Confessions of a Female Pastor

Marten (my husband) had to work today. He has to work a lot of Sundays. I got up early before the girls like I do every morning. I had my "quiet time" study, prayer, meditation. I went over my sermon...then I got the girls up, made their breakfast, made sure they were dressed appropriately,hair brushed, eating, before I finally started getting ready myslef. My oldest shortly parked herself on my bed right outside my bathroom door where I was putting on my makeup. "The computer has a virus, there is something on the screen and...," she said. I just wanted to get ready. I just wanted to be in "the zone" to prepare for my pastoral duties, to deliver the sermon, to...She went on. She sat there. I think she actually expected me to go figure out what was going on, or fix it, or I don't know. I just wanted to get ready. I just wanted to be in "the zone". I told her I had no time and to please leave my room so I could get ready.
I am certain that male pastors do not have to handle these Sunday morning responsibilities. Their wonderful wives are dressing and feeding their children. Their wives are stopping the fights and the bickering. THEY are in "the zone". These male pastors have probably been handed a cup of coffee by their wife. They might not even have ironed the shirt they are wearing.
I get to church. I have the kids in tow. I start giving them instructions before we walk in. "When we get there please do this and go do that for mommy." The youngest always interrupts conversations. She is asking permission to do something or go somewhere. I'm just trying to be the pastor and she just sees mommy.
I'm trying to figure this out. It's pretty much the same after the benediction when I am speaking to folks as they leave. The kids are there, the younger one asking questions and wanting my attention. Yes, Marten and I have both spoken to her, but it continues.
We are all getting used to this. ALL of us. I pray that those I serve will see that in order for me to be a better pastor they might have to help me to be a better wife and mother...whatever that might look like.

Who are the people of God?

I have been going through some of my work over the last 3 1/2 years and found this and enjoyed it. I thought you might too...

Who are the people of God?
What have we been called to do?
Why are we set apart? He alone makes all things new.
How do we share the love of Christ?
So each one will know and feel
That they are part of His great story and invited to the meal of meals.
One tree does not a forest make,
Community is key for Kingdom’s sake.
The incarnation of His love
We will go where he sends.
Together we will live and work and plan
For revolution and renewal and redemption.
We will go to them.
We will sacrifice.
Long-suffering servants of Jesus Christ.
With zeal and passion that cannot be touched
By anyone or thing besides Him who lives in us.
Knowing their hearts, as He does so well,
We will build relationships and then we will tell,
Of all He has done and all He will do
And how wide and how deep is his love for me and you.
We will love into the Kingdom by the power of the Holy Spirit,
A trumpet is blowing, can you just hear it?

The Ramblings of a Mad Woman

Tomorrow is the first Sunday in Advent, the season of preparation leading up to Christmas. I have spent the last 3 and 1/2 years in my own season of preparation in seminary and in two short weeks I will be done. (Yahoo) It has been a ridiculous ride. I am amazed at what God has done, nothing short of miraculous. I honestly still can't fully grasp why He invited me on this journey, except to say I asked for Him to use me daily and this is what He called me to do.

I have grown to know myself far better over these years because I have grown to know my Creator far better, and who knows me better than that? I have come to more fully understand how faithful our God is and how much He loves us because I have come to the absolute end of myself over and over. Time and again when I have felt inadequate and incapable God has showed up in amazing ways. I long to tell everyone what I know about God. His goodness is so great that it bubbles up inside me to the point I feel my heart might break. Where do I even begin? How? I know how, I do, but it is so incredibly overwhelming.

I don't know that I will ever be fully "prepared" but I do know I serve a God that blesses obedience, not in ways I would imagine but in ways that are far greater.

I may ramble, but as Paul says in his second letter to the Corinthians, if I am out of my mind it is for the sake of God and if I am in my right mind it is for you.

Permission to Speak Freely

Author Anne Jackson wrote a book by the same name as my title after posting something on her own blog about confession and transparency. Her beef was much the same as my own. The church is supposed to be a place that ministers to the most broken people right? I mean the church is the Body of Christ and Christ's living example was one that was regularly among the sinners, the tax collectors, the prostitutes,the blind, the deaf, the sick, the lame. The church should be a place where we call it like it is, where we can let our guard down, and love each other just like God loves us.

