night takes a deep breath - refining thoughts on my life's calling, part i
I turn twenty-five tomorrow.
There will be no waxing philosophical about a quarter-life crisis or the all too rapid passage of time. I feel that I have filled my quota of crises for the year. No need for a birthday to go crazy. Rather, I will share something that I am learning about myself. Since being unceremoniously dismissed from my last job in ministry, I have constantly questioned when and how , not "if", I will return to church work. Recently, I considered whether or not I was asking the right question.
You see, the truth is, in the past six years of doing ministry professionally, I have not had a single good experience. Don't mistake what I am saying, I have worked with amazing people and seen incredibly inspiring life-change happen. But if I was honest with myself, and I mean really honest, I have had very few (if any) moments where I found my job description at a church fit my talents, passions, and personal strengths with any satisfying accuracy.
Virtually every job posting I read for pastors mentions requirements like extroversion, an "entrepreneurial spirit," and other characteristics that sound like they've been copied and pasted right out of an issue of Fortune Small Business magazine. Yet, whenever I think that I am not ready to be a senior pastor yet, my first thought is always about how I do not know enough.
There are plenty of effective pastors who have the same amount of education or even less than I do, so it strikes me as kind of odd that lack of knowledge is always my first concern. This is especially strange when one considers that my lack of experience and/or proficiency in subjects such as entrepreneurship gives me very little trepidation at all.
When I began working as a Bible teacher at a Christian high school, I was even more confounded upon discovering that, though I abhorred the immature and juvenile antics of my thoroughly adolescent students, I enjoyed my job.
What about the call to ministry?, I thought. This could not have been right.
Virtually every job posting I read for pastors mentions requirements like extroversion, an "entrepreneurial spirit," and other characteristics that sound like they've been copied and pasted right out of an issue of Fortune Small Business magazine. Yet, whenever I think that I am not ready to be a senior pastor yet, my first thought is always about how I do not know enough.
There are plenty of effective pastors who have the same amount of education or even less than I do, so it strikes me as kind of odd that lack of knowledge is always my first concern. This is especially strange when one considers that my lack of experience and/or proficiency in subjects such as entrepreneurship gives me very little trepidation at all.
When I began working as a Bible teacher at a Christian high school, I was even more confounded upon discovering that, though I abhorred the immature and juvenile antics of my thoroughly adolescent students, I enjoyed my job.
What about the call to ministry?, I thought. This could not have been right.
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