Still Waiting

I’ll be blunt — very few of you have responded to my challenge to write out your call story and submit it to me.

Don’t think you’re hiding from me — I see you out there! I know you might think this is too challenging, but I want to persuade you to try anyway!

Come on, it’s fun!

Perhaps the reluctance to answer “The Call Project” comes from a sense that you haven’t actually been called by God. One person wrote me to say this very thing: “This is very difficult for me, because I don't think I have had a call to tell you about.”

Maybe, because you haven’t been knocked to the ground by a blinding light like Saul, or heard an audible voice from a burning bush like Moses, that you haven’t been called.

But I will restate what I said in the sermon two weeks ago — every Christian has a call. That is, in fact, what it means to be a Christian! It means to have received a mission from God, to be included in the story of what God is doing in the world. When you decide to follow Jesus, you are necessarily charting a different journey for yourself than you would have walked otherwise.

The life of faith is a journey into the heart of God, and the heart of God is full of love and compassion for the whole world. Or to put it in the words of Paul, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).

If you have the heart of God and the mind of Christ, then you will be full of a love that breaks for the pain and anguish of the world. When you have that kind of love, you will be unable to carry on with business-as-usual, because business-as-usual for most of us is a life of wealth accumulation, personal and family security, and the pursuit of leisure. You will be unable to walk the streets of the city without seeing people through God’s eyes, and you will suddenly be able to see through the illusions and fantasies of modern life. You will be attuned to injustice and inequality. You will ache for people who have no hope.

And you will want to do something about it.

The whole point of the church is to gather folks who want to do something about the world’s condition in the name of Jesus Christ. That’s why Kessler Park UMC exists, that’s why the United Methodist Church exists, that’s why Christianity in its myriad forms and permutations exists.

I will repeat: every. single. one. of. you. has. a. call.

It may sound like a whisper to befriend unlovable people. It may be merely a hint of interest in a child with learning disabilities. It may be a vocational draw toward a job in the non-profit sector. It may even be to pursue theological studies for the sake of becoming a pastor.

If you haven’t heard the call yet, then all you have to do is get quiet enough to listen. If everyone is called, as I believe, then everyone has access to that call. God speaks. We have to learn to listen; we must develop the capacity to hear God.

Let me reissue my challenge — please write down your call story and send it to me so that I can share it with Eric. If you struggle with putting it into words, here’s a simple template to use, based on my sermon on May 12th:

“I was __________________________________________ (your situation before the call), when suddenly _________________________ (the call arrives), and now I ________________________ (your response).”

Give it a try — I know you can do it!

The Call Project

In Sunday’s sermon, I announced what I’m calling “The Call Project,” in which I’m asking each of you to write down and submit a brief version of your “call story.”

What’s a call story?

I explained in my sermon that a call story is a personal story about when and how God called you to fulfill your own particular shape of ministry, whatever that might be. (This is different from what people used to call their “conversion story,” which narrates how and when someone became a Christian in the first place.)

I believe that every Christian has received a unique and personal directive, or “call,” from God which should determine and shape one’s life choices. For a few of us, God’s call is to full-time, specialized ministry within the church, which we call ordination. But for most of us, the call is to embody the love of Christ in our vocations, whatever they might be, and to embrace our spiritual gifts. 

While I believe that every person has been called to some kind of ministry by God, I also believe that not every Christian has actually responded to the call. That means not everyone has a call story … at least not yet.

That’s partly the role of a pastor — to help lead people into hearing and accepting the call of God on their lives. I know I’m doing my job well only when I see you responding to God’s call to mission, service, or compassion. 

That’s why “The Call Project” is important to me, especially at this moment in time. Before I leave, I would like to know from each of you how you are responding to God. I would love to celebrate your call story with you, as well as to pass the story on to the next pastor, Eric Folkerth. 

In my sermon, I argued that every call story has the same basic three-part structure. That story usually goes like this: first, you are making your way through normal, everyday life when, second, a crisis occurs. This disruption or interruption leads to a sudden recognition of your call from God. If you accept the call, then the third stage takes place, in which you begin to live into a new reality, open to God’s guidance.

When you are ready to write your story, try using the following sentence prompts: “I was ____________ (part one: status quo) when ________________ (part two: crisis/disruption), and I realized that God was calling me to ___________________ (your call), and I responded by ________________ (part three: new reality).”

Using that structure, here is how my story of how I was called into the ministry: “I was studying filmmaking in college when, one night as I was praying before bed, I clearly heard God call me to be a preacher, and after I had graduated with my film degree, I responded by enrolling in Perkins School of Theology and beginning the path toward ordination in the United Methodist Church.”

