Since Easter, I have been ministering in this space of uncertainity and doubt, wondering if I heard correctly that I was supposed to step out into the unknown yet again. Sam and I are celebrating a new phase of life as he takes on a new position as Director of Marketing for a Columbia-based company and as we create ministrieslab, but this is not where I expected to be.
But this has held true for so many aspects of my life. I didn’t expect to teach overseas, I wished and I hoped, but I didn’t expect it. I didn’t expect to be a private school teacher, but I was and I met my partner in life, in parenting, and in ministry. I didn’t expect to change careers, especially after investing in an advanced degree in education. I didn’t expect to find a church that would call a female pastor because of the people who told me that churches weren’t ready. And I certainly didn’t expect to be experimenting with the future of the church through a pop up worship experience.
But more than anything I didn’t expect to be living a life without a long-range, color-coated plan like the ones I made every year before I started teaching. Each time I have been overcome with the wrestling of my call to ministry, I have been asked to step into the unknown. I have been asked to confront my need for a plan and my fear of not been successful. Each time I have followed that call into the unknown, I have discovered more about myself, including my privilege, my assumptions, my stereotypes, and my past. And each time, I have found a community of faith that supports and encourages me on the journey. Sometimes those words of encouragement are dreams that the person offering them could step into the unknown. Sometimes those words of encouragement are in the form of questions and intrigue.
I can’t find evidence in scripture that we get the whole plan and get to see before we believe, before we follow, but again and again we do find crazy God and Jesus followers who are stepping out, without knowing fully what they are stepping into.
So, I’ll keep packing communion elements and taking them to people who need to hear that they are loved, that they are valued, and that they are children of God welcomed to table fellowship with God as we worship the crazy journey that is following after Christ.