CALLED TO BE YOUR
PASTOR
Dr. Stephen D. Jones
Text: I Corinthians 12:4-12
Second Baptist Church of St. Louis
August 26, 2007
Becoming a pastor was a
very difficult step for me. Actually, it wasn’t a step at all, but a series of
very reluctant back-steps. I didn’t walk into this vocation, I backed into it.
Even ten years into my pastoral career, I sincerely told people that if I ever
sensed a different calling, I would leave pastoral ministry in a heartbeat and
never look back. I loved it when people were shocked to learn that I was a
pastor. “You don’t look like a pastor,” or “You don’t act like a pastor,” were
comments I heard at that time. I remember a mission trip to Corinto,
Nicaragua. The trip had been well-organized by members of my congregation, and
I had no special leadership role. On the third day, the Corinto pastor scolded
me for not identifying myself when he discovered that I was the pastor of the
visiting delegation. Because of the language difference, I remember being so
proud that someone could watch me with members of my congregation for three days
and be unaware that I was their pastor.
In the last twenty years, two things have happened to me as a pastor. The first
is that I have grown to love my vocation. I enjoy being a pastor, and would be
lost if I sensed a change in my calling. The second thing is that I have never
found pastoral ministry to be more challenging than in these times.
I never thought it would happen that I would be cautious in the face of seismic
changes occurring to the church today. Across the nation, churches are
mothballing pipe organs, trading hymns for praise choruses, replacing chancels
with video screens, and reducing sermons to pop-psych feel-good talks. I’m out
of step, and I suspect that many of you are out of step with the changes
overtaking the church in America. Twenty years ago, I was leading the charge,
and today, I find myself cautious and even hostile to these recent fads.
You’ve been on a unique and peculiar journey. Who could have guessed that you
would go through a decade with transitional, part-time pastors? Who could have
guessed that the strength and depth of your lay leadership could have kept you
intact and healthy as a congregation?
And yet you have had wonderful pastoral relationships throughout the 20th
century. One of your former pastors, Harold Hoffman, is a friend of mine. I
just received a card from Harold this week. I doubt that I would be here today
if he hadn’t told me stories about you when we served together in Detroit. If I
had my choice, I would always want to serve churches with positive pastoral
relationships. Central Baptist Church hadn’t concluded a positive pastoral
ministry for 50 years when I arrived. And that was a challenge.
Yet, the truth is that you have never had a relationship with a pastor like me,
and I have never had a relationship with a congregation like you.
And yet here I am in St. Louis. You have called me to be your pastor and I have
accepted. I am not in transit. I am not an interim. My attention won’t be
divided. I’m not on my way to some bigger or better calling. This isn’t a
stepping-stone for me to somewhere else. I’m here, and I’m permanent, and I
look forward to a long and fruitful pastoral relationship with you.
We didn’t move here for proximity to family or a return to our roots. Those
factors are just bonuses. We came for only one reason, the only reason we moved
to Boulder, to Dayton, Philadelphia, Detroit and Seattle and that is because we
sensed God calling us to join you.
Were it not for God’s call, I certainly would not be a pastor. Malcolm became
my pastor in Eldon just before I was born, and he left my home church the year I
left for college. We lived across the street from the parsonage. It was
Malcolm who taught me how to mow our lawn when I was barely old enough to grab
the bars of the hand-push mower.
We went to church three times a week, and so I heard Malcolm preach three times
a week, and I always said Malcolm had five basic sermons, so it seemed to me
that I heard sermons over and over again. By the time I was in high school,
nearly all my friends had dropped out of church, and I had grown weary of my
perception of the irrelevancy of it all. It didn’t fit the turbulence of the
1960’s.
Sometimes pastors get the short end of the professional stick. Three boys were
arguing about which of their parents had chosen the more successful career. One
boy said, “My father is a lawyer, and he’s so successful, he can argue one case
in court and make $25,000.” The second boy said, “My father is a doctor, and
he’s so successful, he can perform one surgery and make $30,000.” The third
boy, not to be out-done, said, “That’s nothing. My mother preaches one sermon
and it takes six men to carry out all the money.”
