Called to Ministry

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.

My entire life I have been moving towards and within the field of ordained ministry; into the pastoring field if you will. My identity as a person has been formed inside the church. For 23 years (19 years as a pastor and 4 as a seminary student) this identity has been centered specifically around my call to be a pastor. As I look back on the trail I have made I see that it meanders and wanders through the field. But I also see that the meandering has moved me across the field, away from where I was and towards something that lies beyond.

Fighting Loving Feeling Stealing

This week I’ve been writing about the tension between forging ahead with life and waiting for the right time and the right set of circumstances before moving forward. The impetus for this has been a spiritually torturous span of time where I have been trying to discern what the next chapter of my life will be. It’s not that I have to know all the details beforehand, it’s just that I want to be sure that I’m headed in the right direction.

To be honest, I’m not sure where I get the sense that there is one, right direction or why I want to be so sure that I am heading that way. If life is a gift to explore and enjoy then there really is no one way in which to do that. The fact that everyone experiences life differently is a testament to the idea that there is no one, right way. So why I am so concerned that I should know the right direction before I move?

One reason is that I am pretty sure that there are some wrong ways to explore and enjoy life. I want to avoid those ways because they tend to cause me pain and anxiety. I know that it’s not always possible to avoid these things and that wisdom and understanding often come from times of suffering. I also know that trying to avoid suffering often leads to more of it for myself or for others. Yet I go to great lengths to keep suffering at arm’s length from me and escape from it when I can't.

Yesterday, as I wrestled with these thoughts for the umpteenth time I was happily distracted by the news that my favorite band released a new single in preparation for the release of a new album in June. I watched the video and found myself connecting to it immediately which I don't usually do with their songs. The song played right into my thoughts about the way we go through life and learn from our joys and sorrows. It laments and celebrates the fullness of life. I have to share it.

Headlong Flight by Rush

All the journeys of this great adventure

It didn’t always feel that way

I wouldn’t trade them because I made them

The best I could and that’s enough to say

Some days were dark

I wish that I could live it all again

Some nights were bright

I wish that I could live it all again

All the highlights of that headlong flight

Holding on with all my might

To what I felt back then

I wish that I could live it all again

I have stroked the fire of the big steel wheels

Steered the airship right across the stars

I learned to fight

I learned to love

and learned to feel

Oh I wish that I could live it all again.

All the treasures, the gold and glory

It didn’t always feel that way

I don’t regret it

I’ll never forget it

I wouldn’t trade tomorrow for today

Some days were dark

I wish that I could live it all again

Some nights were bright

I wish that I could live it all again

I have stroked the fire of the big steel wheels

Steered the airship right across the stars

I learned to fight

I learned to love

and learned to steal

Oh I wish that I could live it all again.

The song is even more poignant when you realize that the man who wrote these words, Neil Peart, lost his 19 year-old daughter in a car accident and then, ten months later, lost his wife to cancer. To be able to write that you would live it all again is an incredible testimony to the power of life.

There is an African proverb that says that we back into the future. Perhaps by looking at where I’ve been I can more easily see where I am going. By exploring the paths that have brought me to the place in life that I inhabit now, maybe I can make sense of where I am and where I am going.

You’re welcome to come along if you like. Whether you do or don’t consider this video by one of the world’s greatest bands as my gift to you. (And if you want to contribute to a fund that will help me see them in concert in the fall, I will consider that your gift to me.)

Waiting & Suffering

Yesterday I wrote about blazing trails through life and about not waiting for a clearly outlined path to appear before moving forward. But there many places in the Bible that exhort us to “Wait upon the Lord.” (Job 14, Psalms 27, 33, 37, 38, 40, 119, 130, Isaiah 8, 26, 30, 64, Lamentations 3, and Romans 8 for a quick list) So what does that mean? When are we supposed to wait and when are we supposed to forge ahead?

