I'm asked sometimes why I'm a pastor. It's a good question. Why choose ministry when there are so many other vocational choices, many of which have fewer hours or larger paychecks, and most of which make you less of an "odd duck" at social gatherings?
I'd guess that the reasons for entering ministry are as varied as ministers themselves, but with thanks to Caleb for the inspiration, here are my reasons.
(My ordination service - January 2011)
1. God Called Me
I used to hate this concept.
"What, did you get a phone call?" I remember asking someone once, skeptically. I was cynical about the idea of a call from God. It sounded grandiose, even. God didn't call people today like in biblical times. We aren't modern-day Moseses and Abrahams and Jeremiahs, after all.
Right?
Then I got my own call from God. Out of the blue. While I was in graduate school studying to become an English literature professor.
At the time, I wasn't even sure that women should be pastors. I grew up in a tradition that doesn't ordain women. I was on track for my dream vocation already, preparing to teach undergraduates the finer points of modern poetry. I didn't even know what was involved in training for ministry - more school? Internships?
Oh, and I wasn't currently attending a church that ordained women, either.
Let's just say there were some big hurdles in front of me. This going-in-to-ministry thing was SO not my idea.
Yet God called me, of all people. And, as someone who grew up studying Scripture, I knew from the stories of Jonah and Isaiah and Matthew and Peter that the only proper response to God when he calls is, "Here I am." So that's what I said. And now, years and a long winding road later, here I am.
2. I Love Jesus
From the day when I was five years old and I prayed to Jesus for the first time I can remember, I have loved Jesus. It's the deepest and truest thing about me.
Why wouldn't I want to tell people about him for a living?
3. I Love Scripture
The Bible is absolutely, profoundly, sacredly amazing. It is a great work of literature. It is a living book. It is a continually surprising, shocking, troubling and unsettling work. It has parts that are bothersome and parts that are hilarious. It has history, poetry, song, and story. It is filled to the brim with wisdom.
I rarely get tired of reading it, and when I do, I set it aside for a few days knowing that it will find me again.
For someone who wanted to be a literature professor, literature doesn't get much better than this.
(As Grusha in Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle, back in my theater days...)
4. I Am a Performer
Surprised to see this one on here? It might conjure up images of a charlatan or a televangelist, but this is not how I mean it.
I have always loved the theater. I majored in communication as an undergraduate and later taught public speaking as an adjunct professor for years. I participated in theater productions from high school through seminary. There is something about the written word well spoken that moves me to my toes.
The fact that I get to preach God's word week in and week out is one of the greatest privileges out there. I love it with all my heart.
And more than the most moving Shakespeare, the most hilarious Gilbert & Sullivan, and the most heart-wrenching Chekhov performed on stage, the Word of God performed with energy, creativity, imagination, and love, can pierce peoples' hearts and change their lives. If, by reading Scripture with feeling and preaching with vitality, one person comes to know the love of Christ for them, it is worth all the long hours and loving labor I put into a sermon. It is worth everything.
I have no illusion that it is my performance that reaches people - God's word is more than powerful enough to shine through a terrible delivery, and many famous preachers (Jonathan Edwards, for one) used to preach in monotones so as not to pull unduly on people's emotions. Yet in a culture with a short attention span, performance can help the truth get through. So perform I do.
5. People Invite Me In
Over and over again I get invited into people's most intimate moments. Wedding ceremonies. Funerals. Hospital rooms. Living rooms. Counseling sessions. Baptisms.
It is an incredible honor, and one that I don't take lightly.
6. Ministry is Important
The only job I ever quit I left because what I did day in and day out did not matter. It was a temp job involving lots of data entry, and my husband and I desperately needed the money, but I just couldn't do it. I had my first and last anxiety attacks during that job. It nearly broke me.
I'm the kind of person who is drawn to meaning. I've been a camp counselor, an adjunct professor, a chaplain, and a tutor. When I was a kid I wanted to be a veterinarian, and later an English teacher. I've always wanted to do something to help others. To make a difference. To help make people's lives better than they are.
At its most basic level, ministry provides services. Whether you believe in God or not, it's helpful to have someone to preside over a funeral. Someone to pray at the Baccalaureate. Someone to help counsel a family in crisis.
But on an even deeper one, ministry seeks to help people find answers to life's deepest questions. Why are we here? Is there a God? What does God want from me?
And for the questions that have no answers, ministry strives to help people live with those questions, knowing that God is present.
(This is not to say that I am important, just that ministry is!)
7. I am an Introvert
"Wait," you may be thinking, "shouldn't this be a reason for you NOT to be a pastor?"
Yup.
Yet I know that if I wasn't in ministry, I would not meet as many people, hear as many stories, learn as many things, or go as many places as I do. My vocation brings me out of my comfort zone every single day. It draws me out of my shell every single day.
And I am so grateful.
If I ended up as an English professor, I would spend a lot of time in an office, alone, with the door closed. I would read a lot. I would be very happy. But I would also be a little bit lonely, and my life would not be nearly as rich.
In fact, most pastors are introverts who have learned to function as extroverts. On a bad day, this can be really exhausting. But most days, it is incredibly rewarding.
On an average day, I spend very little time in my office. Instead I go to hospitals and nursing homes. I travel to our denominational offices in the city. I meet with congregants over coffee. I drive back and forth through the glorious green farmland of Wisconsin to visit people in their homes. I take part in community events. Sometimes I even get to work from home, typing sermons on my laptop while my little son crawls around and babbles. It is a rich, sweet, busy life, and I am grateful to work in a vocation that draws me out and into the world each and every day.
8. Constant Challenge
I am a person who hates to be bored. Ministry is not boring.
It's also ridiculously hard. The statistics on pastoral burnout are astonishing. Most pastors last only five years in a church, boundary issues abound, and denominations are beginning to create care programs for new pastors, who are usually those most in danger of burning out.
I like that it's hard. It should be hard. Most things worth doing are.
(He's thankful for the flexibility, too!)
9. Flexibility
When I worked as a chaplain intern at a hospital, one of my fellow interns was a woman with 15+ years experience as a pastor. She turned out to be a great chaplain, but the rigid hours made her crazy.
"I wanted to get my hair cut last week," she said, "and I had to go ask permission! Can you imagine?"
This didn't sound odd to me then, but it does now. Though the hours are long in ministry, there is tremendous flexibility. Many days I get to go home for lunch and snuggles with my eight-month old son. If I need to schedule a dentist appointment or a haircut during the middle of the day, I do. I can almost always work later into the evening to get my needed projects done.
During the nausea-bound months of early pregnancy, I often wrote typed up bulletins and brainstormed sermons between 2 and 4:00 in the morning. I was wide awake anyway, and it made for some good time with Jesus.
This makes the logistics of life in a dual-vocational home such as mine much, much easier.
10. I Love It!
As 1 Corinthians reminds us, "These three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."
I love what I do. I love my church. I love my congregation.
Some days I also hate what I do. It wears me out. On the very occasional really, really bad day, I think about what life could have been like if Jesus had never called me into this messy, unpredictable vocation. Once a year or so I even fantasize that I'm a moody English professor and I live down the end of a long dirt road.
But then I sit down with a grieving widow or get asked to baptize a new baby or hear that, against all odds, someone's life is starting to change because of Jesus, and I remember. I love this vocation. UCC Pastor Lillian Daniel calls pastoral ministry "an odd and wondrous calling," and it is.
The love of Christ is all over the vocation of ministry. It keeps me going. It fills me up. It reminds me of what it is all truly about. Not me. Him. Always him.
Now it's your turn. Why do you do what you do? Give me ten reasons, and I'll link to you!
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