Abiding > Calling

I currently have two houses listed, each of whom are being sold by friends of mine who are going through, or have recently gone through, a divorce.  They came to me because they can trust me, having confidence in our shared experience.  If I want to live a life in which I’m serving other people, these are the best moments for me, professionally speaking.  In fact, last year, I sold a house for a ministry colleague with whom I’d shared a similar ministry path.  When I met with him and his ex-wife-to-be, explaining how we could get the house sold and split the proceeds, he thanked me while blinking away tears.  He was grateful for my being able to help him what needed to be done and, most importantly, for being able to stand with him in all the hurt and shame of his divorce.

The flip side looks like the time I was leading a buyer couple into the basement of a nice home in a nice neighborhood and suddenly being hit by a wave of self-pity, “this isn’t what I signed up for, this isn’t why I went to college and seminary.”  It’s not, but it’s where I currently find myself.

As I asked in an earlier post, what happens to the “calling” I believe I had? 
Maybe that question needs to be turned inside-out.  What if I was never “called” into full-time ministry at all?  What if no one is “called” in that way?  I’ll admit, this is a new way of thinking for me, possibly a new way of sorting through the past 25 years.  The idea came from a sermon I recently heard, when I just so happened to be worshiping with my former church because the daughter of the above-mentioned friend was being baptized.  In the midst of a sermon on John 15:1-8, the “I am the vine, you are the branches.  Remain in me and you will produce much fruit” passage, Tim Keel had the following to say.

“How does God’s grace get worked out among us?  By abiding.  I read something from Oswald Chambers this week, who said the following, ‘A Christian worker is someone who perpetually looks in the face of God and then goes forth to talk to people.’  It’s not complex.  We get to know the one we love and it overflows into our lives…. Trees aren’t trying to produce fruit.  Fruit is the natural overflow, the byproduct of an organism in right relationship to its environment.  A tree’s not trying to make fruit happen, a tree can’t stop fruit from happening.  Fruit is the natural overflow of what a tree is created to do.  When we abide in Jesus, fruitfulness is the result of his life getting lived through us.

[In talking often to church leaders, I tell them] the most acceptable form of idolatry in the church is ministry.  People think you’re called to ministry.  You’re not.  You’re called to Jesus.  And to abide in Jesus.  And to help create communities of people who are abiding in Jesus.  Ministry is the overflow of a community that is learning together how to abide and remain in Jesus and to allow God to prune them, together, in their life in Jesus.”

Mind blown. 
Past and future possibly re-interpreted and re-imagined. 

It wasn’t just me, either.  Right after the benediction, I talked with several other members of the “former pastors club” who said that line also took them for a loop. 

It clearly happened.  I certainly served God in the capacity of a pastor for a season in my life.  It was good, rewarding and positive.  While there are certainly things I’d do differently, including some decisions and approaches that now make me cringe, I don’t regret having served in that capacity.

Back then, I had  a much more narrowly defined way of doing ministry.  Things are more wide-open now.  As I now, as then, stay connected to Jesus I'm making an intentional effort to be open to whatever opportunities come my way, opportunities that are almost certainly going to exist outside of any formal structure. 

For example, I was talking on the phone with the twice mentioned seller client and friend when I had the sense that I needed to pray with him.  After I’d finished, he informed me I’d made him cry (I guess I do that to people?) and that he’d needed the encouragement.  The next day, he thanked me yet again for praying for him. 

A similar thing happened just the other day, while helping with Free Hot Soup Johnson County.  After a friend of mine, who has dedicated so much of her life to serving the poor, homeless and addicted shared some struggles she was facing, I sent her a note to say I was praying for her and to remind her that her actions convey to others the love of Jesus. 

While there are some who need to do so, at this stage in my life, I don’t sense the need to hold any type of official church position.  I simply need to stay connected to Jesus and responsive to the opportunities that come my way.