What do you expect from your pastor?

A friend of mine posted this link recently and it got me thinking again about an issue I wrestled with in all my time as a pastor: meeting the expectations people have of you as their pastor. The article frames the discussion in terms of given hours in a work week but I've found it can also easily extend to other things like personality traits (Is he friendly enough? Is she a strong leader?).

At different times I've wanted to identify the problems in different ways. Sometimes it has taken the form of "People expect too much of pastors." That's true in a sense but it is also true that we should have high standards for those in ordained ministry. Other times I've thought of it as "People expect the wrong things of their pastor." There is probably truth in that statement as well but I think what this article helps to point out is that a lot of it has to do with the accumulation of expectations from a whole congregation of people. For one parishioner, the most important trait they look for in their pastor is that he or she be personable. For another, the pastor must be a prayer warrior. Others want a great preacher or a visionary leader. Its not that any of those desires are bad. It is just easy to see how expecting them all to be fulfilled by one person to everyone's liking is nothing short of impossible.

Of course, I think most people would recognize this in theory. The challenge is practicing it with your pastor. To be sure, there are unfortunate and painful instances when pastors really are failing to live up to their calling but, in my experience, many of the complaints I've heard about other pastors haven't fallen into that category. They often come down to differing expectations concerning the role of the pastor within the community of faith. I think it is actually good news that, scripturally and historically speaking, that role is actually fairly limited. That is to say, the pastor is not the foundation of the Church, it is not the pastor's job to "build" the Church, and the pastor is not the savior of a struggling church. In my opinion, the role of the pastor is nothing more and nothing less than to nurture the spiritual growth of those in his or her care. Surely this will take a variety of forms but that is essentially the pastor's role. If your pastor does this for you, be thankful. Anything else is just gravy.

It may be even more important and more challenging for the pastor to recognize and practice this reality for himself. I know that it was always a temptation for me to try to be everything that everyone wanted me to be and I suspect it is something with which most pastors wrestle at least occasionally. In this sense, the simple word "No" can be one of the most important words in a minister's vocabulary. While the pastor would do well to be aware of the expectations of those in her church, she will also do well to not always fulfill them. Given that we are finite human beings with limited time, energy, and resources, we can only say "Yes" to the things that really matter if we are able to say "No" to the things that are not the most important, even good things. Jesus knew how to say "No" the desires of the crowds and the religious leaders in order to say "Yes" to his Father's mission. Through long, arduous, and ongoing work, the minister of the gospel (and every disciple of Jesus, for that matter) must always be learning to do the same.

This idea always reminds me of the story of Mary and Martha in the Gospel of Luke. Martha is busy being hospitable, a good and important, even Christ-like activity. Jesus has just told a parable about the importance of loving and serving others in the previous story in Luke's Gospel. But when Martha complains because her sister is sitting at the feet of Jesus while she does all the work, Jesus responds "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things but Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her."

Whatever expectation others might have of us as pastors, our first task must always be to sit at the feet of Jesus, to delve deeper into the mystery of the Triune God, to nurture our relationship with our creator and redeemer. It is only by this that we will be of any help to others as they attempt to do the same.

The Allure of Jesus

Proverbs 8 extols the virtues of Wisdom; a proper noun deserving of its capital letter because in Proverbs Wisdom is not merely something people gain by learning or experience. It is not a mere character trait or personal attribute. Wisdom itself is personified as a woman who calls to the men of the city. She calls out on the heights, at the crossroads and at the city gates that she may be found. She is depicted as a kind of righteous temptress. She is one who is attractive and even aggressive in her appeal but who stands in contrast with the ways of Lady Folly whose appeal is skewed to the shallow and short-sighted. The allure of Woman Wisdom, on the other hand, is a seduction into the ways that lead to life and wholeness. The book of Proverbs could be characterized as an attempt to help us see past the the make-up and air brushing of a magazine cover kind of life to a less attention grabbing but more deeply alluring and fundamentally beautiful life with God.

