It's Been Ten Days...

I guess that makes it about time for another post.

The most exciting things that have happened in the past ten days were my trip to Crater Lake and my second preaching engagement of the summer.

I'll be posting some pictures of Crater Lake in the next couple days. First, they need to be edited and uploaded to flickr, but that should happen tomorrow morning. My trip down to the lake was amazing. It made me even more sure that I want to move to the West Coast in the very near future, more specifically, the Pacific Northwest. We'll see how that dream develops in the coming year.

For now, I'm going to delay the report on Crater Lake and give you a little sumthin' sumthin' on the preaching. I'm glad I decided to preach a second time, though with all the talk about summer church work moving at a slower pace, I can't even imagine what the year must be like. Everything seems to come so quickly. There's always something else to do. It's like school: never a moment when you're actually done with everything.

Like the last time, I got a lot of positive feedback. At least three separate people told me I have a gift for preaching and most everyone just assumes I'm planning to become a full-time pastor. I'm not bragging. In fact, I would love it if someone would tell me that I'm terrible at preaching, that I don't have any gifts for pastoral ministry, that ordination should not even be a consideration for me. Instead, I'm beginning to get feeling that Presbyterian membership and ordination might be a path I'm supposed to go down.

It's not that I dread the thought of doing full-time church work, it's just something I've never really considered. There are millions of reasons I can think of that I'm not qualified for ministry, but I suppose no one is ever really qualified. Should I take these people seriously who make unsolicited comments about my future path in the church? or should I ignore all of their wisdom, including that of my supervisor, several retired ministers, and many long-time church members?

3 comments:

LittleMary said...

you are to take them seriously. absolutely. if you don't have a gift, you would hear silence. i guarantee you. and my friend, we are never all ready for ministry. ever. just saying.

Kate said...

Yeah, littlemary, I know I have to listen... I just sort of wish I didn't. Perhaps the first step I should take is membership in an actual church somewhere. haha!

Anonymous said...

Well done with the celebrity spotting! I wish you had cell service - that would have been a fun call!