Direction in Life

I have made a life decision.  I am going to become a pastor.  Following is the description of how I got to this point.  Please pray for me as I navigate the next stage of my life.  Thanks!

I was fifteen when I gave my life to Christ at the Lifelight Music Festival.  I was blessed in high school to have a group of friends who were also committed to their faith.  We were able to support each other and hold each other accountable.  I received my first calling my senior year but I cannot remember exactly how it happened.  I remember that we were signing up for job shadowing and the first thing I wrote down was “youth pastor.”  I don’t remember consciously thinking about it prior to that moment.

I went to college at the University of Sioux Falls and majored in Philosophy and Theology with a minor in English.  College was a fruitful time for me.  I loved being in the classroom, asking the difficult questions, working through the gray areas of my life and faith.  I spent a semester abroad in Oxford University studying philosophy of religion.  Needless to say, my passion became academic theology.  My professors helped to give me a voice – to express my beliefs and my faith.  They questioned me and asked me to defend my faith – so that they (and more importantly I) knew what it was that I believed and why.

During the summers I worked at Lake Poinsett Camp under Thom Bowsher for a year and then Steve Foss for four years.  I loved the balance that the camp provided in my life.  During the school year my head would be filled with theological concepts, church history dates, philosophical arguments, etc.  In the summers, I was able to witness the transformative work of God through camping ministry.  Not only that, I came away from camp with a group of close-knit friends who were committed to God as I was. 

I applied to seminaries with the goal of one day becoming a professor of theology.  I spent two years at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, MA.  My time at seminary taught me a lot about what it took to be an academic and to succeed in that field.  I found myself less and less enchanted with becoming a scholar.  I still wanted to be in a classroom to teach and help others to grow in their faith, but I did not like the self-promotion and competition the field required. 

During that time I also worked at a small UCC church as a secretary. The pastor of that church was a woman who had attended Gordon Conwell.  I learned so much from her about being a faithful servant to God.  She had received her calling to ministry later in life and in a denomination that was much more liberal than her own personal beliefs.  However, God called her and she obeyed.  I saw how the church rallied behind her.  People stepped up and took responsibility for their church – everything from taking care of the building, to inviting others to worship, and to taking their very young and inexperienced secretary out to lunch and the occasional Red Sox Game.  I absolutely fell in love with that church.

After graduating from seminary with a Master of Arts Degree in Theology, I returned to South Dakota.  Since I was unsure if I wanted to continue with my schooling, I decided to take some time off and work on reducing my school loan debt.  After a few months at home, I got a job at Central United Methodist Church in Milbank, SD as a full-time youth worker.  It was not something I had planned to do, but I trusted that God knew what he was doing. 

I have been at Central for two years now working with middle school and high school youth.  I have two youth groups, teach Sunday school, teach confirmation classes, and plan many trips and events.  In the summers I am blessed to return to Lake Poinsett Camp as a counselor for a variety of church camps.  I often remark to others that I found a job that doesn’t feel like a job.  Many kids ask me if I actually do work or just get paid to spend time with them.  Little do they know!  Many days I feel like I am being thrown into the deep end dealing with real struggles and tragedy.  However, I have been so blessed by these students and do not take it lightly when they invite me into their lives.  I am learning the value of just being there for someone – to listen, to love, and to point to God.

This summer I spent four weeks counseling at Lake Poinsett Camp as well as one more week on a mission trip.  Early in the summer I was asked to lead a worship service at the camp.  A group of us from Milbank participated in the service, but I had planned it and gave the message.  After the service, my parents came up to me.  My mother was crying, (which in all honesty is sort of normal when she hears me share a message) and said that she knew without a doubt I should become a pastor.  For years, my response to that has always been that I know God has a calling on my life, but I’m not going to be a pastor.  That day, the response wasn’t there.  I didn’t know what to make of that.  A few others also came up saying the same sort of things.  I pushed it all down as I had weeks of camp left and very little time to process what that might mean.

The last week of camp for me was Leadership Training Camp.  The theme for the week was God’s Calling and I almost couldn’t believe it.  Each night the message struck me so powerfully that by the time we reached the Silent Night I was a wreck.  I sat in the chapel and just cried.  I cried because it wasn’t my plan.  I cried because I had spent so long running away from what God wanted for me.  I cried because I was afraid of what I might give up if I agreed to pastoral ministry.  The last morning one of my students spoke about a mission trip to Haiti he had taken earlier that summer.  He talked about the missionaries who worked there.  They would wake up early in the morning and do physical labor in the heat and humidity in a country far away from everyone and everything they knew.  The student asked them why they did it and they said they did it because they knew God had called them there.  They were fulfilled because they were right where God wanted them to be.  Nothing else compared. 

It was that moment that I knew I would do it.  I knew what God was calling me to do.  I look back now and see how God has been preparing me for this all along.  He opened my eyes to a love for studying his Word in college, he opened my heart for his people at the church in MA, and he opened me up to doing ministry here in Milbank.  This was His plan all along – even if it was not mine.  I can see that now and am ready to be obedient to Him. 

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  Romans 8:28