As a part of that attempt, the writer of Proverbs describes Wisdom as being fundamental to God's work of creation. Proverbs 8:22, notorious for the ambiguity of its main verb, has Woman Wisdom say "The Lord possessed/established/created me at the beginning of his work." Although it is unclear whether Wisdom should be understood as one who has always existed alongside God, a creation of God, or an extension of God's own self, what is clear and seems to be the more important point of this and the verses that follow is that Wisdom was and is present in the foundations of creation. Proverbs describes Wisdom as being there from the very beginning of creation and also as being a key player in the work of creation itself. In v. 30, Wisdom says "I was beside him like a master workman." (As long as we are talking about magazine covers, perhaps this would be an appropriate alternative for envisioning Woman Wisdom as she is described in this verse.) Wisdom's fingerprints are left all over the created world because it is by her hands that it was built. Perhaps this is why she is both so readily available (her handiwork surrounds us and attests to her presence) and deeply alluring (she is woven into the very fabric of our own being).

The writers of the New Testament found this depiction of Woman Wisdom to be quite alluring as well - though for reasons that might surprise us. They found the character of Woman Wisdom to be a readily meaningful way to talk about Jesus. A thorough study of those connections is something that exceeds both my own knowledge and the space of this blog post but a few examples will suffice.

"But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."  -1 Corinthians 1:24

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things and in him all things hold together." - Colossians 1:15-17 (notice the similarities with Proverbs 8:15-16, 22-30)

What is even more significant, however, than any simple verbal parallel between Proverbs and the New Testament is the likeness to Jesus that the first Christians found in Wisdom as one who is both intimately connected to Yahweh but also somehow distinct. We've already seen how Wisdom is personified as being an entity somehow distinguishable from Yahweh though obviously also belonging to/being a part of Yahweh given Israel's strict monotheism. This lent itself as a perfect precedent for precisely what the early Christians believed about Jesus; that he was one who was somehow distinguishable from the one he called "Father" but that he was also a true and whole manifestation of Yahweh. This idea is reflected in the prologues of John and Hebrews:

"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God and the Word was with God." - John 1:1

"Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power." - Hebrews 1:1-3

 It is precisely these kinds of statements which push us toward the doctrine of the Trinity to which we give special attention on this upcoming Trinity Sunday. The doctrine of the Trinity arose because the Church needed a way to articulate who Jesus (and later, the Spirit) is; someone who is both God and along side God, someone who does things that only God can do but who is not the Father. As the Church sought for language to articulate this reality, they found Woman Wisdom to be readily available and alluring indeed for she captured quite well the reality that those first disciples had experienced in the person of Jesus.

Perhaps, like the authors of the New Testament, we can also come to a better understanding of who Jesus is by hearing his voice in the words of Woman Wisdom. Then we can see that when we encounter Jesus, we encounter one who was there at the creation of the world, whose fingerprints are all over us and the world around us because it is by his hands that we were made. It is for that reason that his beauty is attested by so much in our world, especially our fellow man and woman, so long as we will resist the temptation to air-brush and computer edit what does not fit our standard of beauty. It is also for that reason that when we truly behold the beauty of the life of Jesus; his mercy, compassion, and righteousness, we find it deeply alluring. In fact, we find it down right seductive because it resonates with the very core of who we are and what we long for the world to be. Jesus is not merely one who utters commandments to be obeyed. He is one with whom we are enraptured because he lives life in all the ways we've hoped it could be lived. And this is the way it should be because this is who he created us to be - to be like him. At every turn - on the heights, at the crossroads, at the city gate - Jesus is calling us to come to him and to find in him the source and satisfaction of our deepest and most pervasive longings. This is one seduction we do well not to deny.

Peopled Grace: An Open Letter to Clinton First Church of the Nazarene

My brothers and sisters in Christ,

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism and our theological forefather, spoke and wrote often about the means of grace. When Wesley referred to the means of grace, he was talking about things like prayer, scripture reading, communion, and preaching. These are a few examples of some means by which God’s grace comes to us. That is, they are places where God has promised to meet us over and over again. They are regular conduits of his healing mercy. Even if “means of grace” is not terminology you find familiar, most of these practices are familiar ones if you’ve been around the Church for very long. We engage in these practices so that the Holy Spirit may use them to shape us into the likeness of Christ.

