Mosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

Call to Ministry Story

Listening for God’s Purpose

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by Michael A. Howes, pastor, West Swamp congregation

I grew up in southern Louisiana, attending church every time the doors were open. Sometimes my family were the ones who opened them.

I chose to become a follower of Jesus Christ at a young age and was baptized. My congregation had a very active youth program, and I was immersed in Bible study, worship, prayer, and mission projects all through junior high and high school. My youth group did everything from putting on musicals to visiting the state women’s prison to stage puppet shows. And I was in the thick of it all.

In eighth grade, my Sunday School teachers challenged us to read through the Bible, week by week. If you did the readings for the week, you got a gold star on a chart in our Sunday School room. For some reason, the idea of accumulating those gold stars was powerfully motivating to me; I read through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation that year.

At the same time, I was absorbing from my youth pastor a life-changing truth: being a follower of Jesus didn’t only mean attending church and being a good person. Instead, Jesus wanted me to surrender my whole self to him so he could express his life through me. The inward spiritual disciplines of Bible study, prayer. and worship, combined with the outward discipline of service, worked together to deepen and broaden my life with God and prepare me to hear God’s call.

As my senior year of high school began, I tried to figure out what I was going to do when I grew up. As I had always been instructed, I prayed about it.  All that came to me was that I really liked my youth group, so I decided that I would become a youth pastor.

Members of West Swamp congregation surround Michael Howes in prayer at his installation service in November 2019. (photo credit: Sue C. Howes)

That fall, at my youth group’s fall retreat,  we were sent out into a field to listen in quietness for the voice of God. I didn’t have any patience with this. I sat down barely long enough for the dew to moisten my jeans, and then I bounced up and sought out my youth pastor. I was certain I had exciting news for him.

“Ken, guess what!?! I’m going to be a youth pastor, just like you!”

I expected him to say something along the lines of this validating his life’s work and about how excited he was.

Instead, Ken told me something I will never forget: “Michael, until you stop telling God what you’re going to do and start listening for God to tell you what to do, you’re never going to understand God’s purpose for your life.”

Umph! Not the response I had been hoping for.

But by God’s kindness, it was a teachable—if humbling—moment for me. I began to honestly seek God’s direction for my life, with no preconceived endpoint.

Six months later, my youth group was back in the same place, on our spring retreat. One evening, while watching a video about evangelism, I had an experience of hearing God speak to me. It wasn’t an audible voice, but I heard God call me to be a minister.

When I shared what I had heard with my congregation, they affirmed that they saw these signs of God’s gifts and call in my life. That was more than 30 years ago, and that experience of call has been what the Spirit of God has used to sustain me through the ups and downs of ministry.

 

 

A Hunger for God’s Word

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by Dimas Pezzato, Pastor of High School Youth & Young Adults, Souderton congregation

My journey into ministry can best be described as a stumbling journey of discovery.

I can’t point to one distinct moment that I can describe as my “calling.” I didn’t have a vision. I didn’t hear a voice. In fact, the further along I went, the more unexpected curves my call took. My reaction to these obstacles surprised me. Instead of weakening my desire to pursue ministry, I found myself reinvigorated, excited about facing the challenges and figuring out ways to overcome these hurdles. 

It was through this process, along with external validation from the church body, that I arrived at the conclusion that God has called me to help people discover Jesus. I am called to help people discover Jesus in Scripture, to help them fall in love with the process, and be transformed as they follow Him. So my story is the story of this “process.”

I was born and spent several years as a child living in southern California. Often I would gather my neighborhood friends together to read passages of the Bible. I enjoyed the Bible and naturally wanted to share. These were not kids that went to church. When I was ten years old, I even led one of them in the sinner’s prayer in my backyard one day after playing basketball.  

This same passion filled me during my teenage years, although it was more hidden. It was during my college years that opportunities for student leadership really ignited in me a desire to formally study the Bible. After completing my bachelor’s degree in Philadelphia, I decided to enroll in seminary in Boston to study biblical languages. My only goal was to satisfy my hunger to get as close as I could to the scriptures. 

We might not be aware of God’s guidance, but He does guide us regardless, especially if our heart’s desire is to be obedient and we are willing to be led. It was during my pursuit of this God-placed desire that opportunities for ministry arose. As I walked through doors that were opening (opportunities as a Youth Pastor in Boston and then as an Assistant Pastor for a few years in Brazil), I saw how God had been preparing me for each step. 

