Master at the Craft

 

 

I’ve been doing this ministry thing since…  It seems since Biblical times.  My memories are artifacts that I excavate from the comings and goings of this present day.  They could fill a museum.  There are many difficult parts about aging.  We creak when we stand up after sitting for a while.  We run out of energy more quickly than we’d like.  We aren’t as good with our thumbs as anyone below the age of 15.  Our arms are too short to read things without glasses.  But there are good things as well. 

 

One of those is a sense of confidence about the craft of ministry.  Forty years of practice really does help.  Those of us that have been at it a while have seen situations come and go repeatedly.  We’ve confronted shortages and resulting panics, we’ve been confronted by angry, suicidal, addicted, disappointed, grieving, homeless, excluded, sick, dying, betrayed, cynical, arrogant, hopeless, seductive, bipolar, schizophrenic, sociopathic, terrified, nasty, immature people  (That being a partial list).  And we’ve lived through it all.  We’ve designed classes, stewardship campaigns, worship services, mission projects, funerals, weddings, sermons, receptions, roasts, and banners.  We’ve moved furniture, recalcitrant people, mountains of books, and the hearts and minds of congregations.  And we’ve made it through despair, poverty, death, loss, terror, and being wrong, coming out the other side with some scars and a lot of gratitude. 

 

An incredible amount of learning goes along with all that experience.  It is a gift to be here, with all of that to support and inform the now of life.  But there is more than that.  This job is about more than skill at diplomacy and knowing when to cut and run.  It is more than being good at working a room.  At the core of our work is a deep consciousness of being owned by that which is so far beyond our philosophy or theology or business sense as to be unknowable except through grace.  And the older this old war horse gets, the more I rely on that grace to provide what my skill or experience cannot.  I am His.  That’s my bottom line.  That’s my credential.  That’s my ground of being.  That’s my ultimate concern.