There is one means of grace that has become particularly important to me over the last several years even though it may not be one we typically consider alongside of things like prayer and scripture: other people. I’ve come to realize just what a gift from God other people are for shaping us into the likeness of Christ. Other people can obviously serve as friends and people of encouragement and support but they can also serve as a kind of mirror to our own incompleteness. They may do this directly in their words or their actions toward us but more often it is simply by being who they are. Simply by being “other,” by being something other than I am, others can remind me of the vast array of what it means to be human and therefore also remind me of what it means to be whole in Christ.

I’ve experienced this in a number of ways in my life. I’ve experienced it in parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles who have shown me godly love. I’ve come to know it in a wife whose loving presence has rescued me from a solitary life that would come all too naturally to me. I’ve come to know it in children whose constant desire for my presence is a constant reminder that I need to truly be present with those around me. I’ve experienced it in professors and mentors who have deepened and enriched my faith. I’ve experienced in strangers, mere acquaintances, and new friends every time they force me to see life from a perspective other than the one to which I’ve become accustomed. But neither is it merely a matter of my own personal experience. I think it is of the greatest significance that when God wanted to reveal God’s character to us in its fullest and deepest sense that revelation came not in the form of law or prophetic utterance but in the form of a person; namely, Jesus.

                                                                                                               

Over the past six years, I’ve also come to experience this same truth and grace through the community of people among whom I’ve had the privilege of fulfilling the role of  pastor. For the last several weeks, as I’ve reflected on my time here in Clinton, I have been reminded of the many things about ministering here for which I am thankful; the many years of faithfulness by so many, the willingness to serve others, and the hospitality and care you have shown to my family and I. But there is one thing for which I am grateful above everything else; that you have helped to shape me into a person who is a little more like Jesus than the person who became your pastor six years ago. It is perhaps obvious that the role of the pastor is to be an instrument by which a congregations is urged to be more like Christ. What may be less obvious is that a congregation can also shape the pastor to be more like Christ. Clinton First Church of the Nazarene has done that for me. You have been a means of God’s grace in my life. By allowing me to be your pastor, with all of my weaknesses and incompleteness, you have made me a more whole person and a more faithful follower of Jesus. What greater gift could you have given me than that? Thank you for being a gift of God and a means of God’s grace in my life. 

Ends of the Earth

"Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"

Acts 1:6 is the only place where it is recorded in scripture that Jesus' disciples asked this question but I have to imagine it was one that was on their minds frequently. They had seen Jesus' miraculous power and they hailed him as Messiah and savior. They're expectation was that Jesus was the one who would usher in God's reign in Israel and over all the nations. I imagine that when Jesus made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem at the time of Passover and all the people are shouting "Hosanna!" and Jesus begins to make his way to the temple the disciples must have been thinking "Is this it? Is Jesus finally going to begin the rebellion?" Instead, Jesus is crucified just days later and we hear the disappointment in the disciples who walk the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus as they say "We had hoped that he was the one who would redeem Israel."

Now the disciples encounter with the resurrected Jesus has restored their hope; namely, that hope that God's kingdom would be established. Not only is Jesus alive again but here, in the opening of Acts, he begins to speak about the promise of the Holy Spirit. If the prophecy of Joel is any indication, it is likely that the gift of the Spirit is something that the disciples would have associated with the establishment of God's reign. So its natural with Jesus now resurrected and promising that the gift of the Spirit is near that this same question would be on their minds once again: has the time finally come for the kingdom to be restored to Israel?.

Its not only those first disciples who seem to be preoccupied with that question. There are plenty of disciples today who seem to spend enormous amounts of time and energy on the same question - whole segments of Christianity with the newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other trying to discern whether the end is near. To them and to us, Jesus very plainly says "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority." It doesn't get much plainer that that.

Jesus also goes on to say "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth." Jesus is not merely turning their attention away from speculating about chronology. He is also turning their attention to  mission. The focus of the disciples is not to be on the end of the world but the ends of the earth.

