25 Years of I Do and I Will (With the Help of God) - Part 1 of 2
Reflecting back on 25 years of doing this pastor thing...
Twenty-five years ago, my wife (then-fiancee) put this white stole around my neck that she had sewn and cross-stitched. It was a symbol of my new ordination as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
A lot has changed in those twenty-five years. We got married. We have three children - all of whom are now in (or nearly in) college. We have an amazing dog. We’ve lived in several different houses in two different states. I’ve been a pastor at three congregations. I have less hair today than that day but I weigh less today than I did then and I now have a tattoo. Our country has had five different presidents. I’ve / We’ve traveled to countries in Central America, Asia, and Africa. The Broncos won a Super Bowl, the Nuggets won a NBA title, the Avalanche won two Stanley Cups, the Rockies made the World Series, and my Buffs hired Deion Sanders. There are also too many geek (Star Wars, Marvel, lord of the Rings, etc) references to count in those years and the technological changes in those times are way too numerous and wide-ranging to mention. And then there are heartbreaks that can be spoken of by just single words/phrases - 9/11, Rwanda, Iraq, 2008, Sandy Hook, Uvalde,, 2016, Covid, 2020, January 6, Ukraine, October 7, Gaza. So much heartbreak and tragedy and grief in the wider world and so much in my own personal life - Lisa, Lynne, Drew, and so many others gone. Just typing all that..wow that’s a lot.
And through all of that, I’ve been a pastor starting with that day twenty-five years ago today. And that day not only had Amy giving me that beautiful stole (which I still wear for liturgically white times - Easter, Christmas-tide, Weddings, Funerals) but also answering a series of questions that ordained me as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA). The answers to those questions were three “I do’s,” one “I do and I will” and five “I will’s.” So I want to reflect back on those twenty-five years through those questions. (Warning long post ahead - part 1 of 2).
Do you trust in Jesus Christ your Savior, acknowledge him Lord of all and Head of the Church, and through him believe in one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
Let’s first get this out of the way. The absolutism of the answers for each of these leaves no room for doubt, wrestling, etc. So I’ll be answering them a bit different. But it starts here. Do I trust in Jesus? Yes I do. Do I acknowledge him Lord of all and Head of the Church? Yes I do. Do I believe in one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Here’s where the absolutism comes into play for me. Rachel Held Evans wrote in her book, Wholehearted Faith these words...
On the days when I believe, I know all this to be true. On the days when you believe, I hope you’ll know this to be true too. I hope you’ll feel deep within your heart and with every cell of your being that you are held and embraced by the God who made you, the God who redeemed you, and the God who accompanies you through every end and onward to every beginning. Even on the days when I’m not sure I can believe it wholeheartedly, this is still the story I’m willing to be wrong about.1
Why re-create something new to say when someone else speaks so beautifully what is in my heart. Do I believe? Yes. But there are definitely days when that belief is a lot harder. I feel in these last 25 years that I have grown to embrace questions, doubt, wonderings, and wrestlings far more than I did in 1999. So many experiences in life and in ministry in 25 years has pushed me away from an absolute certainty to a willingness to embrace mystery and recognize that there are things we may never understand and to try to be ok with that.
There’s a lot that has challenged my belief in the last 2½ decades. Funerals of children - a 6 month old, a 2 year old, a teenager, a 20something. People (including myself) not reflecting the presence and love of Jesus either in direct ways in a congregation or in the wider things we see in the world. Illnesses and deaths of people that just make no sense whatsoever. Times when I (or others) have cried out to God in lament in ways similar to what we read in the Psalms and receive… silence…These are just a few of the things that have challenged my belief but I still cannot leave this Jesus story behind, nor do I want to. But I have to be honest that there are times that it is not as easy to believe as at others.
So, in response, I offer…
I do. When I do. And as Rachel said, this Jesus story is still the one that I’m willing to be wrong about.
Do you accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal, and God’s Word to you?
