Not Yet

I have several significant milestones coming up in the next few months.

The first comes this week. November 28, 2004 was my first day at my first pastorate. I count it as the anniversary of my beginning full-time ministry. It also happened to be the first Sunday of Advent, so the beginning of that season holds special meaning for me as well.

On January 23, 2005, I was ordained by the United Church of Christ. In our tradition, you can’t be ordained until you are called to a ministry, so the first anniversary made this second one possible.

If you haven’t yet done the math regarding these dates, I will be marking 20 years of each. I’ll have more to say about the ordination one in a few months.

The one that I mark this month, however, invites reflection. I can still remember finishing the trip from St. Louis to northeast Ohio leading up to that Sunday. It was just before Thanksgiving, and we pulled into the driveway of the parsonage. A light snow was falling, and the chair of the search committee and his wife greeted us with keys to the house. A few days later, I was welcoming Advent with my new congregation.

I would spend eight years with that church, and then seven with another. And then I would move from pastoral ministry to the wider church, beginning my time at the UCC National Setting, where I currently remain.

There’s no way I could have foreseen any of this in that snow-dusted driveway so many years ago. It would have been amazing if I had. There were many experiences and decisions and times of discernment and prayer along the way that brought me to where I am now.

And of course, I wonder what’s next. I keep my heart, mind, and spirit open. I ask God questions like “Is this other thing the next thing?” and “Is it time to head back to the pastorate?” It’s less a conscious search for a way out and more of a consideration of possibilities as they arise.

And so far, much like God kept telling a mentor once upon a time, the answer so far has been “Not yet.” It turns out that, for now, my current work of guiding Conferences, churches, and ministers in moments of transition is where I’m still meant to be. And I’m okay with that. Truly, I am.

So I will mark these 20-year milestones while still doing what I’m doing. I’ll keep asking, and wondering, and watching for where I might one day go. But I’ll also give thanks for where I’ve been, and for where I am now.

I’m in no hurry.