This afternoon, I was sending my resume to several churches and dioceses as part of my on-going search for a ministry position post-seminary when I suddenly noticed that the title of my email was nearly identical with the title of this blog: "Sewanee seminarian seeking a call."
"Seeking a call." In the church, we talk about "calls" to minister in a particular parish rather than "jobs." I've been careful not to use "employment" language as I write and speak about my desire for a place to go after graduation that will pay me and give me health insurance, but to instead talk about looking for or searching for where God is calling me to minister. And it hadn't even occurred to me until today that the very title of my blog is "seeking the call!"
Of course, I meant something very different when I coined that term for my blog six years ago. I began this blog as a place to record and share my reflections on my experience in the Resurrection House program in Omaha, a vocational discernment internship for young adults sponsored by the Episcopal Church. (Now part of the Episcopal Service Corps.) At that point, I was "seeking the call" in the sense of trying to figure out "what to do with my life" -- looking at the "bigger picture" of vocational discernment -- am I called to work in a homeless shelter? To be a deacon? To be a priest? "The call" I was seeking -- and eventually found -- was the call to the priesthood.
But even after I discerned that call clearly, I decided not to change the blog's title, because, I figured, we're always seeking God's call on our lives -- we never really have it all figured out. Even if I'd discerned a call to a particular vocation, there would always be ways in which, throughout my vocation as a priest, I would be seeking God's call -- where is God calling this particular parish to go at this time? How is God moving in this parishioner's life? To think that I had found that which I sought when I discerned a vocational call to the priesthood and that there was no more need to "seek the call" would have been extremely naive.
So I kept it. And six years later, here I am, "seeking the call" in a different way -- seeking a particular parish and particular people with whom I can be in relationship and ministry, with whom I can listen for the ways in which the Holy Spirit is moving in their midst and jump on Her bandwagon. (Because, I've found, the best ideas in the world won't come to fruition if the Spirit is not already active in that area. "Success" in ministry, I believe, comes from listening to and discerning where the Spirit is already active and then joining forces with that work, rather than trying to create something entirely of our own devising or our own ideas.)
So, the suspense is building. Where is the call I am so ardently seeking now? How is God about to move in my life to bring me to new experiences and opportunities in ministry that I have not yet known? I must have faith that it is out there somewhere, that call that I seek, and I pray regularly for the parishioners of that congregation, even though I do not know who they are yet.
And even after it is revealed to me, even after I find "a call," I will continue "seeking the call"... in that never-ending process of discernment that is relationship with the living God.
God grant me the patience, perseverance, and openness to remain,
faithfully,
Seeking the Call...
always.
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