Astronaut. Fighter pilot. Brain surgeon. Pro Beach volleyball player. Chef. Cicerone.
Just a short list of the things I thought I wanted to be when I “grew up”.
Twenty years ago if you had told me Pastor would be on that list I would have laughed in your face. Even ten years ago it would have been the most out there suggestion I had ever heard. Then God stepped in. There’s really no other way to say it; God showed up in the most tangible way and completely flipped my plans upside down.
Over the course of several months I had many close friends, some nearly total strangers and a handful of people in between tell me “you should be a pastor” or “have you thought of being a pastor?” Before I knew it I went from being a year and a half away from finishing a BS in Biology to spending the next ten years (and counting) studying Scripture and pursuing God like I never had before. For the first time in my life things made sense. I could feel God guiding my every step and informing my every decision.
There was no doubt that this was the path I was meant to be on. God even gave me the most amazing girlfriend, now my wife, who shared the same vision for our future. All the pieces were falling into place… However, by the end of my undergrad doubt began to set in and I started to think that maybe full-time formal ministry wasn’t for me. I started my master’s program at Fuller Seminary thinking I would go on to get a PhD and teach at a college or university. I would be in a position to positively influence so many young people’s lives, much like the professors at SJCC/WJU had done for me. A year and half of running a college ministry had left a somewhat sour taste in my mouth. I told myself that wasn’t the path for me and thought of some really great excuses for why teaching was the real destination that God had set before me. Now, I was on the right track. Right?
I realize now that God was just letting me figure things out for myself, I’m stubborn like that. Even as I was cruising down the MAT/BST highway at Fuller God kept on tugging at my heart. Friends, family, professors and even a pastor or two kept asking if I thought about being a pastor. “Sure” I would begin, “but… (insert laundry list of fabricated excuses).” That worked for a while, until I started to really hear the question that people were asking me, and began listening to my answer. I realized that all those really great reasons for not wanting to go into ministry were actually a list of things that God wanted to change in me; things that took time and a lot of grace.
A few years ago when Randy Rowland asked me if I had ever thought about getting an M.Div and pursuing ordination, I found myself saying, “Yes.” This fall I will be heading to Grand Rapids, Michigan for the first of six one-week intensives, one each semester, until I complete the Master of Divinity distance program though Calvin Seminary. So, while I will never be tall enough to play professional volleyball, and I may never to go medical school or join the military, “pastor” has made the list and it looks like it’s staying, along with a few others. Now, about that “growing-up” part.
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