I recently went shopping for a clergy robe.  It was strange, exciting, and overwhelming to try on the varieties of black and white, academic and liturgical robes.  It took me some time to get used to seeing myself in the traditional garb of Presbyterian pastors.  Yet, Inglewood Presbyterian Church, at which I interned for the past year, chose to thank me for my work by gifting me with my robe.  It is an apt symbol for what my internship has meant to me.  Just as the robe is a tangible sign of the pastoral vocation to which God has called me, Inglewood helped me grow into that vocation.

 I chose to intern at Inglewood because I knew the associate pastor, Sandy Hackett.  I knew very little about the church itself when I arrived, but I knew Sandy as a gifted preacher and pastor and looked forward to working with her.  Sandy was a fantastic mentor.  She gave me freedom to form the internship according to my interests and needs.  I came into the internship wanting more experience preaching, and so I preached five times, a boon for an intern sharing the pulpit with a gifted senior and associate pastor.  I also wanted more experience teaching adults.  So, I helped teach an Old Testament survey class and helped Sandy facilitate Inglewood’s weekly Women’s Bible study.

I loved teaching and preaching and the congregation affirmed my gifts in those areas.  Presbyterians assert that God calls people to pastoral ministry within a community of faith.  This particular community confirmed my call in many ways.  They encouraged me when I preached, led worship, and taught.  They willingly tried new things with me and consequently, my pastoral confidence increased.  My last official Sunday as an intern, I taught the children a song which involves acting like a hippopotamus.  I asked the adults in the congregation to join in and looked out on a sanctuary full of people hopping back and forth on their feet and waving their hands in the air as we sang.  The longer I worked at Inglewood, the more I could say with confidence, “To be a pastor is God’s call for me.”

Sandy also introduced me to her friends and colleagues doing ministry in the same city.  I have lacked women mentors who are pastors, but now I have a list of women who have encouraged me by their willingness to follow God’s call on their lives, despite barriers put in their way.  Sandy herself taught me much.  She is a pastor who knows herself and her priorities well and consequently sets good boundaries with her time and energy.  As a result, she does very good ministry without burning herself out.  Sandy not only mentored me, she became a good friend.  I was relieved when she arrived at the Christian bookstore to help me choose my clergy robe.  She was full of practical advice and encouragement as I tried on different robes.  Like Inglewood, she too has confirmed my call to ministry and continues to help me mature into that vocation.