It’s been nearly half a year since I’ve updated my blog. Some
of it was the madness which surrounds graduating from seminary. Some of it was
the emotional exhaustion of a summer unit of CPE (at a hospice no less!). Some of
it was feeling like I was not having adventures in far off places, so why
bother updating about my ho-hum boring life. Some of it was just plain
laziness.
But, as a friend of mine says regularly, it’s time to fish
or cut bait. It’s time to reinvigorate this blog, or close it down for good.
I think reinvigorating it (to some degree) would do my heart
and mind a bit of good. I’m in the middle of my first pastorate (without
actually being a pastor – it’s complicated), and need a space to just be. Just being doesn’t happen a whole lot when you’re running from a meeting
in a city an hour drive away, to a church council meeting, then to the local
nursing home. Just being takes a back
seat to the endless e-mails, mountain of administrative paperwork, and inevitable
arrival of Sunday morning (sermon finished or no).
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| I occasionally channel my inner Anglican |
In this slice of the interwebs, I did a lot of
adventure-telling, but also a lot of pondering, musing and being. Who am I, if I’m not “Student” or “Candidate”?
I’m the Reluctant Seminarian. Or, I was. Now, I’m the
Reluctant Pastor. This is a whole new identity with several new restrictions
and responsibilities that I couldn’t have imagined or prepared myself for.
You see, as the Reluctant Seminarian, I was firm in the
conviction that I was most certainly, under no circumstances, never, not ever going to serve as a Sunday morning
preacher. Maybe an Associate Pastor of Groovy Young Adults or Social Justice
Outreach who preaches when the Important Head Pastor is away, but certainly not
as the head, let alone only, pastor
of a church. No, no, no, I was training specifically for University chaplaincy
and Higher Ed ministry. It’s where I became a Christian after all, and it’s
where I feel most called (more on that later).
But, God has a funny way of doing things. Never mind that by
the time I graduated seminary I had served at three colleges (one of them in
England!). Never mind that I wanted to stay in a big city so I could continue
my involvement in interfaith relationship building and maybe meet a spouse that
shares similar religious/political leanings. Never mind that I’m still 3 Ordination
exams and 1 exegesis class away from being eligible for Ordination. Never mind
that I didn’t grow up in church and still occasionally feel like a foreigner
trying desperately to learn the language and customs.
Never mind it one bit.
God picked me up and plunked me down in Livingston, Alabama
(never heard of it? Me either) to be the “Interim Student Pastor” or “Temporary
Supply Pastor” or “Interim Temporary Supply” (this has been of some serious
debate) of the First Presbyterian Church (see them here).
How I got here is a wonderfully delightful story of
Methodist connectionism working to benefit a poor Presbyterian seminary graduate.
Suffice it to say: God moved people – some of whom had to be pushed rather
firmly – to a place where me and all my rule-bending exceptionalism could
pastor this small church. I still marvel that this church could see anything in
a mile-a-minute talker with practically no parish experience, but they asked
me, they fought to get approval from Presbytery (which itself was in a bit of
tumult with it’s now ex-Exec Presbyter), and they have supported me
whole-heartedly since my arrival in September. I still am amazed by the people
who put their faith in my – a not-yet- 27-year-old ministry novice who is still
shaky behind a pulpit – abilities to guide and shepherd them as they begin the
search process for a long-term call. And I still wonder at a God who has taken
me to these reluctant places again and again. I never know quite what is in
store!
There are many stories to tell. Like the time a Baptist lady,
upon discovering that I am unmarried, asked me if I fool around (I kid you
not). There’s much catching up to be done, like about moving to a village-hamlet that has only about 1% (you read that correctly) the population
of my former metropolitan home. But for now I will just be: the return of the
Reluctant Seminarian. Or perhaps the baptism by fire of the Reluctant Pastor.
Either way, here I am Lord.
