Turning Point

Fear cannot begin to describe what I am feeling now, as I have taken the 3rd step to the rest of my life. I have been fighting off the UMC because I never really liked it. I never wanted to be caught up in denominationalism, and thus wanted to be in a non-denominational church, but someone once told me that the animal does not exist because it within itself functions like a mini-denomination. What separate it is that it has no denominational affiliation. Essentially, I recognize it as “Indy”.

Anyways, Thursday night’s service at MRI finally broke my defensive shell to fight off the influence of the United Methodist Church. Our theologian this year was a pastor of a Methodist church with Baptist-background roots. His theology initially seemed more Baptist, but after some further investigation, his theology was nearly even with some agreements and disagreements on both sides. He confirmed that it was possible to have Baptist theology in a Methodist realm, and has offered to help me to preach without getting into issues of theology and doctrine.

I guess what I am looking at is the fact that my life is about to change, and how being a pastor has been solidified. Going forward it finally hit me what was before me. Knowing you’re pregnant is drastically different from having the baby in your arms for the first time, and all this time I was focused on knowing that being a pastor was down the road, but it seemed as though in an instance the reality of it all hit me. I feel this is where God is leading me, though against what I want, but I don’t have peace about it all together.

Once the realization of going through the process fully hit me, I thought about what was ahead of me, the stress, the pain, falling from a high place of praise in the eyes of others and God to a lowly, forsaken stature shadow of a man. Keeping in mind scandals that arise from undisclosed sins of my past that still echo in my heart and the fact that there will be people who will willfully want to bring me down, some internal, as in family, some external. I thought about my family, the pressures that will arise from ministry and family, pressures on wife and kids. That I must be extra careful to be sure of the wife God gives me because she must be called to this position as “Pastor’s wife”, my partner in ministry. It is essential to be matched up with God’s choice because we will need each other in ministry and will need to pray with each other.

Thoughts of an escaping the UMC when I need to or knowing when I need to disagree because what I am being asked is ungodly. Was coming forward a rash, premature, or ill-advised move? I will soon now. I just petition before God that this be His Will and doing because if it isn’t, then I want no part of it. That is why at this particular point in my life, I really need to rely solely on God because He is the only one who can give me comfort in this period and show me where I am going. I am scared and I see the pain that lies before me and even being warned of the politics of bishops who oversee and appoint pastors, and basically have control over people. When do I rebel against what a bishop is forcing me to do when I know God has something else. One thing I do see somewhere down the line is that I might have to leave the UMC…