'Tidings' Article

As promised here is the 'Tidings' that Dan wrote. It was more aggressive but this was the final published form because it is more factual and defendable.

Callings

I believe that God regularly calls each of us to perform certain tasks. These may be individual acts of kindness or a vocation that dominates our entire lives. We often sense these callings dimly, as stirrings in our heart, bubbling up from the deepest parts of ourselves, that just seem “right” when we act upon them. Discovering their existence may take a second, and we are blessed by their rapid appearance, saving us from years of foundering about. They also may not emerge until we have logged many years on earth and endured many trials, and we are then blessed by their maturation, which grants us the ability to come to terms with the gift of our call. We look to those around us for guidance, often bypassing the necessary step of asking God himself about a call that came from him to begin with. I believe that God anticipates this foolish move by opening the eyes of those around us to the call that he has placed within us. We have all been surprised by a friend or family member who informs us of gifts that we may not even have yet realized ourselves. This is all to say that God often follows a rather circuitous route to guide us.

God rarely commands us to obey him, at least not in this New Testament era. He has granted us the gift of free will, and fully expects us to use it. The beauty of this system lies in the nature of our eventual compliance-actions performed with desire and passion are far more effective than those performed under duress and compulsion. We are more effective ministers when we want to be. The difficulty that God encounters is in informing us of his desires for us, without scaring us into compliance, thinking we mustn’t peeve our creator.

I believe, however, that God grants these calls as gifts not simply to the individual upon whom the call is bestowed, but also to the community of which they are a member. This call is meant to be lived out from within the context of the community. I must not only obey the voice of God as he directs my life to his service, I must witness to God’s call within me, sharing my struggles and triumphs along this path with those around me. In that way, we are all reminded of God’s plan for our lives, and may decide to open to the voice of God that moves in all of us. This is not to say that recognizing this call will be simple, or that we will not encounter any obstacles in our pursuit of his call. I believe that he rarely grants us the gift of speaking with us directly. Ironically, those granted this gift would most often prefer to return it. Either way, I believe that he only chooses to speak with us directly at those times that he truly wants us to understand and follow his wishes.

When I was nineteen years old, I believe that God spoke with me and asked me to serve him in his church as a minister. I had felt a calling bubbling in me for some time, and had been affirmed in that call from others. I chose not to acknowledge it, for fear of what it meant. I believe that one day, while I was alone studying, God came to me in my dorm room and spoke with me for several hours. While I was not touched by a coal, like Isaiah, or blinded, like Paul, I knew at that moment that I would not be truly content with my life if I were not serving him as a priest. I put away all of my interests in a political career, and began to come to terms with this call in my life.

It took some years to feel comfortable pursuing this call to its inevitable conclusion. I decided to place myself in full-time ministry to discover if I could live that life, which brought me to St. John’s and to my work here. All this time, I grew to understand how the prophet Jeremiah could describe his call as a raging fire burning deep within him, for every day I woke to that same burning. I knew that God desired me to take the next step.

This past August, I took a leap, and spoke with Fr. Bob about entering the process of discernment towards ordination as a priest in this Diocese. The Episcopal Church has over the years established a rather complicated process for ensuring that candidates are called forth from within their own communities, granting lay involvement in what had heretofore been controlled by clergy, sharing the gift of the call with the entire community. At every step along the way, the candidate is evaluated on a myriad of levels, most importantly whether God is truly calling them, whether they would be effective ministers in the church, and whether they should continue at that time or wait and gain the benefit of a different life situation, more experience or simply more age. The candidate first meets with their priest for at least four meetings, then with a committee of laypeople from the church community for at least six meetings. The committee presents its report to the Vestry, who then decide whether or not to endorse the candidate. If at least two-thirds of the Vestry, or here at St. John’s, eight members, decide to endorse, the candidate meets with the Bishop. The candidate is then presented to the Commission on Ministry, a committee of clergy and lay drawn from across the diocese charged with the same questions as the church committee. If the candidate is approved by the Commission, the Bishop will decide whether to send him or her to seminary and three years of intensive training. Only after that training is complete will the candidate be considered for ordination as a Deacon. After a year as a Deacon, the candidate is evaluated again, and only then will they be ordained as a Priest. In all, the process in this diocese takes at least six years.

This past year, I have shared my call with Fr. Bob, a committee of St. John’s members, and with the members of the Vestry. Fr. Bob, the committee and half of the members of the Vestry all endorsed my candidacy. The other half of the members of the Vestry did not endorse my candidacy, and I stand lacking the requisite eight members willing to endorse. I am now left with waking every day to a raging fire to serve the Lord that refuses to falter or flag. Yet, I am not certain how God desires me to proceed with this call that he has granted me, I continue to pray for God’s guidance, and I ask for your prayers as I discern God’s will for my life at this stage.

Peace,

Dan R.
Youth Minister/Christian Education Coordinator