My Call

Many people are beginning to ask more questions about why I am going to seminary, so now that I have a minute I just wanted to post this.

I feel that I have been called to use my unique combination of gifts and passions
for music, mission, and youth to help the changing church through a ministerial position. My biggest concern is the lack of attention that the youth receive as the church tries to make these changes, and I want to be there to serve as a voice for the unheard youth, but to also give them opportunities to learn about themselves and their faith.

We continue to ask questions of “How?” and “Why?” as we look to help our
church grow and change, but when the youth speak up with fresh and new ideas, they are ignored because they are young and do not know better. What I want to help the church realize is that the youth do in fact know better and are our future, so we better take the time to listen to what they have to say. The more that we ignore their voices, the less they will say and the less they will come, therefore eventually killing off the church as we know it.

One way that I want to help the youth to enrich their faith so that they have a
foundation to speak up about, is through service and mission. During my time as Co-
Director of Summer in the City (a mission based camp for Presbyterian middle school
youth in Raleigh, NC), I quickly realized that while going abroad for a mission trip is nice, there is so much that needs to be done at home. I feel that I am called to help instill this idea in my youth and help them to reach out to their neighbors in ways that they might otherwise shy away from. The mission trip abroad will not be out of the question because I believe there is so much they could learn from the experience, but I don’t want them to think that they must hop on a plane and go to another country to help someone.

Also, as I have previously mentioned, I am a professional musician and music educator. During my time teaching private lessons and teaching in the public schools, it became very apparent to me that students today do enough to get the ‘A’. They are so bogged down by everything that there is no time for them to fall in love with their music or to find ways to use it outside of the classroom. I want to be able to give my youth a way to not only fall in love with music the way that I did, but to offer their gifts back to God. I want to do this not only through a typical music program, but also through service. If students can work with others in a variety of ways not offered in the school, as they utilize their gifts from God, there is no telling what they could do not only for themselves, but to change the world. Ideally, I would love to help this music program grow by having older members in the church act as mentors for the youth, bridging the gap between generations. The youth will have the opportunity to play in an orchestra type setting that will not only play in church on occasion, but also play for shut-ins at nursing homes or to help raise money for mission and service projects that may or may not involve music.

It is my hope that by engaging the youth, and future of the church, in such a way as
this, the rest of the church will start to listen to them and take them seriously and the gap between generations might begin to disappear. The excitement of the youth will spread throughout the church and a spirit will come alive that will be a key factor in successfully helping our church transition into it’s new form that we are so avidly searching for. As the youth grow older, have their own families, and take on new roles in the church, the experiences from their younger days will influence their decisions and continue to help the church grow in ways that we may not even be able to imagine today.

The key to my ministry though is that while it would be started at one church, it is
my hope that it will spread through the denomination by way of the interactions between the youth at conferences and as churches begin to come together for more programs. So much of what I have learned, I picked up through a discussion with someone at Montreat. I would get excited about it and rush home to put it into action. It is my hope that this will happen with the excitement that I hope to instill in my own youth, igniting the whole denomination with an excitement about our faith and service in a way that it will spread all the way to the top and reach those that typically ignore the youth now.

While I do want to put the primary focus of my ministry on the youth of the
church, I also feel that I am called to work with the church as a whole as I try to help light this fire of excitement. If the rest of the congregation learns with the youth, it will make the church that much stronger. I feel called to do this through bible studies, Sunday school classes, and worship services.

I don’t know that I feel called to be a senior pastor exactly, however I do feel that I am called to do the work of an Associate Pastor. I understand that there are parts of being an Associate Pastor that I may not be completely aware of at this point in time, but I am more than ready to take on anything necessary so that I am able to answer my call using my unique combination of gifts and passions to help the church grow and answer the call of the twenty-first century. I am very excited to have been given the opportunity to attend Union Presbyterian Seminary and I cannot wait to continue to explore my own call as I learn about those of the many leaders of our church that have gone before me. I fully expect things to change slightly as the next three years progress, but one thing will continue to remain the same- I have been called by God in a way that I never expected, and even a way that I tried to run from at times, and I intend on doing everything I can to
continue to discern and answer my call to the best of my ability.