In the English language we use the word “wait” in a few different ways. First, we use it to mean anticipation or a looking forward to some event. We wait for the light to turn green at an intersection. We wait for the food in the microwave to be heated. We can be doing other things while we wait but when we wait we are acknowledging that time has to pass before the event happens.

A second way we use the word “wait” is when we talk about predator and prey. An animal lies in wait for the prey to come close enough to attack. A mugger lies in wait for a victim to pass by. Still, there is a sense that time has to pass and certain conditions need to be met before the event happens.

The third way we use the “wait” in English is when we talk about serving tables. While there are places in the Bible that talk about waiting tables, the original Hebrew and Greek use different words to indicate this action. The passages that tell us to “wait upon the Lord” are not telling us to serve a meal to God.

Most of the passages in scripture that exhort us to “wait upon the Lord” are found in the wisdom literature (Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Lamentations). We also see it a few times in some of the prophets (Isaiah, Hosea and Micah). And in the New Testament it is fairly uncommon, appearing only in Romans 8 and Hebrews 6.

The exhortations to “wait upon the Lord” seem to serve as advice in situations in which a person or a community is ready to give up. On the verge of despair they are ready to give up any hope that their situation will get better. Every admonition to “wait upon the Lord” is an encouragement to hold on to hope and to keep looking for the way out of the suffering that God will provide.

But there is another thing that this exhortation does. It discourages me from seeking vengeance and blazing a trail for my own salvation. “Waiting upon the Lord” means that I will not become the one who lies in wait. It means that I refuse to become the predator or the perpetrator making those who oppress me into the prey or the victims.

One of the things that my wife and children have been good about keeping private is that I suffer from occasional bouts of road rage couple with Situational Tourette’s Syndrome (a self-diagnosed condition where I find myself using publicly inappropriate language to vent frustration due to external circumstances).  Sometimes I find myself frustrated beyond belief at being stuck in the lane that isn’t moving on the expressway. I envision pulling onto the shoulder and speeding forward with complete disregard to the safety of everyone on the road. I can also find myself on the verge of losing it when someone else is driving like a maniac, swerving in and out of traffic, tailgating and being a hazard to everyone on the road. Sometimes I catch myself driving like it's my responsibility to teach that person a lesson by blocking the road or giving them a taste of their own medicine.

Most of the time, however, I let such drivers go past while delivering a stern lecture to them from inside my vehicle. I call them names that I won't repeat here. This is a form of waiting. Certainly not the patient and calm waiting that I imagine that I am "supposed" to do, but it is a form of waiting nonetheless. I wait on the Lord to deliver me from this frustrating, anxiety producing experience. Once or twice I have had the pleasure of finding the idiot driver pulled over by the police farther up the road. Even though I had nothing to do with them being pulled over I feel vindicated and exultant. But even when they aren't punished for their actions I know that by waiting, the moment passed and I did not participate in making the situation worse.

When the Bible tells us to “wait upon the Lord” it’s almost always in connection to finding relief from suffering. (Admittedly, thinking that traffic delays and unsafe drivers are a form of suffering is relative but all suffering is relative to the person it affects.) Waiting is an admonition to avoid becoming a vigilante justice system to those who are responsible for my suffering. It is a reminder that I can actually endure more suffering than I ever want to go through. Waiting upon the Lord is a way to adjust my mental framework from within my suffering so that I can continue forward and not add to the suffering already in the world. Waiting is hoping and having faith that things will change.

Perhaps waiting is simply a way to be reminded that it’s not all up to me. Maybe the admonition to “wait upon the Lord” is to get me into the right frame of mind to watch for the signs that tell me the time is right to take action. What if “waiting on the Lord” is about moving us out of the anxiety and panic that comes with suffering and places us in a more reflective and reasonable state of mind so that we can clearly see the way out of our suffering when the time and conditions are right? Isn't that better than causing more suffering?

