[Contact information removed for privacy by MCC personnel.]

 

Statement of Call to be a Regional Elder

 

As I have become increasingly confident and experienced in using my gifts for ministry, I have had a growing desire to use those gifts to serve in a more global capacity.  I believe that God has been nudging me, giving me vision, and increasing both my confidence and my teachability in preparation for work with groups of congregations and leaders. 

 

In Thomas Moore’s book Care of the Soul, he writes of the importance of knowing who we aren’t so that we can know more deeply who we are.  I am learning that I am one who seeks or is led to the larger task (larger in the sense of more global or comprehensive, not in the sense of more important or even more challenging) rather than one who can settle into longer-term relationship with a single congregation.  I’m not a singe-task pastor; rather, I thrive on bringing coalitions and projects together to work on multi-dimensional visions.  I get restless in a single setting and I seek variety of challenges and multiple venues for conversation and ministry.

 

I have felt God’s call to the ministry of Elder and was actually nominated for Elder in 2001.  Although I felt called at that time, I believe that I have grown exponentially since that time – in my experience of God’s grace and leading in my life; in my own capacity for Spirit-led leadership with less ego-investment; and in my inner ability to lead from a place of vision, humility, and love. 

 

From the beginnings of our regional structure, I have believed that God would provide the right place and time for me to follow God’s call into this place of leadership and service.  However, I am somewhat surprised that I have felt this strong call to Region 4.  When I read of Rev. Elder Eggleston’s resignation, I had a reaction in my body.  I felt a leap of heart – a sense of something spiritually fraught with wonder and challenge.  Then my conscious mind jumped in and told me that Region 4 really needed indigenous leadership, not another American voice.  I put the idea out of my mind for days at a time, only to have it resurface in conversations, in dreams, and finally in the prompting of MCC colleagues.

 

I believe and have experienced that a call from God is not one-dimensional.  It isn’t simply about God and me.  Calls in my life have been irrational;  have met with my initial resistance – usually based in my disqualifying myself for some reason; have been heard from a variety of sources; have been accompanied by simultaneous feelings of ecstasy, doubt, boldness and fear; and they have been persistent.  All of these have happened in this call to serve as a Regional Elder. 

 

The correspondence I received from the lay leader from Region 4 confirmed in my spirit that I simply needed to walk through the door that is being opened for me – and to trust God with the details.  That is my present attitude of heart:  I’m eagerly doing the footwork and trusting God, who’s issued the call, with the outcome.