Mosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

Call to Ministry Stories

From Iowa to Pennsylvania: Ministering along Interstate 80

by

Firman Gingerich, Blooming Glen
firman@bgmc.net

firman.jpgIn my late 20’s our pastor at Kalona Mennonite Church, Howard Keim, invited me to participle in a leadership apprentice relationship with him. Over several years, I would meet with him periodically to talk about books on ministry and leadership that we were reading. During this time, he invited me to participate in a wide range of congregational leadership experiences, such as writing Bible study guides, leading small groups, and teaching the youth baptism class. After some time he asked me if I would consider preaching on a Sunday morning.

I do not think he realized at the time how much this invitation to preach and engage in leadership exploration was confirming my internal journey. These leadership apprentice experiences were helping me respond to an inner call to some form of ministry that I had experienced as a senior in high school in the late 1960s. I credit a circle of young, dynamic high school teachers at Iowa Mennonite High School for helping me stay engaged with the church in this turbulent time. This early sense of call was very private and I shared it with no one until much later.

After college I spent eight years as an elementary school teacher in Montana and Iowa. Gratefully, Susan, my wife supported me in testing my sense of call to ministry for about five years. After several years, Kalona Mennonite Church sent us off to Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary with a solid blessing and a great deal of financial support to study and prepare for pastoral ministry.

In retrospect, I needed this sense of a public call to anchor me. I would not have had the courage to begin a journey of preparing for pastoral ministry without the support and blessing of our home church. I live with much awareness of how valuable a congregation is in influencing and shaping one’s call to ministry.

Now, 26 years later, Susan, and I find ourselves in Franconia Mennonite Conference; me as a Pastor at Blooming Glen Mennonite Church and Susan on the development staff at Christopher Dock Mennonite High School. In the last few months I have been asked often if Southeastern Pennsylvania was on my radar as a potential place to pastor. My first and easy answer is no. My pastoral ministry path has been along Interstate 80 in Iowa and Indiana; I guess I didn’t understand that Interstate 80 extended into the Keystone state. I was comfortable with the Midwest.

I think it is how I am wired to do ministry. In my own discernment with Susan and personal friends, I had decided to seek a new pastoral assignment beginning in late summer of 2007. In my pastoral ministry journey, I have grown to value and am enriched by patterns of multiple staff ministry. I made a decision that I wanted to continue in ministry in a multiple staff setting. This was an important factor for consideration when I was invited to begin exploratory conversations with folks at Blooming Glen Mennonite Church. It is no secret that ministry in a multiple staff team takes hard work and discernment from all. However, the mutual synergy and common vision that I have experienced from working with collaborative teams has transformed me tremendously.

I am eager to pay attention to ways God will continue to lead me, our pastoral team, and the lay leadership of Blooming Glen Mennonite Church to respond to God’s Spirit with hope and courage as we anchor our life together in Christ.

Following the call to “dance”: Stepping out in faith to God’s leading

by

Lorie Hershey, West Philadelphia
lorie@wpmf.com

I enjoyed dancing in my youth and now with my children, but it is not something I do in the presence of many. And yet the image of dancing intersects my relationship with God and experience of call; the harmonizing of movements with an overarching melody and rhythm. The draw of music connects deeply, awakening God’s spirit within. The desire to express the motion stirred by a song; the give and take required for partner dancing. There is something about the image and act of dancing that describes our relationships, both divine and human.

I’ve heard professional ballet dancers describe dance as always being a part of them. They were always twirling, skipping, moving to music that others could not hear. Similarly, I too have felt like God has always been a part of life even when I did not recognize the Spirit’s presence.

There was music stirring inside me moving me to twirl, skip: to dance. Many times that music got distorted, muted, or misplaced as the events of life overpowered it. There were times that I tuned out the music, but it remained. I now realize the music was God’s Spirit, inviting me to dance, calling me to ministry.

I felt an affinity for the church early in life as I witnessed my mother’s volunteer leadership work within my home congregation. I began active involvement in the church and found energy for church leadership and outward confirmation of my gifts. I felt the inner nudging of God. Yet it took me until my early thirties to recognize this as a call to ministry, let alone pastoral ministry. I accepted God’s invitation without fully knowing where the dance would lead. I tentatively stepped out and went to Eastern Mennonite Seminary.

In seminary, I began to find God’s deep grace and healing through spiritual direction and the writing of music. My husband, Brent, and I began providing music for liturgical dances during worship times and I found another step in my faith journey. While not being the one upfront dancing, I found that I was dancing through the music and it became a life-changing experience for me.

I found my relationship with God becoming more free and life-giving; while my call to pastoral ministry deepened and was affirmed. I was beginning to truly dance. Sure, there are still times of hesitancy and clumsiness–I’m sure I’ve stepped on God’s toes many a time–but I experience grace, courage, and coordination that could only come from God.

lhershey.jpgAs I discerned my call to West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship, I clearly heard God say: “Dance, Lorie, just dance.” And so again, I step out in faith not knowing exactly what the dance will look like; although one that will include some hip-hop for sure.

I continue to be energized by God’s calling to find our song, recognize Christ throughout our days, and be transformed by the Holy Spirit. It is exciting as we work together to create a life-giving dance, rooted in Christ, welcoming toward our neighbors, and working towards the Shalom of the city.