Blazing Trails

In my third through eighth grade years my family lived on a 40 acre farm in Michigan. We raised some chickens, occasionally some ducks and a pile of barn cats. My mom insisted on having a garden in which to torture her sons with the spirit-breaking task of pulling weeds 45 minutes a few days each summer while paying five cents for each ice cream bucket that we filled. That was the extent of our farming. Two fields were rented out to a neighbor who planted corn in them and there were two fields that had been hay fields for the previous owner. Since we didn’t raise livestock we let the grass grow tall in those fields.

We called these two unfenced hay fields of tall grass “the weeds” to distinguish them from the areas of cut grass around the house that we called the lawn. My brothers and I spent hours playing in the weeds every summer. There were no trails so we would blaze our own, carrying our bare arms at shoulder height so they wouldn’t be cut by the slicing blades of grass. Sometimes we would turn around and follow our new trail back out and sometimes we would make a new trail through to the other side of the field.

Standing on the edge of the field I could see where we had been. I don’t remember any of the trails ever being straight. Each one meandered and twisted through the tall grass. Sometimes they went around patches of nettles or around a rock but most of the time the crooked path was simply due to the fact that something inside us told us to step over this way or follow the slope of the land that way. Or, more likely, there was nothing inside of us that insisted that we travel a straight line.

 As a kid it would have made no sense to stand at the edge of the field and wait for a path to appear so that I knew where to go. I knew that playing in the field was fun and a large part of the fun was creating our own trails. We learned painful and irritating lessons about nettles and cockleburs by walking through them. We would be startled and excited by a noisy pheasant taking flight being flushed from its hiding place in the weeds. We would avoid the corner of the field where we could smell that a skunk den had been built. We were scared out of the field for days when a ground hog bull rushed its way past us low in the grass.

Had we stood on the side of the field waiting for a path to appear we would have missed all of this.

That’s the problem with waiting for God to reveal each new step in our lives. It completely ignores the fact that we learn through our experiences. It actually disengages us from the fullness of life that is given to us as a gift. But the biggest problem is that it immobilizes us with fear. When we wait to be absolutely sure of God’s next step for us we become anxious that we will miss it. We hesitate, afraid that it is too soon to move. We fret that we may have missed our opportunity and now it is too late.

The Plan

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

-Jeremiah 29:11

I believe that God does have a plan for us. However, it is not as specific as we sometimes wish that it would be. Instead, what if God’s plan for us is to set us free from fear (fear of harm, destruction, death etc…) so that we can live in the fullness of this life? What if God’s deepest desire isn’t to create a world full of obedient people but is to see the gift of this life experienced in all of its glory and tragedy? What if the point is to be blazing trails through the field of life instead of standing where we are in hopes that a straight and narrow trail with fences on both sides appears to lead us to the other side?

So then, if we are truly engaged and are blazing trails through this field of life, what does it mean to “wait upon the Lord?” What exactly are we waiting for?

A bit more about that tomorrow…

Two Kinds of Waiting

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

                                                                                                Psalm 27:14

A Confession

I hate waiting.

I know that’s not the kind of confession that makes for juicy gossip but it’s a confession that I don’t like to make. I like to think of myself as someone who is patient. After all, that’s one of the fruits of the Spirit right?

But to be patient means “to be long suffering.” Who wants to be long suffering? I don’t want to be suffering at all let alone suffering for a long time. I want relief from my suffering. I want to be saved from my suffering. And waiting is its own kind of suffering.

There are times when I don’t mind waiting so much. When I know that I’m waiting for something good I look forward to it with anticipation. If my wife tells me in the morning that she is planning on making a special meal for supper I don’t want to eat it for breakfast. I actually like to think about it during the day and anticipate how wonderful it’s going to be. Waiting makes it even better.

However, it doesn’t seem to work that way when I’m sick. When I have a cold or am stricken with the flu I know that I will gradually get healthy over time.  Thinking about being healthy and imagining the day when I won’t feel congested and tired only makes me more impatient to get over my illness.