I went off to college and I can honestly tell you that the very last, the very
last vocation I would have chosen for myself would have been a pastor. Save me
from that! The pre-ministerial students on campus went around with thin ties
and dark suits, clutching their weird little look-alike briefcases. They seemed
to have the same grin plastered on their faces as if they knew something the
rest of us didn’t, or, more likely to my thinking, they didn’t have a clue and
the rest of us knew why life required more than a fake smile.
I was a political science major, destined to become a city planner, or perhaps
go into politics. And I was passionate about this direction. I was making the
best grades of my academic career. I hadn’t turned away from God.
When we were moving into our home in Seattle, I recall having a conversation
with Crutch, a young African American who was employed by the moving company.
Crutch is a musician, plays a dozen instruments, and went back East to a
prestigious music school. When he was near the end of his schooling, he had
proficiency and technical knowledge. He said he could compose a song without
ever playing a note. But there wasn’t heart or soul to his music. And one day,
as he told it, without explanation, he composed a song that came from his
heart. It transformed him and his music. He knew what he had to do. He quit
school to take up his new-found calling, and since that fateful day, he has
never lost his musical soul.
How can you explain things like that, moments of inspiration, moments of call?
It is almost embarrassing to speak of it in public. How does one speak
convincingly of an encounter with the Holy? For me, it began with a season of
restlessness, as if something was on my mind, but I didn’t know what. I didn’t
want to know, so I avoided it as best I could. One night, when I couldn’t
sleep, I stumbled out of the college dorm, and walked around the deserted
campus. What was going on? Why was I so restless?
There wasn’t really anything wrong with my life. There weren’t any catastrophes
or crises. Still, I couldn’t sleep. It couldn’t be God. God doesn’t “speak,”
and if God speaks, why to me? Go speak to those guys with the thin ties and
dark suits. Maybe that would wipe the silly grin off their faces! Why speak
with me? Just let me follow my own ambitions. I know what I want.
Night followed night. I felt pursued. Why me, God? And what do you want,
anyway? Of course, there were no audible voices, no visual appearances. But I
became convinced that God was the cause of my restlessness, and there would be
no peace and no sleep until I listened.
All right, Lord, I’m listening. What on earth do you want? Me, become a
pastor! Me, put on a suit and thin tie and start grinning around campus all
day? Let me think about it: NO! No way. No thank you. Not me. I’m going
back to sleep. This conversation is officially OVER! Thank you and God bless!
Good night.
More nights followed. And more restlessness.
Finally, worn down, the only words I can use now to explain the unexplainable,
is that God and I had a little negotiating session. I wasn’t about to be a
pastor, so we had to get that straight from the start. I wasn’t going to be a
preacher, so forget it. And I wasn’t going to be the kind of pastor I had
experienced all my life. And I wasn’t going to join the pre-ministerial boys on
campus. And I wasn’t going to live some kind of cloistered life.
“Fine.” Fine? Fine, what? Fine, who? Me? I’ll agree to youth ministry, but
I won’t be a preacher, got it? “Fine.” Fine? What do you mean, fine? I’ll be
an educator, a teacher in the church, not a pastor. Got it? “Fine.” Fine?
Who am I negotiating with here, anyway? It’s 3:00 in the morning and I’m
stumbling around as if I’m drunk, which I honestly wasn’t. And I’m talking to
thin air, and negotiating the rest of my life, agreeing to God knows what: this
was crazy! This was idiotic! This was insane! Who does this sort of thing!?
Not me.
Go back to bed. Sleep it off. Maybe this will all go away. The next night. Out
again, stumbling around half-crazed. I’ll go to seminary, but I don’t want
anyone calling me “Reverend This and Reverend That.” Got it? If I can’t be a
human being, if I can’t be myself, you can just… “Fine.” I won’t be some
conservative fuddy-duddy! “Fine.” Fine! What do you mean, fine? I frankly
had never met a pastor who was the kind of human being I wanted to be. I didn’t
know if they existed. I set out to find one.
One of the first ones I met was Malcolm Haughey, then pastor of Jan’s home
church (this is where the plot thickens), the First Baptist Church of Kansas
City, Missouri! He was unlike any pastor I’d ever known. He actually tried to
connect faith with society. I met others. I went to seminary, earned a
Master’s degree in Education. I set out to be an educator within the church.
Earned my Doctor’s degree as a Christian educator. Wrote five books on
education.
