I can't remember the first time I felt the urge to be a pastor but I know that I wasn't the first of my friends to feel it. Had I been the first I may have saved myself a few years of soul searching but things like that make us who we are.
I think that I felt I was called to work with the church at a young age but I brushed the assumption aside, deciding that it was probably a byproduct of how much of my life was centered around my church community. Although now I see my devoted nature to my church youth group a mix of my actual enthusiasm for attending worship and my good fortune of being best friends with two of the girls who I grew up with in the community at the time I decided that it was probably just coincidence.
'Just coincidence' would become my mantra for a few years. My biggest personal argument against my own inner voice (and more importantly, God's voice) became a factor after those two closest friends from church declared their own personal interest in being pastors when we were older. I think that they were freshman in high school and I was a sophomore. That's crazy, I though, you can't want to be a pastor when both of them want to be one. You're just giving into the power of suggestion. You spend year after year growing up and sharing your secrets, ideas and favorite snakes with these girls and now you think that you want to share careers. You don't really want to do this, you're just following the crowd. I assured myself that this was one profession where it was not a suitable idea to simply follow the crowd, and I was right because its not. But I was wrong about myself. I wasn't following the crowd, we were just on the same road.
The first person to ever call me out as a possible future pastor was Ed Wolf. I remember exactly what he said because what he told me was directed at not only me but my dear friend Ashlyn, who had been the first to confess her longing to become a pastor. “One of you girls has to go to seminary!” he said in his cheerful bellow, “I'd like for both of you to, but at least one.” I was around 16 and she was 15. We laughed it off, Ashlyn taking the comment more seriously than me. I kept with my cycle of doubt. Pastor Ed's comment would resurface on my mind occasionally but it would be a long time before I received another outward call. I had to struggle with my inward call first.
My senior year of high school, still extremely skeptical of my call I wrote my first ever sermon. It was for youth Sunday, and as a graduating senior I had been allowed the honor. This was it, was I going to enjoy writing this sermon? Was I going to hate it? What if I did hate it...what then? While I realize that the sermon certainly does not make the preacher my high school self put extreme emphases on the subject. Fortunately I loved it. I admit that I've not done it again since but I have written a few sermons for my own personal practice reasons. But form that moment I decided that this career, this mission, was worth some consideration.
When I went to Affirm for YAMI I was shocked to find out I was the only one who had signed up and relived to know that they were going to let me in. Matt Simkions would take me by surprise that summer. Without a single mention of the subject from me he jumped me with the question one day, “Have you ever considered being a pastor?” Um, well yeah, yeah I had. But I hadn't been called out on it in three or four years. I supposed I didn't show the eagerness of my piers and used it as another reason that I wasn't worth of the position. I didn't need to do this, I didn't look like I wanted to how could I really want to? I realize how dumb that sounds now but at the time it was pivotal to my argument.
But why shouldn't I? People come to me with their problems all the time. I'm excellent with confidentiality. Sick people don't freak me out and neither does inter-religious dialog. It had never been a question of whether or not it was worth doing it. It was a question of whether or not I was worthy of the job. It just took a dose of reality; I never will be. And that doesn't matter because that's where grace comes in. That's where the call comes from. Extraordinary things from extra-ordinary people.
Now I help Pastor Jack at my church at home and I meet up with Pastor Eric for coffee in Knoxville. I'm sure it sounds like I'm still just considering this but now I know this is what I want to do.