Immediately after commissioning the disciples on this mission, Jesus does an unexpected thing - at least I imagine it must have been a surprise to his disciples - he leaves! The disciples are just getting geared up to follow Jesus wherever he leads, even to the ends of the earth, and then he is out of sight. As their leader, teacher, and friend ascends into heaven two men appear and essentially say "Why are you staring into the sky. He'll be back." And the implication seems to be "But in the meantime you have more important things to do than stand around watch for his return. There is an urgent mission at hand."

It strikes me as remarkable that Jesus leaves in order to get this mission underway. Shouldn't Jesus be the one leading the mission? Shouldn't he be our general, our CEO, making sure we get it right? Isn't this an abdication of leadership on Jesus' part? Jesus has given us this remarkable mission, one to the ends of the earth, and he expects us to carry out with his Holy Spirit empowering us to do so. To me, that speaks volumes as to how much responsibility God has put in our hands. Jesus has entrusted this kingdom mission to us with all our fragility and failures and he expects us to be able to carry it out so long as we wait upon his Spirit to empower us for it.

Common Conversion

The story of Lydia's conversion in Acts 16:9-15 actually includes a number of parallels to the story of Cornelius' conversion which I preached about last week. Just as Peter's journey toward Cornelius began with a vision, Paul makes his way to Philippi, where he meets Lydia, because of a vision. Like Cornelius, it seems likely that Lydia is a gentile but one whom Luke describes as being a worshiper of God much as he described Cornelius as being God-fearing and devout. Like Cornelius, Lydia is the head of a household that is converted along with her. Lydia also offers hospitality to Paul and his traveling companions after her baptism, just as Cornelius did for Peter. But for all that commonality, there is one glaring difference: Lydia's story is really plain and uninteresting!

Luke's telling of Lydia's story is just downright commonplace. Think of the dramatic gift of the Spirit to Cornelius' household. Consider the controversy that followed when Peter returned to Jerusalem. There is none of that in Lydia's story. And it is not for lack of opportunity for such controversy. Could Luke not have made a bigger deal out of the fact that Paul's first convert in this city was a woman who was the head of her own household (and perhaps even the head of her own business)? Such a woman would have been an anomaly in the ancient world to say the least. Surely there should have been some controversial discussion about whether or not the Spirit could really work in this way just as there had been with Cornelius' conversion. But Lydia isn't even the most discussed woman in this chapter! Immediately following on the heels of Lydia's story is the story of a slave girl who has an evil spirit that causes her to proclaim to anyone who will listen that Paul and his companions are servants of the Most High God. Paul casts out that spirit which leads to them being thrown in prison. The dramatic story of their release from prison by an earthquake follows, as does the conversion of their jailer and his whole household. By comparison, Lydia's story seems plain and ordinary.

In fact, one would be hard pressed to think of a less interesting story in the entirety of the Acts of the Apostles. In a book filled with miracles, dramatic conversions, exorcisms, riots, imprisonments, conflict, and shipwrecks, Lydia's story actually stands out for all of its plainness. Its unexceptional quality is the exception. Yet Luke still finds her story important enough to include in his account of the early church.

We love stories of dramatic conversion; the addict, the criminal, the hopelessly lost now found. And with good reason. They are exciting and it is encouraging to see how drastically God can change someone's life. We love these stories at least in part because they are the exception to what it otherwise often very predictable human behavior. But I think Luke's conservative and restrained telling of Lydia's story reminds us that just because the story of an encounter with Jesus isn't dramatic doesn't mean it isn't a story worth telling.

Lydia's story is a simple one. The Spirit opened her heart to the word Paul was sharing, she responded by being baptized, and then demonstrated faithfulness in that response by offering hospitality. This is the story of so many Christians. In many ways, it is my own story. There is even an argument to be made that it is the story on which the church at Philippi, possibly Paul's most faithful congregation (if his letter to them is any indication), is built. Given that Lydia was Paul's first convert in Philippi and that she was able to offer hospitality to him and his companions, there is a decent chance that she hosted the church at Philippi in her home. There is a decent chance that her leadership in that church was the very reason why Luke included her in Acts. In that case, her very simple story would be one of faithfulness begetting faithfulness. Such is the story into which we are called to live as the Church.

