In the church we like to talk about the way God “calls” each
of us to ministry but we don’t often talk about what that means or how we
discern the call. In the days ahead I want to share my experience of being “called”
and how that led me to where I am today and eventually where I end up in the
future.
The question comes from a middle school student in a large
group discussion at Bible camp: "How did you know you wanted to be a
pastor?"
Instantly a picture forms in my mind. I see the line of large
box elder trees to the south side of my family’s house near Fowler, Michigan. A
rope swing hangs from a limb in the tree closest to the road. A scrap-wood fort
is nailed among the sturdy branches of the tree farthest back. It’s the summer before my seventh-grade year
and I’m riding the old Wheel Horse mower across the front yard. I drive into the
shade under the canopy of braches and cross the two-rutted path that wraps
around three-quarters of the old farmhouse and connects to the gravel driveway
near the milk-shed. On the other side of the ruts the lawn continues for about
twelve feet and ends where we let the grass grow tall. It’s the one field on the 40-acre property
that is not defined by a barbed-wire fence. The dark-green tips of small
evergreen trees, planted in rows just a few years earlier, poke up above the
wavy grass.
"I don't know," I begin, "But I remember this
time when I was a kid mowing the lawn and I noticed something about the trees
and the short grass of the lawn and the tall grass in the field. I remember thinking
that what I noticed would make a great example for our pastor to use in a
sermon. It would help to explain what he was trying to teach us."
"What was it that you saw?" someone else in the
group wants to know.
I shake my head, "I don't remember exactly. I just
remember having the sudden realization that what I saw could be used to help
people understand more about God. I think I knew then that I would be a pastor
but I didn't admit it for a long time.”
The conversation moves on to another topic and I sit for a
time, half listening to the conversation around me and half thinking about that
day on the lawn mower. At the seminary I was asked about my call to ministry on
several occasions. It was a question I had to answer in my application essay. I
was asked to answer it again for the Candidacy Committee of my sponsoring synod
and again to faculty panels who were charged with determining my fitness for
ordained ministry. Never once in all those opportunities did I mention or even
think about that day on the lawn mower.
Now, when someone asks what led me to ordained ministry, I
retell this story of mowing the lawn and conclude it by saying that after that
moment, “I just knew.” In all honesty, though, it wasn’t as if the clouds parted that
summer day and a booming voice told me that I would be preaching in front of a
congregation someday. It’s my earliest
memory of a growing knowledge, that eventually became a certainty, that I was being led in a particular
direction.
Sometimes people talk about being on a path in life. There
have been many days when I wish the path was more clearly defined, days when I
have cried out to see what lies ahead of me. Reflecting back on where I have
been I realize that I have not been led down a path at all. It has been a
direction. It’s like walking through a field of tall grass. I can only see a
path when I turn around and see where I have been.
It’s funny that the image of a field is what comes to mind as
I describe my life’s journey. To a farmer with livestock a field of tall grass
is known as a pasture, a place for the animals to graze and be fed. The word pastor
is derived from the same word for pasture. A pastor is one who feeds the flock.
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