Working through the book

So, for years, I've been vacillating about ministry. Not that I don't consider myself in ministry, because I do, though, truthfully, ministry seems suddenly a strange word. It's one used over and over, again, when you work for the church, used so much it ceases to have meaning.

I looked up the word--the root is Old English and means to serve. Interesting. It evidently also means agent, which can mean to cause change; and it means to effect a change. Of course, it also means being a cleric or, in the United Methodist system, being ordained.

Do I want to be an element of change, and do this by serving others? At heart, I'm a writer and as many a wit has declared, writing is a lonely profession. Writing has another distinction--you can hide in your characters or your interviews and you do not have to be an authority. I think that is hardly the case for someone ordained to ministry in the church.

Authority being the bugaboo of my existence: I don't feel like I am one, and I rarely appreciate following authority. I mostly just want to be able to do what I do, pretty much on my own, which makes writing a rather perfect avocation for me.

But somehow, I keep getting yanked back to the idea of ordained ministry. Even when I was a little girl in the Christian Science church, I would imagine myself up in the pulpit despite the fact that the Christian Science church does not ordain ministers, and those occupying the pulpit are called "readers." The minister in the church is Science and Health with Keys to the Scriptures.

Still, I felt the lack of a live, in-person minister, and when we started attending a Presbyterian Church in Missouri, after my children were born, I once again experienced that strange need to be in the pulpit. I just can't figure out why. I don't think of myself as particularly pastoral, though I am compassionate and empathetic and have had to learn, over the years, how to protect myself because I tend to sponge up people's emotions and feel the need to fight other people's battles. Most people don't appreciate that, and it's really not healthy. So I created strong, self-protective barriers that sometimes translate into callousness.

Writers are not taught how to "take care of themselves," nor are they given the warning and tools that psychologists, sociologists and clergy are given to prevent absorbing other's pain and getting lost in it. My suspicion is that writers learn how to protect themselves by looking at everything like it's a story.

I explored ministry once before, and after taking the Boot Camp Introduction to Theology Course, went running the other way until I figured out how to deal with some of the questions raised in the class. I was content to see what I did in communications for the church as a form of ministry without going through the ordination process.

That changed recently, for a number of reasons. One, when looking for another job I realized I didn't not want to work for the church. The church is important, and does fabulous things, and as I wrestle with my understanding of Christianity and Jesus and what matters and what doesn't, I realize that through my work, I am working towards being a better person, towards being more loving and compassionate ... as Bishop Matthews said recently, to be a better person the day before and to be a better person tomorrow then I am today, not just to be a better person, but to be the person God created me to be and, maybe, to help others be the persons they have been created to be.

But the second thing that really caught at me was being allowed to help with worship. I discovered I loved it -- I'm not a big fan of sitting in church and worshiping and all that, though I love silent prayer in a room full of people, all sitting in silence. What I love is the act of planning worship-the metaphors, the images, the words, all of those things that can make worship meaningful to others.

Creating, to me, is prayer. Can I do this creating without ordination? Sure. But, would I be a more effective agent of change if I did pursue ordination? Or am I more effective as laity?

I don't know, which is why I'll be working through Understanding God's Call: A Ministry Inquiry Process. I thought I would do it on-line ... Why not?