If the truth be told, it wasn’t that God waited until my midlife crisis to wake me up, but rather it took turning 40 for me to finally give God my full attention. I was attempting to give God bits and pieces of me (saving some of the best stuff for myself; of course!), hoping to satisfy this insistent god of self, when in fact what God really wanted was all of me, lock, stock and barrel.

I had been a good Presbyterian. When God’s call would come through service to my local church, I was happy to comply. I’d been a youth group leader. I taught Sunday school. I was faithful in fellowship and worship. I was doing my part for the kingdom.

But God wanted more of me. Always more. I was asked to serve as a Deacon and was ordained to that office. I was asked to serve on Session and was ordained an Elder.

But God wanted still more of me. I began serving on committees of presbytery. Still more. Finally, I accepted presbytery’s call to serve them as Moderator. It was wonderful, fulfilling kingdom work but it wasn’t enough.

On a Sunday much like any other, I was serving as lector during our morning worship service. An infant was being baptized. As the pastor, family, and elders gathered below me, I sat perched above with a bird’s eye view of this holy sacrament. At the moment the pastor’s hand touched the infant’s brow, a bolt of lightning shot through me! It was all I could do not to rush down there, grab that child out of my pastor’s arms, and baptize that baby myself! I held on to my seat for dear life!

That finally did it. God had my attention - my whole attention. Fearful that I might be losing my sanity, I wrote a note to my pastor, explained what had happened, and queried whether or not God might be calling me to the ministry. I begged him to calm me down, just be satisfied in my present circumstances, and assure me that the feeling would pass along with mid-life. He didn’t. Rather, he sought me out, gave me a hug, and said the words I was to hear over and over again in the coming weeks when I announced my news to friends and family, We’ve been waiting for this How could they have known all the time when I didn’t know this myself?

Those affirmations began a process that has continued for the last 10 years of my life. On May 25, 2004, I will graduate from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary with my Masters of Divinity, ready, willing, and if God ordains it and I pass the ordination exams, able to serve in the PC(USA) as an ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament.

But the journey to ordination is only half the story! A few months after my decision to pursue the ministry, the small Presbyterian Church in my hometown found themselves without a pastor. This congregation was struggling to survive and their future looked bleak. When they couldn’t find pulpit supply my pastor, serving as their Moderator, suggested that he had an Elder who was interested in pursuing the ministry, had a little experience leading worship, and might be interested in helping them for a couple of weeks.

I entered the pulpit of East End Presbyterian Church on Father’s Day of 1995 and have been there ever since. Two weeks became a month, a month became the summer, and by the time summer had ended, the Committee on Ministry had agreed to my service there as a full-time Commissioned Lay Pastor.

It has been a relationship of growing pains, discovery, grief, and wonder at God’s grace and providence on both sides. In the course of my ministry with them, East End has gone through the redevelopment process (as one of the first redevelopment churches in Lake Erie Presbytery’s first Redevelopment Probe) and come out the other side completely redefined, whole, solvent, and future-focused. They are still a small church, but they are a healthy small church. In nine years, they have dealt with the buried pain of the past, survived a flood that completely destroyed the first floor, totally refurbished the entire building, and added a handicap lift, a Moms room and a new kitchen. Certainly all the improvements to the physical plant and their financial stability are gratifying; but more important, as God acted among them and they could see, feel and experience God’s presence in their midst, faith grew in wonderful and astounding ways. Together, we loved one another through the powerlessness of watching mental illness overwhelm a mind and grieved the suicidal death of a beloved young member. We affirmed one another’s tentative baby steps to grow in faith. We would blunder forward, fall down, laugh at our all-too-human mistakes, lift one another up and try once again. And we celebrated, celebrated, and celebrated God’s incredible grace! I will forever be grateful that God gave me the opportunity to travel with them on their journey.

At the same time East End was becoming who they were called to be, I was also journeying toward the fulfillment of my call. One benefit of serving a church is that your work week is fluid. I now had the ability to attend seminary while earning a salary. For the past four years, I have made the three-hour weekly commute to Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, attending classes half of the week, and returning home to serve the church the other half. Altogether, I have made that roundtrip some 125 times, worn out two cars, many tires, and one deer that decided to jump in front of my car at an inopportune moment. (Not wanting to waste six hours each week by simply gazing at the countryside, I tried for a time to thumb through my Greek flashcards while driving. NOT a recommended idea!)

Finally, one very important observation: Settling in to begin class one morning, my fellow students were bemoaning the fact that they weren’t learning the Practical things they would need in ministry, planning worship, weddings, funerals, and complaining that much of what they were learning was archaic and would be impractical and unusable in today’s culture. Immediately I replied from a perspective that I hope gave them pause to reconsider. From their vantage point right now as students, it appears that all the theology, history, and ancient languages we agonize over, and all the hoops we jump through, seem unconnected from practical pastoral ministry. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The practical side of ministry is informed, infused and under girded by the theological. It is the foundation on which we stand as Reformed theologians, the harbor from which our ministries will set sail. What we believe becomes what we practice. With the help of a Book of Common Worship, anyone can design a worship service. But understanding WHY we do what we do is another matter entirely. Nuancing the words and form of that service, hoping to convey those beliefs, is a matter of critical importance. NOTHING in seminary is wasted. Every jot, every tittle has worth. All we learn will come into focus, be recalled and called upon at times and in situations that, right now, we cannot even imagine. I was given the unique opportunity as a CLP to learn the practical aspects of ministry first and then lay the theological and educational foundation underneath them. Understanding the theology, theory, history and biblical rationale for my actions in ministry has deepened my faith and given my ministry a sense of agelessness and future excitement. What a gift!

God, in God’s immeasurable grace, has filled my life with untold opportunity, experiences, and memories. Attending seminary, while serving the church, has been a journey of amazing wonder for me. My prayer is that with whatever time in ministry remains for me, I might glorify God in service to God’s people and return to the PC(USA) a bit of the confidence and gift that they have invested in me. Praise God!