The Call (LCP: long, church-related post warning)

Over the next few months, as part of my continuing journey to ordination in the United Methodist Church, I will be asked over and over to explain, reflect, define my call to ministry.

My call has a spiritual aspect and a practical one that comes from growing up in a pastor's house. By spiritual call, I'm not one of those people who has heard God's voice in the back of his head (like, oh i don't know, telling the people that God wanted me to be president.) I don't deny some people's audial experience of God, it just didn't happen to me.

When I was 17 years old, my youth group at Schweitzer United Methodist Church in Springfield, MO, went on a fall retreat. We went to Camp Wilderness, or Wilderness Camp, a UMC sponsered camp in southern MO. During this retreat, during one of the private reflection and prayer times, I went out by the lake and sat down. I found myself asking the question, do you want me to be a minister? I couldn't think of anything else, the question just kept circling through my head. And, like I said, I didn't hear a voice, no one answered me, Charlton Heston didn't come down and say "Let my people go." But, when I asked that question, I was overwhelmed with a sense of peace. A sense of right-ness. There's no way I can make anyone understand, but I think that's the way it's supposed to be. I just knew.

The practical side of my call came through the process that almost everyone goes through when they're 17 of just trying to find something to do with their lives. I knew I wanted to teach, I wanted to play music, I wanted to work with youth and children, I wanted to write, I wanted to speak, I wanted to help people, I wanted to work in mission and service. (And, being 17, I still wanted to be a rockstar drummer, so I did stay in bands throughout college) But, I watched my dad do all those things growing up. Everything I wanted to do, in one job. So, I decided I didn't have to pick one, I could do everything my heart was telling me I was supposed to do, as a minister.

And that same year, the spiritual call came as well, so I didn't look back. I applied to one college, got a full ride scholarship on the strength of my writing (which i subsequently got cut in half on the "strength" of my study habits), signed up as a religion major/sociology minor in my first week, assigned to my first churches before graduating and have been in the process ever since.

But, my call has evolved since then. The non-descript, fuzzy edges of "ministry" have become clearer. I believe I am called to urban ministry, to ministry in Kansas City proper, to ministry with young adults. I am not rural, I am not suburban. My gifts and skills and talents and call and culture are for city ministry. I want to be in ministry with urban young adults-the First Friday Art show crowd-the River Market concert crowd-the downtown loft crowd, but also feel called to be a part of homeless ministry, fighting the racial divisions in Kansas City, reaching the ever-growing international community of KC, bringing church back from the suburbs into the city, stopping the skyrocketing homicide rate, speaking out against the meth trade, etc.

Let me be clear: I am not denying the life-changing ministry that can be and should be done in rural areas or suburban areas or small towns. Or evaluating any one of them as better than the other. It's just not me, it's not my community, my context, my call.

Full discloser: I also LOVE Kansas City. I love the plaza, westport, 18th and Vine, Arther Bryant's BBQ, the Western Auto sign, Irishfest in Crown Center, yes even the Royals and Chiefs.

Of course, I also feel called to ministry within the United Methodist Church, which means I am part of an itinerant system that moves its pastors around on appointment basis and will be asked if I am willing to "go and serve where ever I am sent." The answer is yes, but i also feel called to be a part of reforming the 300 year old system of itinerancy. (i.e. what it does to families, what it does to smaller churches, what it asks of spouses, how it fits in our flat-earth, ditigal culture)

Finally, another piece of my call that has revealed itself more clearly through my seminary years, is the call to be a part of redefining what counts as worship, what worship looks like, how worship functions, what worship sounds like. As I told my DCOM board, my personally ideal worship style doesn't exist: my sanctuary would look more like a theater and my service would look, feel, and sound more like a rock show. I don't want a praise band, I want a professional level band that plays smart, poetic, powerful, iconic (directs one through to connection with God), and, most of all, MUSICALLY SOPHISTICATED worship music. -Lord, I Lift Your Name on High, Here I am to Worship, Open the Eyes of my Heart, and especially *shudder* Jesus is My Friend, don't count. In addition to bringing these things into the sanctuary, I also want to bring worship outside the sancutary. Art shows, concerts, experiencing nature, literature, a good meal, anything in all God's creation can connect us to the Creator God.

This is my call, as I see it, as I feel it. I pray that we all constantly search for the ways in which God is speaking to us and calling us in to ministry (everyone, not just pastors). A call is NEVER defined, it is always changing, always growing.

I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal,
Brad