Now I continue that journey of pursuing my desire to know Jesus through His Word and sharing it with others in obedience to His call at Souderton Mennonite Church. It is so exciting (and at times terrifying) to follow Him. Nothing is impossible when He is around. That’s what makes things SO interesting!

Called To Cross Lines

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by Bill Martin, Towamencin congregation

On a snowy Saturday evening this past winter, my wife Sharon and I were leaving an almost empty Lowes store. I drove our car along the front of the store to avoid the speed bumps.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“What I am not supposed to,” came my reply.  After a brief pause, I turned to her and said, “It makes me feel alive.”

She broke into laughter. “I’ve never heard you say it so plainly.”

Honestly, though, that’s who I am. Sharon likes to draw an imaginary line with one hand, saying, “Here’s the line,” and then, extending her arm as far as she can, adding, “and here you are.  You always have to cross the line.”

I was the child that needed more discipline than my siblings; trouble seemed to find me. So imagine the impact, when I was about 10 years old, of my mom saying to me, “There was a Billy Sunday, a Billy Graham, and, I believe, one day there will be a Billy Martin.”

It was a moment at a young age when I realized there had been a path laid out for my life, not because my mom said I should, but because I knew she had spoken truth to me.

In high school, the line-crossing trends continued and I am certain there were not many teachers who wanted me in their classes. Yet a comment from Mr. Benner when he graded one of my speeches in speech class reaffirmed what my mom had told me. It was called a “Mini Chapel Speech” and he gave me a B grade with the comment, “Bill, I think you should consider becoming a pastor.” The note carried more weight because it was not based on the quality of the speech but rather on something else that he saw in me.

I have learned that God does not call us because we are perfect or because we are the best at something. God calls us out of His design and what He desires and what He is doing.

Several years ago, I was preaching at Spruce Lake Retreat. After the sermon, a friend came up to tell me about a comment a high school classmate made: “Of all the people I went to high school with, that’s the last guy I would have thought would become a pastor.”

That’s right, that’s me. Called by God, not because of who I am, but because of who He is.

The God of Many Chances

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by Mike Spinelli, Perkiomenville congregation

Mike & Cheryl Spinelli

You might think I am crazy because I sat in the snow to pray or because I claim to hear from God.  On the first count, you probably have a point.  On the second, I will simply say it is never crazy to say someone can hear God speaking.

In March 1982, I was a high school senior preparing to choose a college.  I sat on a big rock outside my cabin at winter camp.  There was snow all around and it was cold, but it didn’t matter.  God and I were meeting.  I thought about going into education, but another vocation was pulling at me.  As I sat, I simply spoke into the air, “God, do you want me to be a pastor?”

And as clearly as I could hear the creek below me and the wind in the trees, the answer came back inside my gut, “Yes.”

That moment set the direction of my life.  Rather than pursue teaching, I enrolled at Fresno Pacific College (now University) and almost immediately declared a Contemporary Ministries major.

I want to say that God made it clear how the way forward would proceed, but he didn’t.  Part of that is simply due to my youthful over-confidence.  I was called to ministry and I knew how that would play out.  If I had taken a meeting with God about the plan while I was on that rock, maybe he would have been clearer about what I faced.

As it was, there was much work the Lord wanted—and needed—to do to grow maturity and humility in me.  When I graduated from college, I entered a Mennonite Brethren service program that placed Christian workers in churches that could not afford them.  In that two-year stint as a youth pastor, I failed spectacularly.  I was more of a program person than a pastor.  I worked at technique more than relationships.  I thought the kids would flock to my program if it was good.  I missed what it took to build community.  And I did not take seriously that I was still learning to be pastor.  I thought I had the answers.

Fortunately, we serve a God of second—and third—chances.  Through the help of friends and the work of God’s Holy Spirit in me, I stopped trying to prove my competence and learned to love people and help them engage with Jesus more deeply.  I learned my worth is not in my title, but in being a child of God.  I have made it my mission to love, serve, and lead like Jesus and help others to do the same.

The road from being that overconfident young grad to today has never really become straight.  There have been victories that confirm what I heard on that rock and challenges that left me questioning if it was a limited time offer.  But I have seen the Lord confirm time and again where he wants me to be.  I also continue to learn what it means to hear his voice and follow his lead.

