Spring 1992

ARTICLE TOOLS

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Years ago the longings caught up to me. The landscape of my soul shifted, a new direction emerged. My approach to ministry was never to be the same.

I was restless. I had been in ministry for several years, the work was going well enough: our church was growing, our people were happy. I was doing what I was supposed to do. But I was haunted: Is this all there is? Is this the ministry? Is this what I dreamed of doing for God?

Thomas Kelly wrote, "I am persuaded that this fevered life of church workers is not wholesome. … Over the margins of life comes a whisper, a faint call, a premonition of richer living which we know we are passing by. Strained by the very mad pace of our daily outer burdens, we are further strained by an inward uneasiness, because we have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer than all this hurried existence."

Whispers kept coming over my margins: a feeling of running on empty, a remembered vision of why I entered the ministry, frustrations with piles of administrative work.

I was searching for something more than a new seminar, something deeper than technique. The realities of my career were going to include crowded calendars and boring meetings and dealing with people. Now I needed a new raison d'etre, a vision for ministry that adjusted itself to the mundane details of parish life-and that did so with real respect, patience, and love.

Along with the restlessness came rejection. I was finding no easy way around those great and mundane realities. Although our little church was thriving, the larger churches weren't "noticing" me.

My personal dream had always been to teach preaching, so I pursued that goal. I made extensive plans to attend an Ivy League divinity school. I got to know a few faculty, ...

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