Life Since I Left the Building

As I appear to be emerging as a self-supporting minister, or becoming bi-vocational or something of that nature, I found this article on 'leaving the church building' quite exciting as it articulates a lot of the things that are making sense to me both in terms of ministry 'in the world of work' and in terms of leaving behind some of the institutional stuff that I have been finding not at all life giving.

I am able to “pastor” in the way I feel most called to. Not as Julie McCoy-cruise director-pastor. Not as the Pastor-who-maintains-things-as-they-have-been-and-always-shall-be-amen. Not as She-who-runs-the-grand-institution-of-“We Have Arrived.” Instead, I get to be more of a spiritual director/companion/friend. Someone who will pray and listen and watch with you as you try to live the life God has called you to live. Someone willing to live in the questions. Someone willing to struggle together with a community of people as we figure out what it means to live as “Followers of God in the Way of Jesus.”

In fact, added to that is the sense of weight I have been carrying for ten or more years about the way that it looks increasingly hard for the church I belong to [feel called into, indeed] to financially support the ministries I feel called to without added to the mix a whole host of things that, experience tells me, are likely to drain the time and energy for the really creative stuff. I don't think that the grass is really greener the other side of the fence, but I do at least feel that I would be freer to follow the leads that God seems to lay before me.
Mustard Seed Associates | Life Since I Left the Building:
Filed in: Christian, ministry, spirituality, church