I love learning more every week

by

Mike Ford
mford@franconiamennonite.org

My journey to become the Senior High Youth Pastor at Franconia Mennonite Church started with an innocent conversation over a year ago with Marlene Frankenfield, Franconia Conference Youth Minister (if conversations with Marlene are ever innocuous). I was working with Marlene and another conference youth minister on the details of a future event and felt that it would be appropriate to drop the hint that, while I would assist in the planning, it was likely that I would not be there in person to host the event because I was sensing a job change was in the wind. Marlene’s response was, “You know, Franconia Mennonite is looking for a youth minister.”

I recall that I tried to politely respond, saying something like, “Thanks, but no thanks,” thinking at the time that becoming a youth pastor wasn’t likely what the Lord had in mind. Yet, God’s nudge to Franconia persisted, and a year later, here I am, writing on the eve of my installation service as a pastor. Indeed, a journey that was initially unexpected and challenging at times is now exciting and fulfilling as I learn my way.

Over the last two years, my wife and I had been feeling God’s nudge to consider a vocational change. Frankly, I had thought at the time that, after 13 years in Christian camping, I’d be headinginto some field other than vocational ministry. We had heard California pastor and author Erwin McManus speak and were deeply impacted by his challenge to not get too comfortable in your service to the Lord, not to stop taking risks, to be willing to serve the Lord no matter what change in life might come of it. We began a season of putting ourselves sincerely before the Lord, asking if God was leading us to a new place where we could serve, considering options and opportunities as they opened up.

I believe that all Christians are in full-time ministry, called to be salt and light to the world through our daily service, whether we lay bricks or deliver mail or wait tables or manage people or parent children or otherwise. Some of us get the privilege of doing our full-time ministry through a position at the church. I’m excited to serve
at Franconia, hoping that my love for Jesus and desire for others to grow in service and passion might well serve the needs of our youth. To be sure, there have been times on the journey when I’ve wondered if I have what ittakes to be a good pastor, if my take on culture was well suited, if not growing up in the Mennonite church waslearning_more.jpggoing to be a handicap. In the end, as we talked, prayed, and discerned, God gave all involved a sense that this could and would work for his glory, that we’d both learn and be stretched in healthy ways, if we were willing to walk forward in faith.

Here I am, still getting used to the title of “pastor,” wondering if one ever gets used to that title. I mean, simply put, I’m just a guy who loves and is excited about life in Jesus and wants others to know and follow him. Now I get the incredible opportunity to do that each day as my vocation, focusing on Senior High youth. I’m excited, I’m fortunate, and I love learning every week more about the youth I work with, the church I serve, and the area I now call home.

An Intersection with God

by

Angela Moyer
moyer1218@hotmail.com

I have described my calling experience or path of intersection with God like a cell phone ring tone. You don’t hear it at first, but then it gets louder and louder until you cannot ignore it. My calling began long before I realized what was going on. Once I realized I was being called to ministry, I looked back on events and conversations and realized that they all contributed to sensing and accepting God’s call to ministry in my life.

I first realized that I might be receiving a call to ministry at the Franconia Conference Assembly in 2004. I was there as a delegate for my church and there was a time of prayer and affirmation of the newly credentialed pastors. I began to weep for no reason. I had no idea why, but I had this sense that God was telling me that I would be up there some day. Unfortunately, I had an initial reaction of, “No way! I’ll tell you, God, the many reasons why I will never be a pastor. Ministry is not in my plan, I am an occupational therapist, I love my job, I didn’t go to seminary, and pastors are much closer to and know God much more than I do.”

But after that weekend, I began to reflect on why I had been so stirred by that prayer and the things that had been going on in my life, and I realized that maybe God did have some things in the working for me to pursue ministry. I knew I needed to at least be open to the idea and see where God would take me.

Many things had come together that year. My demanding job schedule had changed, I moved back to Souderton, PA, in order to work with the youth at my church, and realized that I really enjoyed it. Though I appreciated my job, I was more fulfilled with my time spent with the youth. I had been affirmed by the church regarding my work with the youth, and the church was completing period of transition where we began to look at areas in the church to grow, one being the youth. I remembered Franconia Conference Minister Walter Sawatzky and Interim Pastor Bob Petersheim both telling me earlier that year that they had sensed I had some ministry gifts that I should think about. I hadn’t at the time, but soon I realized that those conversations were a confirmation of the call I’d been experiencing.

Once I recognized all of these things there was too much coming together to ignore and I began to see things differently. God’s plan of salvation and his love for his people really began to convict and fascinate me. I realized that I had been given a gift of loving, encouraging, and listening to youth. I was able to develop these gifts while working in a city hospital with people in a variety of crisis moments. I saw the experiences, opportunities, and gifts that I had been given were all coordinated in order to prepare for this calling to youth ministry. These encounters helped me to begin to feel more comfortable with using the word “calling” and further confirmed that what I was experiencing was truly a calling from God. Finally, I shared this with my church, Rockhill Mennonite, and they too affirmed the call to pursue youth ministry.

I realize that many people including my parents, family, friends, teachers at Penn View Christian School and Christopher Dock Mennonite High School, and members of my church family all created the foundation for me to be able to hear and be open to receiving God’s call.
intersection.jpg
I have learned how important a calling is in ministry, because you need it to get through the struggles, questions, and tough times. I would have never embarked on this journey of ministry if I hadn’t been called by God to do this, and I will never survive the struggles in ministry without it. I have no formal pastoral training and so I have many doubts and times of second guessing. But I have learned that I am not called to be perfect, no matter the training, but to point others to God. It would be much easier to remain in a place of comfort where I have the qualifications and experience to know what I am doing. But I know that God has called me to be at this place and there is no other place I would rather be.