If I Went Back (Introduction)

What would I do differently today if I were to go back into parish ministry? For no particular reason I asked myself that question the other week.

Three years ago I went on a leave of absence after 30 years in parish ministry. I have the good fortune of being a licensed alcohol and drug counselor and a licensed professional counselor which gives me some freedom to go out and earn my living in what I have come to decide is secular ministry. In other words, three years ago I finally listened to God’s call to do ministry outside the church where few pastors are able to go.

In these three years I have spent a great many hours thinking, praying, reading, and writing in my journal (and here on the blog) about the church. I have sat in church wondering what it is all about from this side of the pulpit. I have had a few opportunities to preach or lead communion and I asked myself as many questions as I could. I keep asking myself the question, “Why do I still care?” What is it about “church” that keeps me confounded and “interested?”

Friends have asked me “So, what have you learned about the church in this time?” But no one has asked me what I would do differently now if I went back into the parish. I have no idea whether that’s because they don’t expect me to go back or whether they just assume that if I did I would do the same things I always did.

Or, since I have always been the pioneer, early adopter, never-satisfied-with-the-status quo- radical-type, maybe they haven’t wanted to hear what I have to say.

Since being on leave of absence means that while I am not “officially” on the “call list,” I am open for call if one comes. Perhaps that's why the question did finally come to me a couple weeks ago. It was kind of out of the blue. I am not holding a call and I have no idea whether I will ever get one. But it is an interesting activity.

What would I do?

What I have learned?

What don't I miss?

What do I miss?

Over the next few weeks I am going to try to answers those questions here in this postmodern Pilgrim’s space, perhaps in a once a week post. I will take them in reverse order since that is the way I experienced them. I don’t know entirely what I will find as I put these thoughts on the virtual page. I have no bottom line.

Yet. Perhaps there isn’t one. Perhaps in the end it isn’t my decision anyway. I believe in the ability of God to call us to where we are supposed to be. I know I am where God wants me at this moment. Perhaps at this time in my life and the life of the Moravian Church, my ministry and insights are more useful in secular ministry. We'll see where God leads me in this.

More next week.

I ask that you pray for insight for me as I work on this. Pray simply that, in the words of the Eleventh Step of AA that I may find an improved “conscious contact with God, [as I pray simply] only for knowledge of his will… and the power to carry it out.”