Letting the cat out of the bag: I’m ordainable and searching

I’ve spent a lot of time sharing about my life and my thoughts online so I figured it was about time to talk a little bit on this blog about my future.  I have been working  in a PCUSA (Presbyterian Church of the USA) for most of the last 14 years of my life.  Several years ago I decided that I felt called into the ordination process and after what I think was the right path for me I officially became certified ready to seek a call (meaning find an ordained job) in October.

What this means for my family and I is that we are officially in that process now and it is both great and a little stressful.  It’s great because we are seeing God move in providing some very neat opportunities for us. It’s stressful because it feels like a big decision as we are hoping to go somewhere that we can make a minimum of a 12 year commitment. Why so long? Simple. Our youngest child is in kindergarden. She has 12 more years of formal education and we would like to establish ourselves in a community that we can call home.  We are wanting to put down deep roots into a church and have it and the community be the place where we put all of our energy.

I’ve been asked a lot about what type of ordained role I want to be in.  Honestly at this time I can’t imagine myself doing anything different than impacting families. That means I am open to Children, Youth or Family Ministry. Actually a better way to say that is I am looking for a role that includes all of those things.   I have done youth ministry for the last 20 years but a big part of my role has been with the overall family.  I’m very interested in moving into younger ages too as I just see so much of a need to provide more help to families with younger children.  But, I also don’t want to limit God who might be wanting to use my gifts and skills in other areas.

We have absolutely loved our time in Texas. My church here is an amazing and special place. Our community is great too. We have some very neat friends and our kids have been blessed by being here. It’s honestly going to be hard to leave. But, the most difficult part of living here in Texas was leaving our families on the west coast and many old friendships too. We are hoping to head back west in this transition.

If you know me too you know I have had great opportunities to be involved in the Youth Ministry conversation at the National level.  I enjoy that part of my life and hope to be able to continue in that way because I believe it actually benefits the church I work at.  My current staff has benefited greatly from being exposed to those conversations and people and I know it is helped us be better youth workers. But, I really desire to build deep local roots and am really looking forward to doing that wherever God leads us.

So there you go. At some point in 2012 we will be leaving our church here in Texas and with God’s leading I will move  into an ordained role. That may mean that I will be buying a robe (although if you know me you know that’s probably not something I’m hoping for) and after being approved by a presbytery somewhere you will officially have to call me Reverend. And just to be clear I’m not planning on responding to anything else for the next 20 years.  :)  (kidding)