I have seen over and over the ways that the Spirit speaks through the words on the pages (or screens) of a copy of the Bible. I have met the Spirit speaking into my life in ways during these last 25 years that I had never experienced before, notably through my experience with the Psalms in 2014 and in the ten years since. As I read this question, I wish there was something in it about the Spirit making the Word come alive and that, without the Spirit, the Bible has some good and important things for us but without the Spirit speaking, it is simply pixels on a screen or ink on a page. What I long for people to experience in Scripture is how it can be a living, breathing (Spirit / Ruach / Pneuma) thing and that we are in conversation with it through the seasons of our lives and that it isn’t simply cold words etched on stone tablets.
At the same time, I have seen, more than at any point prior to 1999, the ways that this amazing book can be used to wound, hurt, control, demean, and destroy. Reading Sarah Stankorb Taylor’s book, Disobedient Women, shows over and over the ways that (mostly) men in the church have used Scripture to abuse, assault, and silence women. The sex abuse coverups in the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Church show the same. We have to be honest about the ways that we can misuse Scripture and I am sure I am guilty of it in some ways as well. Scripture can be twisted to say many things that are definitely far from God’s will for this world and so while I dearly love this book, I also know that I need to read it in community with others and be open to the fact that the Spirit is still speaking.
So my answer to this question?
I do, carefully and hoping that I am willing to continue to listen, learn, change, and grow.
Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God?
There’s some definite overlap to the previous question in that I lean so much on the idea that is central to the identity of the denomination I am currently a part of - the United Church of Christ which is “God is still speaking.” There’s a lot in the Presbyterian Book of Confessions that doesn’t fit with who we are and how we engage the world today. There are things said about women, about the Catholic Church, and about Jews that are definitely not who we are today. However, they are a map of where we’ve been. But it is a reminder to me that God is still speaking. We are not the same world as when Heidelberg or Westminster or many of the others were written. Our understandings of people, of science, and of Scripture have changed and so we continue to listen to how God continues to speak in this day and in this time.
So I still receive and adopt these confessions because they are a part of who we are today. They are foundations upon which we were built, how we’ve learned, and are signs of how we have continued to change. I see this in my own personal “statement of faith” that I had to share when I was ordained in 1999 and the one that I shared with my last two congregations when going through the call process. My 1999 one was academic, rote, stiff, and formal. My current one is rooted in my photography and in what I have experienced through Scripture, in the world, and in my life. It is primarily visual and feels far more “me” and in who I understand myself to be in God today. But with this question, I can answer it as
I do and I will...with the guiding of God’s Spirit.
Will you fulfill your office in obedience to Jesus Christ, under the authority of Scripture, and be continually guided by our confessions?
My answer to this question reflects what I have seen in myself in this ministry journey. I have screwed up. I have messed up. I have, at times, not fulfilled my office in obedience to Jesus Christ. Am I continually guided by our confessions? Could I say yes to guided? Yes. Continually? I don’t think so. That’s not to say that I abandon all of it or that I have somehow gone totally off the rails. But this question doesn’t leave a lot of room for grace and for growth. It is a “Will you...?” with a response of “I will.” Period. Done.
But what happens when the pastor crashes spiritually and emotionally and has a spiritual director say directly to him, “your soul is starving” and when during this period of depression and anxiety, he struggles to muster the energy to just do the basics of the job of ministry, much less “fulfilling the office?”
What happens when the pastor is so frustrated with things going in his personal life and with things in the church that he says something in a meeting he regrets the moment the words come out of his mouth?
These are just two examples of things that been part of my story during these twenty five years and there’s many others I could share.
Where is the grace in this question? What if the question instead asked, “Will you seek to fulfill your office in obedience...” That feels a lot more like how this ministry thing is lived out. Can I say today that I will fulfill my office in obedience to Jesus Christ and everything that follows? If it means that I am saying, “Yup, I’ve totally got this. Obedience to Jesus. Check. Under the authority of Scripture? Check. Continually guided by our confessions? Check.” If it means I am saying that firmly and without any doubt, I cannot say, “I will.”