At first, I wouldn’t allow persons in my church to call me their pastor. I
tried every other title imaginable. That took four years out of seminary. I
refused to preach, that was a waste of time. That took five years out of
seminary. I had no interest in serving as a single pastor. That took 12 years
out of seminary. And all the while, God and I kept negotiating, for God had
something else in mind. And time for me to discover it. Through God’s people in
the churches I was serving, I gradually allowed people to call me pastor, and
began to feel called as a preacher. And I found ways to be, for the most part,
an authentic human being and a pastor.
Today, I find some of life’s greatest satisfactions as a pastor: standing with
people in the midst of life’s pathos, walking with people in provocative places,
entering peoples’ lives, homes and workplaces, entering into their struggles,
their dreams, their restlessness, facing our best questions together.
My primary vocation here is not to be your pastor, because that speaks of my
role or title. My primary vocation is to love you with a pastor’s heart.
I’ve had 8 pastoral interns serve with me over the years. And I’ve pushed and
prodded until a pastor’s heart began to emerge within them. Get ready, Kara,
because I’d ask them weekly, “Who in this congregation do you love?” And, “Who
turns to you with trust?”
We may re-organize the church, remodel the church, bring in new members, launch
prophetic ministries, but my primary vocation is to love you. May I never
forget that.
Just a few weeks before I left Birmingham, I called on Frances in her home. She
is a wise woman, in her early 80’s. And choking back tears, in saying goodbye,
Frances said, “Steve, there is one truly important thing you have done.” I
thought she’d mention my advocacy of mass transit, or race relations in the
city, or the number of young families brought into the church, or making the
church facility accessible. She said, “More than previous pastors, you’ve
taught us how to pray.” I didn’t know that. That came from my love for them,
not a plan. I prayed for them, because I loved them.
Right now, we’re just getting acquainted. I’m learning your names and stories.
But, it won’t be long before I’ve held your hands, shed a tear with you, shared
a tender moment of prayer, listened to each others’ stories. Because that is my
calling. The pastoral relationship is a love relationship like none other.
Nearly all other professionals must be dispassionate. But give me a few years,
for as your pastor, I will become passionate about each one of you. I will
stand on your side.
The same God who called me 39 years ago on a college campus, calls me today.
But the call is something we all share. In our baptisms, we are called. In our
daily walks, we are called. In vocations and avocations, we are called. Paul
wrote, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are
varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities,
but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. In everyone! Not
just pastors, but everyone! That is primarily why I am not ordained, because
ministry belongs to everyone, not just pastors. And we must all be commissioned
for ministry. What is God activating in you? Paul wrote, the Spirit of God is
at work in you so that you can offer something for “the common good.” For the
common good of this church, the common good of our city, the common good of
society. “To one is given wisdom, and another speech, and another deep faith,
and another the gift of healing, and another discernment… All these gifts are
activated by the Spirit who allots to each one individually as the Spirit
chooses.” How is God calling you? What hidden gift is God activating within
you? What restlessness has God planted within your soul? Run from it, as I did
as a young college student, and you also will find yourself staggering around in
the middle of the proverbial night. You won’t be drunk, it will be the Spirit
activating a call within you, a gift within you, a life-purpose within you.
My pastoral ministry is rather irrelevant unless you also are called into
ministry. For that is my role, my pastoral calling, my vocation, to love you
with an equipping love, so that you may flourish in your callings and your
ministries. To love you with an equipping love so that you may be good
neighbors, honest employees, prophetic citizens, courageous family members,
selfless volunteers. And to love you with an equipping love so that we build up
this Body of Christ, this congregation, this church.
I hope you are ready. First, to be in a pastoral relationship with me, and to
learn to trust me and allow me into your lives, your hearts, your homes.
Secondly, I hope you are ready to love Jan and me in return, allowing us the
spaces we will need to flourish in your midst. And thirdly, I hope you are
ready to become more courageous in your own ministry, your own calling, your own
wrestling with God. And finally, I hope you are ready to help open up this
congregation to the wonderful potentiality which God has in mind for us in these
coming years.
I am here, certainly not quite settled in. And yet I have never felt more
called to be anywhere than here with you. Unmistakable. Unarguable.
Undeniable.
I am called, by God, here today, and for years to come, to be your pastor. I
think … I’m ready. What about you? Amen.
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