Using the same structure for Saul in the New Testament, here is his story: “I was going to Damascus to arrest Christians when I was blinded by a bright light on the road and heard a voice from heaven which told me that I was to be an ambassador for Christ, and after being healed of my blindness by the kindness of Ananias, I responded by becoming an apostle to the Gentiles.”

See? Your story doesn’t have to be long and complicated, but short and to the point. You’re welcome to use the prompts I’ve given above, or to write something free style.

Please take a few minutes to write out your call story and send to me at wes@kpumc.org. It will bring joy to my heart, and I’ll make sure Eric sees it. Even more important, you’ll see it written down for yourself, a reminder of the divine purpose for your own life.

Oh, one more thing — if you haven’t yet, please take the time to upload a picture of yourself to the church directory on Breeze. If you don’t think you can manage it yourself, we’ll have volunteers take pictures of you after worship over the coming weeks and help you do it! This will also be extremely useful for Eric to get to know all of you.

On Laity Sunday

This Sunday for the first time in a long while (perhaps ever?) we will be celebrating Laity Sunday in our morning worship service.

What does that mean? What is “laity” anyway?

In church lingo, everyone is either clergy or laity — clergy are those who have been ordained by the church and set aside to do the specific work of serving communion, baptizing, teaching and preaching, while laity are … well, everyone else! Laity comes from the Greek word “laos,” which simply means people, crowd, nation, or congregation. When we use the word “laity” now, it generally means not just any random group of people, but God’s people, the new people who have been brought into the community which Jesus Christ formed.

However, there’s a dirty little secret about clergy and laity; there is no Biblical basis for this division! The idea that some people are supposed to do God’s work while everybody else has to get on with living ordinary life is not something that Jesus would have taught. In the early church, everyone had a role to play; everyone participated wholeheartedly in the work of spreading the good news of Jesus.

Of course, as the movement grew it became clear that some people needed to dedicate themselves full-time to the work of leading specific faith communities.

But over time, church leaders became more and more elevated in status over the rest of their congregations. They began to accumulate wealth, take on big titles, and enjoy social and political power. This is especially unfortunate because Jesus would never have approved of the kind of status and privilege that these church leaders enjoyed.

In fact, he is recorded as saying to the disciples, “You know that among the Gentiles the rulers lord it over their subjects, and the great make their authority felt. It shall not be so with you” (Mark 10:42). Another time, he explicitly orders them not to give themselves big titles: “Don't let anyone call you 'Rabbi,' for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters” (Matt. 23:8).

Eventually, ordinary churchgoers began to believe that there were two kinds of Christians — the good Christians, who became priests, monks or nuns, and the ordinary, run-of-the-mill Christians, who had to live ordinary lives in the real world, and thus could be forgiven for living less-than-holy lives. Or to put it another way — clergy and laity.

Fortunately, Martin Luther and the Reformers exposed this thinking to be inconsistent with Jesus’ teaching. They began to introduce “ordinary Christians” to the idea that everyone can be a serious disciple of Christ, and that every one of us has spiritual gifts and talents to use on behalf of the common good.

John Wesley continued this emphasis by encouraging laypersons to preach and teach, as well as perform other tasks usually left to clergy. His teaching on sanctification and Christian perfection clearly implied that laity and clergy alike were called to holiness.

That’s your brief history lesson on the clergy/laity division in the church. Fortunately, we United Methodists have attempted to keep Wesley’s teaching alive. In our Book of Discipline, one of the first sections is titled, “The Ministry of All Christians,” and it includes this critical sentence: “All Christians are called through their baptism to this ministry of servanthood in the world to the glory of God and for human fulfillment.”

Notice the phrase all Christians.

Not just the preacher. Or the children’s minister. All Christians.

That means you.

Lest you think I’m overstating the case, here’s a line from the very next paragraph: “Every layperson is called to carry out the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20); every layperson is called to be missional. The witness of the laity, their Christ-like examples of everyday living as well as the sharing of their own faith experiences of the gospel, is the primary evangelistic ministry through which all people will come to know Christ and The United Methodist Church will fulfill its mission.”

Again, I would point out that this text says that the witness of the laity is the primary evangelistic ministry through which the church will fulfill its mission. Not the pastor’s ministry. Not the staff’s ministry.

But yours. You, the people.

We clergy aren’t here to do all the work. Rather we’re here to assist you in recognizing the work to which you have been called as God’s people.

We clergy aren’t here to do all the evangelism. Rather we’re here to help you tell your faith story so that others might come to know Jesus.

We clergy aren’t here to do all the pastoral care. Rather we’re here to teach you how to care for your neighbors.

We clergy aren’t here to do all the teaching. Rather we’re here to give you the tools you need to teach.

We clergy aren’t here as missionaries. Rather we’re here to teach you how to be missionaries.

How are we doing?