew, but actually living in the community in Northern New Jersey is quite different from attending school on a somewhat secluded campus. Greater New Jersey is a different conference from NCNY in many ways. It is more diverse in membership and clergy membership, it covers much more urban areas, it is more 'politically active' in the denomination, etc. These are just a few surface differences. Of course, there are practical differences - I know most of the clergy and lay folks active in the conference in NCNY. In GNJ, I'm still trying to get to know the folks in my district, much less folks in the whole conference. These things take time.

My congregations are in many ways similar - roughly the same sanctuary architecture, almost identical congregation sizes, same difficulty in paying apportionments, same struggle reach young people, same issues of slow decline, wondering what has happened, thinking about days gone by when the Sunday School was packed with kids and you always had enough people to help with events.

But they're also very different. Bergen County is more affluent, more educated, more traveled, more urban-focused than Oneida. People work, from what I can tell, a crazy number of hours each week, added to commute times that are generally significantly higher than in CNY. One of my colleagues who works in congregational development looked at the demographics of the area for me, and his figures and comments confirmed it - people here are most likely to look for how a church fits into their schedule than anything else. Offering options, offering different times, shorter times, more time options - these are all important to a congregation in this area. This summer, we introduced an early morning communion service - and though it is still a small service, it is casual, and shorter, and I think we're meeting a real need with it. One of our focus areas this fall in that service will be rest and Sabbath. My goal will be to talk about rest and Sabbath without making people feel guilty that they don't take enough Sabbath!

I'm also different here too. The difference goes beyond even a first-appointment, second-appointment difference. I find myself, in many ways, back at square one when it comes to discerning God's call on my life. Obviously, I still feel called to the ministry of ordained elder! But for so many years, including most of my time in Oneida, going through the candidacy process and seeking ordination was the way I was answering God's call. Now, I'm ordained, and that part of answering my call is thankfully completed. But now what? I believe God is always calling us - and I'm struggling to discern God's purpose now, and how I respond to that. I'm struggling to balance what I want to do with what I think God might want me to do. What does ministry look like for me in the next 5 years, 10 years, 1 or 2 years? I feel like these are open-ended questions right now. I'm used to having a plan and answers, and I don't have many right now, and it is a position I'm not comfortable in. So, I'm discerning.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to more first with this congregation, like teaching my first class (here) of confirmands this fall. I'm enjoying the recent wave of baptisms - six this summer, I think. I'm excited to be working on the Lay Leadership Nominations Process and actually know who people are this year, and feeling like our team is really matching people and ministries in some creative ways. I'm excited about our fall worship focus, using themes from Bishop Schnase's Five Practices. I'm anxious to try and move forward together, try some new things together, and see where we end up.

Short and Sweet

I have been a pastor for five years today!

Beyond Day to Day: Visioning

Lately I've been struggling with what I expect is a typical pastoral dilemma. There are so many things I think about us doing together as a congregation long term, so many visions I have, so many things that float through my mind as possibilities for our direction together. We struggle with lots of typical issues, but we also have lots of potential for growth, discipleship, social change, etc...

But, when it comes down to it, I spend so much of my week just taking care of the 'regular business' of being a pastor. Writing a sermon. Preparing for the worship service. Leading the worship service. Meetings. Sunday School. Seasonal plans. Meetings. Statistical tables. Visitation. Meetings. District/Conference obligations. Planning baptisms, weddings, funerals. Even occasionally reading a great book about things I'd like to be doing in my congregation.

How do you move beyond the things that just have to get done every week to carve out time for thinking on a grander scheme? I relate to my brother's recent post about the plans we make with our time and what we actually end up doing, except without the cute kid to make my lack of action seem quite so valuable.

How do you make time for going beyond the day to day life of the church? Do you think it is necessary to have a 'bigger picture' plan in ministry? Maybe if what I was involved in doing day to day seemed more like really being in ministry, really responding to God's call on my life, and less, sometimes, like checking boxes of things to do that aren't essentially of critical importance, maybe then I would think living day to day was all we needed to do. After all, I'm pretty sure Jesus said something about not worrying about tomorrow so much.

On the other hand (and there is always the other hand, isn't there?) - this Lent we've been using songs from the musical The Lion King each week to talk about Jesus' journey to the cross. Up this week? "Hakuna Matata." "No worries." I find myself writing a sermon that contrasts the motto "hakuna matata" with a woman ready to receive living water. The characters in The Lion King use their claim of "no worries" to run away from responsibility. Jesus tells us in this passage, though, that true life-sustaining food is found in "do[ing] the will of [God] who sent me and [completing God's] work." Not worrying doesn't mean not doing either.

How do we find balance? How do you handle the day to day necessities of ministry (which, to clarify, can be extremely rewarding in themselves) with your hopes for the future?



*Image source: http://leejagers.wordpress.com/2006/06/04/what-me-worry/