What are you afraid to say in church? Who are you afraid to be? I heard someone say recently that we make our Sunday worship and our small group meetings like the Christian Prom. We all dress up and have our nicest manners and exchange the usual pleasantries, but are we real, vulnerable, human beings? See if we continue to perpetuate the myth that we are these people that have it all together without a care in the world then those who would never darken the door won't. They have some misconstrued idea that they have to have it all together to be a part of such a community of people. In fact if we are each transparent about our own brokenness, frailties, temptations, other real people might want to be a part of that, but it starts with us. Someone has to go first. I confess my own ideas about who I had to be and how I had to be kept me away from any church for a long time. I thought I had to be a certain way, know the books of the Bible and where to find them, recite the Apostles Creed from memory, wear certain clothes....no wonder people don't want to come to church. Is that what it is all about?

The good news is we can all be real with each other, phew what a relief, and have the assurance that because we call Jesus Lord all that junk doesn't matter, whether it happened years ago or you are still struggling today. We can come to Jesus and come together and find real healing, and redemption, and restoration. We are all in process, in life, and relationships, in growing closer to God,in becoming a new creation because of what God has done through Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

So, who's going first?

God loves...

I had one of those moments today, you know the kind when you finally get something? God is so amazing the way He teaches us things, but we have to be tuned in to be taught, our ear has got to be inclined to hear. I confess I have been moving at a pace that I do not wish to maintain and at times it is a detriment to that hearing. Though my morning meetings with God are being kept, many days have a way of escaping me before I remember to breathe deeply.

There are so many people in my life that deserve more of my time, me included :) but I was thinking of one in particular today. She kind of flies under the radar. I'm not sure if she really doesn't want to be known or if she is in fear of some sort of judgment for who she is. I know things about her she probably doesn't realize that I know while I am certain others in her life don't know. I used to fear that if "they" found out they might judge, and I would quell this fear with the thought that if they spent enough time with her they would love her so much that even if she was completely exposed, it wouldn't matter. I caught myself here, because I have made my own judgments and came to the DUH! conclusion, that God knows every hair on her head, He knows everything about her, and still He loves, He loves. Nothing can separate us from that love. Nothing.

Romans 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen, thank you Jesus!

My Heart

Why am I doing what I am doing? Why when I have a degree in Mass Communications, experience managing and leading people from twice my age to half my age, a culinary arts degree and great paying job where I can set my own hours, two kids, more than enough to keep me busy, why am I in seminary? Why am I pastoring a church with as many opportunities as challenges? Why?

The biggest reason is my love for Jesus and the life I am afforded because of his life, death, and resurrection. See I spent the greater part of my life so caught up in the world I saw around me and all it told me about who I was and what I was worth and what I should value. Then I met Jesus and all that got turned upside down. Don't get me wrong, I went to church. I had heard about Jesus, but it wasn't until I was 30 years old that I had an encounter with Jesus. I wonder how many people are sitting in churches every week that still don't know who Jesus is. that grieves me.

I found out that what God saw in me was far different from the world. He calls me his precious child and has shown me who I really am. Who better to do that than my creator? Because of God's love for me I have been set free from all of that stuff that kept me believing I had to work to be good enough. Everything I do is just a response to that. Everything I do is about showing and telling others about that freedom and about that love and grace.

At the end of the day I have to say I am doing what I am doing because God called and I answered. I could never have gotten to where I am on this journey without that call. I would never have signed up for this path, BUT it is pretty awesome to commune with the creator, to hear and be heard, to be called, and to respond. I want everyone to know that such a relationship is possible for them. I know it sounds crazy right? I know God, we talk, daily. He hears me when I pray. How awesome is that?

Children and the Kingdom of God

Children are our future. That is the simple truth. Like so many things in this country our care for our children is all over the place. Some children have everything they could possibly ever need or want to the point that they don't even appreciate a bit of it while others live on the street or in little more than a shack all but thrown away by society. Some have two parents that live in the same home, but statistically more or more do not, while some will never know their fathers at all. Regardless of the situation these children are the future of our country, of our world, and of the Church. How are we reaching them with the love of Christ in each of their situations?

I met some people last week that are going to great lengths to reach children with the gospel from suburbia to project housing they are doing whatever it takes and it is changing lives of those both young and old and it is changing churches and it is changing the shape of our future one child at a time.

It is so awesome to watch someone so committed to the calling God has placed on their lives. This is not something they set out to do, yet in the midst of growing in their relationship with God, and in the midst of living in obedience, this new opportunity presented itself. It wasn't an easy decision. It meant walking away from a nice stable job and stepping into the unknown. Wow how they have blessed others and they have been blessed in return!

Is there anything risky that God is calling you to?