Scandalous Spirit

What Peter is suggesting in Acts 11.... actually, what he has already done and is now suggesting the rest of the Church should accept is nothing short of scandalous. We see as much in v. 2 when Peter arrives in Jerusalem and some of the believers there begin to criticize him saying "You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them."

Why is this a point of criticism? God had called Israel to be holy and much of that holiness had to do with being separate and recognizably distinct from other nations. Israel did that by keeping God's law but in the first century three points in particular had become important identity markers for the people of Israel: circumcision, Sabbath observance, and food laws. These served to separate Jew from Gentile, the holy from the common. Food laws, in particular, had a very divisive social impact since they not only prohibited one from eating unclean foods but also from eating with those who ate unclean foods.

So when Peter not only goes to the house of an uncircumcised man but also stays with him for several days (Acts 10:48), it is not a minor infraction. Peter has done something that most faithful first century Jews would see as violating the very essence of what it means to be a faithful Jew. Peter has undercut Israel's covenant with God. Thus the very serious accusation against Peter in v.2.

Peter responds to this accusation by speaking of the Spirit's leading. He tells them how he was in the city of Joppa praying when he fell into a trance. In that trance he saw a vision in which a sheet was lowered from heaven with all kinds of animals that were considered unclean by Jewish law and a voice from heaven said "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat." Peter responded as any faithful Jew would saying "Certainly not, Lord. I have never eaten anything unclean." But the voice responded from heaven, "What God has called clean, do not call common."

At the same time, some men showed up from Cornelius' house looking for Peter. Cornelius was a Roman centurion. Luke describes him as a devout man who feared God and gave to the poor but he was a gentile, nonetheless. Peter went with the men who had come for him to Cornelius' house. Upon arriving at Cornelius' house and hearing how Cornelius had been directed by an angel to send for him, Peter realized that this was the fulfilling of the vision he had seen. Since Cornelius and his household were gentiles, Peter would have considered Cornelius and his household to be unclean just like the animals he had seen in his vision. However, he now recognized that God was declaring them clean so Peter began to preach the gospel to them. Before Peter could even finish his sermon, the Holy Spirit filled these gentiles just as the Spirit had filled Jesus' Jewish disciples at Pentecost. Peter sums up the story by saying "If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in our Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?"

Like so many of Jesus' actions, its hard for us to grasp just how radical this movement of the Spirit is in this story. After 2000 years of predominantly gentile Christianity, it is all too easy for us to forget that Jesus was Jewish, his message was Jewish, and all of his first disciples were Jewish. This was a Jewish movement for the Jewish people. Perhaps those first disciples envisioned that a few God-fearing gentiles like Cornelius might join in but in order to do so they would have to become Jewish. That is, they would have to be circumcised, observe the Sabbath, and avoid unclean foods. God had called Israel to these holy practices and there was absolutely no reason to think that God would expect anything different.

At least not until God's own Spirit did something different. When Peter preached to Cornelius and his household, God didn't wait to give the gift of the Holy Spirit until those present were circumcised. The Spirit filled them even as they continued to be gentiles. The Spirit of God acted in a completely new and completely unexpected way. And Peter says, "Who was I to stand in the way?" And those who had accused Peter "...fell silent. And they glorified God, saying 'Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.'" These first followers of Jesus knew that what had happened was strange and unexpected. It went against some of their most central convictions about what they believed it meant to be God's people. Yet they couldn't deny that God's own Spirit had acted and they knew that was more important than any law or expectation they had. They allowed the Holy Spirit, not their own expectations of what was holy and unholy, to rule the Church.

Doesn't a story like this make you wonder what the Spirit wants to do among the Church today? We have so many notions about what church is, how it should work and what it should look like. Do you ever think that maybe the Holy Spirit wants to do something completely new? Maybe even something that cuts to the very heart of our convictions about what it means to be Christians? Something that would shock us? We Nazarenes, especially, have a lot of ideas about what it means to be holy and unholy. Could God being saying to us "What God has made clean, do not call unclean"?

