Career Fair

"Sometiimes it takes holy imagination just to remember a call, to imagine one, not in the sense that the call is an illusion created by us, but when we imagine, we see what we do not know; we see the possibilities God has for us." -Lillian Daniel, This Odd and Wondrous Callings p. 7

My last few weeks have borne a strange resemblance to a career fair. You remember: those big events in college where you'd walk through an exhibition room and look at table after table, each of which displayed one possible career path? They always gave me the sense that I had reached the necessary moment of decision in the choose-your-own-adventure book; it creates a sense of urgency, while offering a seemingly endless number of choices and providing no guidance in selecting just one thing. The past couple of weeks have felt like that.

When I first discerned my call to ministry, I thought that was the end of my career decisions. I figured once I decided to be an elder in a church setting, my direction was set. But I am discovering more and more that there are a bunch of possible trajectories within even that narrow career field. A few weeks ago I interviewed with some folks in the conference to discuss the possibility of becoming a church planter. Last week I was in Washington D.C. learning about the General Board of Church and Society, and thinking about what it would look like to get involved in the church's public policy advocacy work. This week I was back at the church preparing to teach all the clergy in my district in a session about what emergent worship and a lead them in sample emergent worship experience. In considering what I'd like to do for a next appointment, I have to decide what I'd like to do, or what I think I'm called to do. It's not nearly as simple as just being an elder in a church. It's a matter of deciding specifically what sort of church/ministry/focus do I imagine myself having. And I simply don't know.

If there's one thing I've discovered thus far in my life it's that I'm a jack of all (or many?) trades and a master of none. I can do lots of things with some skill, but there isn't just one thing that stands out and defines me. In high school, it drove me crazy. I was one of the smart kids, but I wasn't the super-brain. I was a decent musician, but I wasn't a soloist. I was a fair tennis player, but I wasn't a star athlete. I went around trying everything, learning a lot and having fun, but never distinguishing myself in anything.

When I was in seminary, I began to see that as a blessing: I could do administration, lead worship, provide pastoral care, and do many other ministerial tasks with some degree of giftedness. I was a well-rounded ministerial candidate. It's very helpful in being a generalist minister, but it doesn't help much with discernment. When you seem to be equally-gifted in several areas, when you are passionate about many things, when you enjoy and find more than one thing fulfilling, how do you figure out what is your actual calling?

I see so many possibilities, so many important ways of serving God. I can imagine myself doing any one of them, and doing it happily. I could throw my energies into working for social justice through the GBCS. I could push myself as a church planter and reach out to the unchurched and dechurched. I could focus on new worship forms in an existing congregation. I could go to a small church. I could go to a large church. I could serve in a rural area. I could serve in a city. And I believe I could find ways to be happy in any of those appointments, and I believe God could use me in any of those ministries. But which one is right? What am I called to do? Is this what a quarter-life crisis looks like?

C'mon, God. I'm getting impatient, here. What do you want me to do?