The difference between these two types of waiting boils down to this: In the first example I am waiting for something that is a pure gift. My wife wants to make something special for me. If I refuse to wait and take the initiative to cook the meal myself I will ruin the gift. It just wouldn’t be the same as letting her do something nice for me.

In the example of waiting for my health to return I can actually take steps that will make it come sooner without ruining the end result. I can eat and drink in healthy ways and I can get extra rest instead of going full-speed through every day. In these ways I am an active participant in making the future that I eagerly wait for become a reality.

So What Am I Doing?

There are dozens of passages in the Bible that exhort us to “wait for the Lord.” What I want to know is which kind of waiting I am doing: The kind in which I simply look forward to the gift that is coming or the kind in which I take an active role in creating that hoped-for future?  

Throughout this week I want to explore the issues behind waiting. I think that some of them are directly related to the two ways of imagining heaven that I wrote about last week (Two Heavens: One Kingdom). I think some of the issues have to do with the way the predominant culture shapes us. Waiting also has to do with our desire to be in control and to take matters into our own hands. I imagine I will discover more issues as I write about them.

If there are issues related to waiting that you would like to see me address leave a comment or send an email to zukey.jones@gmail.com and put “waiting” in the subject line. I’ll see what I can do.

Two Heavens: One Kingdom

The current issue of Time magazine has a feature article by Jon Meacham about the evolving understanding of heaven in our culture. (I’m sorry that I can’t link directly to the article. You have to be a subscriber. Time/Warner hasn’t fully escaped the 20^th century yet.) It is a well-researched and written piece that summarizes the cultural trends in thinking about heaven. If you can get your hands on a copy I highly recommend taking time to read it.

Basically the change in the way we think about heaven can be summed up with two questions in a sidebar to the article: What if Christianity is not about enduring this sinful, fallen world in search of a reward of eternal rest? What if God brings together heaven and earth in a wholly new, wholly redeemed creation?

Yes. 

These are the questions that have been rattling around in my thoughts and prayers and sermons for the past few years. It’s a bit humbling to see it put so succinctly in an article printed in a major news magazine. But these questions lead to others and the lot of them have been causing some significant anxiety and stress within my mortal frame. Why? Because a faith that is built on enduring this world in the hopes of one day escaping to a safe reward feels a lot different than one where we are working together to bring God’s kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.”

I am coming to believe (and will write about this more in future posts) that this is not an issue of right and wrong. I firmly believe that it has to do with the culture changes happening around us. Both ways of imagining heaven encourage people to live altruistically in this life as a response to God’s goodness, grace and forgiveness. (Never mind that it isn’t always successful.) It’s just that the former way of imagining and talking about God’s kingdom (or heaven) isn’t connecting with people in the emerging culture. So if we want to continue to proclaim the gospel of God’s love then we need to reimagine heaven and find new ways of thinking about God’s kingdom that will connect.

The stress and anxiety come from a place inside that recognizes that there are wonderful, caring and loving people in my congregation that exist on both sides of this issue. Because the idea that Jesus brings heaven and earth together in a wholly redeemed creation is connecting with me I feel compelled to preach and teach in these terms. The scriptures are opening up in front of me in brilliant and exciting new ways as I revisit passages that I thought I understood before.

But I am also aware of the legacy that brought me to this point. And I am aware that there are many people who have spent a lifetime developing a faith based on the thought that heaven is a place we go after we die. It would be both wrong and arrogant for me to just write that off and say, “I’m sorry you committed your life to what turns out to be a mistaken notion of what this life is all about.”

So where do we go from here? Is it possible for a faith community/congregation make the transition from one concept of heaven to another? Or are we talking about two different ways of believing? Is there an even more basic core concept of what it means to be a Christian that unites us and will allow us to have two visions of God’s kingdom? Or are we destined to see an new expression of faith emerge similar to the way Christianity emerged from Judaism 2000 years ago?

