Greetings to those I’ve recently contacted regarding my search for a new call as a Presbyterian pastor. I’ve added a password and user name to my job blog. If you are interested in looking at my PIF (Presbyterian for resume) or listening to any of my sermons I invite you to email me at kevinwahe@comcast.net. If you are part of a church looking for a pastor or a Pastoral search committee and would like to pass my name along, feel free to contact me.
No wonder my kids and I get along so well…hehe.
Your results:
You are Spider-Man
|
You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.  |
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz
HT: Uthpastor
This next week will be one of the hardest weeks in my ministry as a pastor. I was hanging out with the little guy today at the store. Because of my pre-schoolers Christian school he attends, he learns lots of scripture, obviously paraphrased for a four year old. Ty was in the cart, starts reciting, "Whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God," from 1 Corinthians 10:31. I wanted to cry like a baby, because it’s true in ministry that all that we do should be to bring glory to God. How do you give God the glory when in the midst of transition? My prayer this week is that all that I do and say this week will give God the glory. Thank you T-bone for the reminder.
If you haven’t already figured it out, my faithful 7 or so readers, I’m in the process of searching for a new call as a pastor in the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. How I’d love to dump my feelings of sadness on this blog. I’d love to write about my experiences as a new pastor. I can think of several ideas of posts that I know would go a long way and would help in my healing process, but I can’t right now. I love the people dearly I’ve served and I know with confidence I served each one faithfully and proclaimed Christ with all of my heart. I’ve also learned a tremendous amount of stuff as a pastor, what to do and not do. How to love the people of God in spite of their "stuff." How to grow through my own "stuff." By God’s grace I will continue to grow in my call as a pastor and be who God has called me to be in serving his church and loving the people of God like Christ loved us. I will use my experiences gained in my "first call" to only improve in the way I lead and serve as a pastor. I also don’t regret coming to this wonderful church. I most certainly believe God works and moves as God pleases and I’m thankful for the blessings I’ve recieved. Three years of blessings! Praise be to God! I would enjoy your prayers. You can visit my "job" blog at www.kcwahe.com. I will be attending a New Church Development Conference in July to learn what it means to be an NCD pastor, which should be loads of fun.
Tod is about to do what most of us young pastors look forward to doing after they’ve been in one place for a period of time reaping the blessings of a blessed pastorate and/or going through the valleys of a lonely pastorate. He quotes this fellow and his philosophy for training to be a runner. I couldn’t help but catch the quote Tod makes reference to and how it sat with me this morning;
“Gentleman, take a primitive organism, any weak, pitiful organism. Make it lift or jump or run. Let it rest. What happens? A little miracle. It gets a little better. That’s all training is. Stress—recover—improve.”
I’ve had a hard couple of months in ministry, some valleys if you will, and I love the idea that any first call as a pastor serving in a church, is a time of training. It’s a time to run hard and to learn how to train in becoming the kind of pastor that seeks to be an equipper of saints and a messenger of God’s redemptive grace. The difficulty that comes with this kind of training for doing kingdom work is how do you truly recover from those valleys, those marathons of ministry? How do you rest knowing that if you don’t keep up, you’ll fall out of the race? How do you improve knowing that this is the kind of training that will only build the kind of strength and endurance a follower of Christ needs to have, doing the kind of work that draws the people of God into doing the work of the kingdom, making the people of God our mission and building community in a world the just plain out sucks sometimes? Okay. one huge long sentence…just some random thoughts on a much needed day off.
You know something. I’m convinced that there are times in ministry that feel a lot like a brick wall being torn down with a jack hammer. I guess I’ve always known this. Especially, serving in youth ministry for such a long time I’ve been on both sides of the fence when it comes to the joys and the valleys of ministry. Brick by brick. The jack hammer knocks away and each brick comes crumbling down into bits of rubble. Each brick, a reminder of a lesson or two learned, the "I should of’s," and the joys of loving God’s people just as they are in the midst of their own brokenness and in the midst of the rubble of their own lives.
I have to be honest though in that the jack hammers of ministry hurt and you wonder what in the world is the Lord teaching and doing as you crumble down to the ground in bits of pieces, hoping the Lord is already rebuilding your soul and plotting out the next phase of your ministry, to give you greater strength to be able to love Christ’s church and to do what truly matters when it comes to following Jesus.
All I care about as a pastor is to somehow make Christ come alive and to help the church become a place where people are its mission. How do you do this though when people are to busy and wrapped up in their own stuff about church? How do you prepare and equip the people of God to do the kind of ministry that should always be happening? Loving people as Christ loved them? It’s easy though as a pastor to just say to those in the church, "forget it." You can’t and won’t change. You have one way of doing ministry and I have another. I can’t help but think Paul had similar frustrations when it comes to peoples motives behind what they do in they way they share God’s love.
Doing what really matters in spite of lifes circumstances? How do you do teach this? How do you do this effectivly without falling to the ground in pain over the way the body of Christ acts and represents Christ’ love? How do you get past the rubble and with joy grab the people of God around you for the ride of all rides without the jack hammers of ministry knocking everything to the ground?
I’m not ready. Will I ever be ready for our sixth grader who will enter the land of seventh grade in just a few months? middle school? Tonight, was registration for our oldest son. I’ve already planned what I will be doing on the first day he attends middle school. I will have a lawn chair with an ice box of something and I will just sit. Wait. And wonder how in the world my boy got to seventh grade and will remember with utter joy the days he’d jump on me and want me to play with 24-7. Thank God my wife went and was there to help with registration. How do you transition from the land of kid to the land of Jr. high pre-teen?