I suspect there are a number of households like Cornelius' in our community. Ones that don't conform to our notions of holiness but where there are God fearing people among whom the Spirit of God is already working and they only need someone who will see and acknowledge that work in them. The question for us is whether we will be blinded by what we expect God to do or whether we will see what God is, in fact, doing.

Annual Report 2013

My brothers and sisters in Christ,

            Our reading from Hebrews this morning says that it was “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.” This verse characterizes so much of Abraham’s story. The story of Abraham is the story of a journey with God; a story of following God’s leading; trusting that God knows the way even when Abraham does not.

            Abraham’s story resonates with me tremendously because my own spiritual life has become such a journey. I have come to believe very strongly in the very simple idea that the Spirit is leading so long as I am willing to follow. That leading of the Spirit has taken me on a journey around the eastern half of our country; first from Virginia to Boston and then to Kansas City. It is that same leading which brought us here to Clinton. For 6 years, our respective journey’s, yours and my family’s, have coincided. It has truly been a blessing to walk this path with all of you for the last six years and so it is with sadness but also with trust in the Spirit’s leading that I announce to you this morning that the time for our paths to diverge has come near.

            I was recently informed that I was accepted into Boston University’s Doctor of Theology program in New Testament studies. As a result, our journey will be taking us back to the Boston area and we will be leaving Clinton some time this summer. I want to tell you a little bit about how God has led me to this point but before I do there are a few things I want you to know.

First, I want you to know how thankful I am to have been your pastor over these last six years. I feel like calling it a blessing isn’t really adequate to describe just how grateful I am to have been your pastor and how appreciative I am of the way you have cared for my family in the time that we have been here. Being your pastor has changed me. It has made me a more complete person and a more faithful follower of Jesus and for that I am eternally grateful. I will never forget that you took a chance on a 25 year old fresh out of seminary with no pastoral experience and that you were patient with me as I learned my way and discovered my own pastoral identity. You have had a tremendously significant role in the formation of that identity. Your influence on me in my time here is something that will remain with me for the rest of my life.

Second, it is important to me that you know how deeply I have been committed to you. I want you to know in all the time that I have been here that I’ve never considered leaving for another church, never sent out a resume, never looked to see what else was available. I have been dedicated to being your pastor. Jess and I have always felt that it was the Spirit of God who led us here, not mere chance. We believe that same Spirit is now leading us once again.

Along those same lines, it is extremely important to me that you know that my time as your pastor was not a means to some other end. I know that pastors, myself included, are not immune to ambition and that sometimes pastors can use churches as a stepping stone to something else; a bigger church, a higher position of leadership, or whatever the case may be. Some of you have even indicated to me personally over the last several years, in the most gracious and complementary of ways, that you expected great things for me and that those things would one day lead me away from here. I imagine even now, as I am announcing to you that I will be pursuing a doctoral degree, that it may have the appearance of going on to “bigger and better things.” I want you to know that is not how I see it. I won’t deny that this is something I’ve desired for a long time and I also won’t claim that God told me this is what I had to do. I believe very strongly that God has opened this door for me but I also believe it is my decision to walk through that door. However, I will say with great confidence that my criteria for making this decision has always been about whether or not this was the best way for me to serve Christ and His kingdom. A number of things have happened over the last year which have convinced me that it is. But I want you to know that it is not as if I knew this is where I was headed all along. My time as your pastor has not been a stop on the way to something else. I have thrown myself as fully as I know how into being your pastor, given it everything I have known to give it, given you all of myself I knew how to give in the time I’ve been here. Far from being a mere stepping stone, I have regarded you as partners and co-travelers on this journey together for the last 6 years as we have sought to follow Jesus together.

With that in mind, let me share with you my own testimony this morning of how the Spirit of God has been leading me lately. As I said before, whether or not to pursue a doctorate in New Testament studies is something with which I’ve wrestled for a number of years. Ever since college, I’ve had a number of professors tell me they thought I was capable of such work and I always thought it was something I would enjoy. However, given the immense amount of time, energy, and resources it takes to complete such study, I wanted to be as certain as possible that this was my place in God’s kingdom. So even as I continued to pray and think about it, I committed myself to the task to which I knew God had called me; being your pastor.

