Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada

I don't know if it's a trend, or just something that I've finally managed to notice (I'm not particularly sensitive) but in the past month,  half a dozen people have talked to me about shaken confidence in their call to ministry. Most recently, I was in Saskatoon (City of Sunshine) with the Living the Hope program (brought to you by the wonderful folk at Emerging Spirit!) and two people spoke to me about their ministries - not in dire straits, but just needing a little re-assurance; earlier back in my home province of Ontario (Land of Lay-offs) I spoke with similar folk and at least one ready to pack it all in.

The problem?

As I see it, the one thing that my friends have in common is trying too hard to do what they think people want. 

"Well, what we should have is a Friday Night Eucharist Service for Cab-Drivers... we have a lot of cabbies with nothing to do on Friday Nights."

"We need a pre-teen program - no church can survive without a pre-teen program."

"Taize... everyone should have a Taize service."

I'm not suggesting for a nanosecond that we shouldn't pay attention to the needs of our community (well, maybe a nanosecond... even a second, but no more than a couple of minutes), but when your community is changing and not really sure of its needs or desires, I find it best to follow your heart. The advice that I so graciously dole out on my true friends (which is worth exactly what I invoice for it), is that in creating new programs, you should do what YOU are interested in doing. Where is your passion? What is your joy? Follow that - create into that joy and passion and then give it time to see if the community connects.

If you do everything you can to imagine what the community needs, even as they haven't identified it yet; put all of your time and effort into the program and it doesn't fly... you're miserable and feel like a failure.  If you put all of your time and effort into a program about which you are passionate, and the community doesn't come to share that passion, then you can fold it - and you may feel as miserable as you would have had you not loved the program, but more likely you will feel some satisfaction in having pursued a passion. Further, if the program is a success, you can continue to enjoy your passion and everyone wins.

We've covered three eventualities - what about the fourth possibility - the one that I actually see happen more than you might imagine. Success comes in a program for which you have no passion; no joy.  Then, even as the program grows and succeeds, you become miserable as you are forced to pretend joy;  success breeds resentment and burnout begins to knock at the door. It makes practical sense to follow your passion. But somehow, we feel guilty about following our hearts, as if we are simply being
self-indulgent.  

As church leaders, it is not selfish of us to follow our passions and our joys - I think that it rather respects the truth of our calling. Each of us has been called by God into ministry - called for our particular abilities and passions, not called to be false or to simply respond to a congregational questionnaire. 

Yes, we do need to respond to the needs of our community, but we also need to respect our "call" and realize that God calls us to take our abilities and passions and find that place
where they connect with the needs of the world. 

So, if Taize is your passion - start a program and see if your passion might invite others.

If your joy is in meal sharing, then start cooking - see who comes to eat.

If, in your heart, you want to work with your hands - then, start building and let your joy be inspiration to others.

Paint

Preach

Tend animals

Dance

Sing

Create

Whatever your passion and your call, be authentic and trust in the God who calls you into ministry. In these days of polls and opinions about what the church should be, could be, must be, will be... I think that first and foremost, we in leadership, need to trust in the God who gave us such passion and called us into ministry. 

Now, I'm off to practice my cynical sarcasm, because surely there's a ministry there...