But if it recognizes that I’m going to seek to do this, knowing that at times I am going to absolutely stick the ministry landing and other times I am going to fall flat on my face? If it has that recognition, I can answer it in this way.
I sure am going to try, with the help of God and others in my life.
Will you be governed by our church’s polity, and will you abide by its discipline? Will you be a friend among your colleagues in ministry, working with them, subject to the ordering of God’s Word and Spirit?
There are times that I wish this question wasn’t here - it would be so much easier to just do things on our own and not remember that we are in relationship with others in the Church. While the two denominations I am a part of engage polity differently, they share in common the reality that we are in covenant with one another. I am in covenant with the congregation I serve who is in covenant with other congregations who are in covenant with other bodies in our denominations. It would be so easy to just not want to deal with these other bodies, but that’s not who we are and that’s not how we do this thing called following Jesus.
I am grateful for a connectional system that helped to provide resources for me to go to a week that changed my life in 2013 and helped me to begin to take steps toward health and healing. I would not have been able to afford it on my own, but the connectional body I was a part of provided the way and for that I am forever grateful. I am grateful for a connectional system that helped me navigate an incredibly painful and difficult transition out of my previous congregation and into the one I currently serve with gratitude and with joy. I am grateful for a system that gave me the opportunity to help guide and mentor others in their ordination processes - to give them the support and love and guidance they needed as they navigated seminary, an at-times challenging ordination process, and their own wrestlings of how to respond to God’s call. I am grateful for a connectional body that can do far more than an individual congregation can do on its own - for resources that can be mobilized to help respond to disasters and begin to help people rebuild. I am grateful for people who have navigated challenging waters in the past and have provided steps for how to best navigate similar waters that rise up today.
So, yes, I honor the fact that I am guided by the polity/governance of the two church bodies that I am a part of and I do submit myself to their wisdom and guidance in humility and in trust.
But I also cannot leave this question without speaking of my colleagues in ministry all of whom I would love to list by name here but I am sure I would leave someone out. I have been SO blessed by the colleagues who I have walked alongside and who have journeyed alongside me over these twenty-five years. I am grateful for the wisdom of women and men who have been through so much more than me and have been willing to impart their experiences to me. I am grateful for clergy groups that I have been a part of - ones locally in the places I’ve served but notably one that I’ve been a part of since my ordination. I am grateful for people coming into ministry after me who challenge and push me to continue to serve with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love.
Specifically, though I need to lift up one group. This group started out with seven of us and shrank to three (in the 1 year when I was a moron and thought I was time to find a new group) and has returned to 5. This group has been a lifeline for me as we together have navigated life, family, ministry, personal change, and goodness knows what else. We have gathered together every year since our graduation and will be gathering together again in just a few months. I would not be where I am in life today without these men. So, Chip, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff (yes 3 Jeffs), Ryan, and Chris - thank you.
In this question, however, I do want to ask one thing of you. If you are a part of a faith community, pray for your congregational leader. Pray for her. Pray for him. Pray for them. Support them not only with your prayers but also your time and your energies. Grant them grace because they are going to mess up. Tell them when they do something that blesses you. Have their back when someone gossips or attacks them in some way. Be honest with them. Recognize that they are human and that they are just as much in need of the grace of God as anyone else.
So that got to be a long thought...but in answer to the question, I believe I can simply say,
I will.
So, that’s a lot and there’s more questions to go. I’ll finish those tomorrow. Thank you for getting this far…
Grace, Peace, Love, and Joy,
Ed
Evans, Rachel Held; Chu, Jeff. Wholehearted Faith (p. 176). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
So many gratitudes here—grateful that you said YES to ministry, to integrity, to Amy, and that you quoted Rachel Held Evans.