Some of you may remember that in the fall of 2011 I went back to Kansas City for two weeks to take a class at seminary. It was around this time that I was finally beginning to give up on the idea of a doctorate. I was beginning to feel like I had been out of school too long and that the path back would be too difficult. While I was in Kansas City for that class, I spoke with one of my former professors who I knew would give me his honest opinion about whether or not this was something I should pursue. We had a lengthy conversation but what I remember most about that conversation was a sense of urgency.  My former professor reiterated to me that he was confident I had the ability to complete doctoral studies but he felt that it was important I do so sooner rather than later.  At the time, I felt that meant the decision was made; that the door was indeed closed.  I simply wasn't at a place where I was ready to leave our church. It felt as if this long-wrestled-with-decision had finally been made.

In the midst of those autumn months, in this time when I had basically given up the idea of doctoral work, I received a phone call.  It was on Halloween night of all nights and it was our District Superintendent, James Spruce.  Dr. Spruce had mentioned to me before that he thought I should keep further study open as an option and he began to reiterate that sentiment as a part of this conversation.  At first, I thought this was simply a passing comment as he was making his way onto his "real reason" for calling but I eventually realized this was the reason.  Right in this time when I thought this door was finally closed, here was my District Superintendent, who knew nothing of what I have mentioned above, calling me on a random week night to say nothing other than that it was not time for that door to close.  

This caught my attention.  It was very much like my call to ministry.  This was someone speaking directly to what I was wrestling with even though they didn't know that I was wrestling with it much as others had said to me "Have you ever thought about being a pastor?" when they had no idea that was exactly what I had been thinking about for months.

I started praying about it... a lot.  I couldn't stop thinking and praying about it...again, much like my call to ministry had completely consumed my thoughts and prayers.  And the more I prayed and thought about it the more I felt like this was the direction the Spirit was leading. I started to see my conversation with my former professor differently.  Whereas I had seen it as a "No" now I saw it as a "Hurry up and get on with it." Since that time, there have been so many little confirmations along the way. The most significant of those confirmations came just last week when I not only found that I had been accepted into Boston University’s School of Theology but that the scholarships they would be providing were far more than I had anticipated or even imagined was possible.

Last Sunday, so many of you shared how God has been faithful to you. This is my testimony to you this morning concerning God’s faithfulness. I’ve said often that when I look back over the course of my life I am nothing short of astounded at where God has brought me. I marvel at how God has taken an often shy and timid kid and made him the husband of an exceptional woman, the father of three amazing children, and the pastor of a congregation of such wonderful and faithful people.. It is far more than I could ever deserve or even have imagined. And now God is providing and promising anew. Overwhelmed is one of the few words that even approaches adequately describing how I feel.

It is for that reason that I have complete confidence that God will also remain faithful to this church; to all of you. God’s love and faithfulness is already being demonstrated in and through so many of you and I know that it will continue to be. Sunday after Sunday for nearly 6 years now, we have proclaimed together that “We are called to be a community that is a faithful image of God’s love” and I say “Thanks be to God” because there are so many ways that calling is becoming a reality among us. I believe the future of this church will be brighter than its past so long as you continue to dedicate yourselves to that calling.

In fact, I believe that the words of the prophet Haggai that we heard in our time of worship together just a few months ago are appropriate for a time such as this. “Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all the nations, so that the treasures of all the nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’”

Finally, I want to say this morning that although the day will soon be here when I will no longer be your pastor, I hope that doesn’t mean we can no longer be friends. I hope that you will give Jess or I a call from time to time or send an e-mail to let us know how God is continuing to build his kingdom among you here in Clinton. I trust that you will get on facebook to see pictures of our children as they continue to grow. Most of all, I hope that you will pray for us fervently for years to come as we will for you. The path ahead for my family and I will not be an easy one. We will covet your prayers just as we have in the time that we have been here.

It has been such a gift from God to me to be your pastor and I know that it will be just as much a gift to continue to be your friend. May the Lord bless you and keep you and cause His face to shine upon as you serve him faithfully for many years to come.