Anyone interested in helping me think about this?

Time is Not on My Side

This is the tenth and final post in a series about ways that I have missed the mark as a pastor. It began as a response to several articles about why young adults are leaving the church. You can begin here if you want some background to this current article.

I get so overwhelmed by the programs, meetings and all of the minutiae of sustaining a congregation that I don’t have the creative energy to explore new ways of being the church together.

In the 20 years that I have been responsible for the worship practices of various congregations I have seen a dramatic increase in the amount of time that it takes to prepare for weekly worship. When I first started planning worship I helped lead two worship services every Sunday morning. Each week we followed one of two liturgies that were printed in our hymnal. The three or four hymns that we sang would be chosen by the pastor from several hundred available in the hymnal. The order of worship was printed in a weekly bulletin and a worshiper could follow the service by turning to the correct page in the hymnal. Both services on a given Sunday morning were identical with the exception of inserting a choir or a baptism at one service or the other.

Today I am responsible to plan, oversee and, at times, lead four unique worship services every week. Each one has its own special order of worship. At one we use an organist and traditional hymns but now rotate between six different liturgies. At two worship services our contemporary praise band leads the singing but each has a different order of worship. At the fourth service, on Wednesday evenings,  an acoustic music group provides a mix between the traditional and contemporary styles.

All this variety means that more time has to be spent planning. There are elements of worship that change each week but are used at all four worship times (prayers, scripture readings, dialogs etc…). These changes need to be prepared up to six weeks in advance so that the teams of people who now choose the music for each service can coordinate the music choices with the theme and message for the day.

This variety also means that we have to prepare five bulletins to help people follow the order of worship. One bulletin has all the community announcements and an outline of the orders of worship. It is given to those who come to worship. Then we have a separate “leader’s” bulletin for each of the four services with more details and cues for the musicians and worship leaders.

Instead of a hymnal we use a computer, a projector and a screen to put all the lyrics to songs and hymns, scripture readings and prayers in front of the congregation. All of these things need to be put into the special presentation software not once, but four different times; once for each service. And heaven forbid that we put these words up on plain backgrounds. Artwork needs to be found, purchased or designed to enhance the entire worship experience and tie in with the themes and messages of the week.

Using the projector and screen also means that when I preach I have to prepare pictures and words to put on the screen. To do that I spend time searching for pictures on the internet or modifying pictures with Photoshop and then create a graphic presentation to go along with my sermon. This has easily added two hours to my preparations each time I preach.

All this extra work has been created just for worship. It doesn’t include required duties like teaching confirmation, staff meetings, council meetings, committee meetings and fellowship events. Each of these also has a certain amount of prep time and follow-up time. All of these things are primarily about keeping the institutional church running.

It doesn’t leave a lot of time or creative energy to explore new ways of being the church. As a woodcarver and someone who likes to dabble in other artistic ventures I know the importance of having enough time to let thoughts and ideas percolate before a vision or idea can take shape in your head. The church used to leave room for pastors and leaders to do that kind of thinking and reflection. But the extra worship styles, the outreach programs and the need to fund them all have robbed church leaders of that time. The irony is that these things are started in an attempt to breathe new life into the church and welcome in new people. But again, is making more people members of the church the same as making disciples of Jesus? (See my earlier post in this series Recruiting for Christ).

Concluding Thoughts

Ultimately this leads me back to the place that I started from. Should I expect the church in its present form to be transformed to meet the needs of the emerging culture? Or is something new being born outside the traditional confines that we have called church? But as my spiritual director recently reminded me, the Church is bigger than the membership of every congregation and as a disciple of Jesus a person could be working for the Church even if they no longer worked within the church. Maybe so many young adults are leaving the institutional church, not because there is anything inherently wrong with it, but because they are being led by the Spirit to start what will become a new expression of the church.

The only thing I know for sure is that I wish I had more time to explore together what it all means.