Our most recent move is one of those confirmation stories.  In 2016, I was at a crossroads, forced to decide about future employment.  As my wife Cheryl and I looked, it just so happened that a church in rural Pennsylvania was looking for a pastor.  Other doors closed, yet this one somehow stayed open.  Now we call this place home and I serve Perkiomenville congregation as lead pastor. 

I believe in praying in the snow and listening for the God who speaks.  I thank God for his great patience with me as I stumbled into this call to pastoral ministry.  I feel assured that there is more happening around me than I know and that God will continue to use me for his purposes as I follow his lead.

One Foot on a Pew…

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by Mark R. Wenger, Franconia congregation

I grew up as a “missionary kid” in Ethiopia, attending boarding school through grade five.  I cannot recall a time when spiritual concerns and values were not part of the landscape of my life and the air that I breathed.

I did not experience a dramatic conversion to faith in Jesus Christ.  In fact, I speak of many conversions, repentances and believings.  My baptism into Christ, age 12, is much more important to me now than it was at the time.

My call to Christian ministry gained direction through personal interests in Bible, history, theology, geography and music.  But when I graduated from college, the railroad tracks of education and growing-up ran out. Looking back, I’ve named this season in my 20s as “lost years” with lots of vocational, personal, and relational confusion.

After stumbling through seminary, I looked without success for a teaching job.  Forest Hills Mennonite Church (Leola, PA) contacted me about becoming an assistant pastor.  I was very dubious.  How could I be a pastor and be a real person?  I was willing to give it a try, part-time. 

I am forever grateful to God and to Forest Hills for extending a pastoral call to me.  I discovered and heard my divine call to ministry through my experience pastoring for nine years at Forest Hills.  The outer call from the congregation blossomed through God’s grace into an inner call of deep joy.  Frederick Buechner expresses it well: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

At Forest Hills, I became a fan of what congregations can offer for Christian community and witness.  This love of congregational life fed into my Ph.D. studies in Practical Theology – Preaching & Worship, and extended to Springdale Mennonite Church in Waynesboro, VA where my wife Kathy and I pastored together for 10 years.

I liked congregations, and I liked study & school.  Over time, this matured into a vocation of building bridges between congregations and church-related colleges & seminaries.  I began to see myself standing with one foot on a pew and the other on a school desk.  I also gradually came to embrace gifts of administration that others affirmed in me.  Administration, I came to see, is really about people first, not structures.

In 2005, I shifted my weight from the congregation to the academy, but my calling remained the same: to be a bridge.  Kathy and I moved from Virginia back to Pennsylvania where I served 12 years as Director of Pastoral Studies for Eastern Mennonite University at their extension in Lancaster.  Being a seminary administrator and professor was a privilege and wonderful fit.  I found it deeply satisfying to walk alongside men and women exploring and applying their ministry calling.

But, at age 61, I returned to congregational pastoral ministry at Franconia congregation (Telford, PA).  The Bible often speaks about the “right time.” That is not clock time; it is God’s time, and pregnant with divine possibility – risk and promise.  It was the right time to return to church.

At this stage of life, a big part of my sense of call is focused on cultivating healthy congregational life and witness.  The call also includes leading and mentoring ministry leaders younger and better at connecting with this generation than I am. 

 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:12-14).

Answering My Desperate Prayer

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(Baca dalam bahasa Indonesia)

 

Hadi Sunarto and his family

My story began when I arrived in this country from Indonesia in 2005. At that time, I was planning to go to La Salle University in Philadelphia. Just like many other people who moved to a new place, adaptation to all things new was the hardest part. Missing family, friends and colleagues, as well as my day to day life in my home country, made me depressed and hopeless. I almost gave up and decided to go back to Indonesia at that time. But the pressure from my family, wanting me to get an academic degree made me fight and stay put. My hardship pushed me to the point that I felt that only prayer could help me get through my problems at that time. I was praying that God would give me an answer to what I should do, to leave this time of struggle behind. 

Philadelphia is a big city with so much ethnic and cultural diversity. In this city, there are thousands of immigrants from Indonesia. I started to meet them, to try to get to know them closely. From many encounters, it was revealed that there are so many problems that they face as an immigrant in this country. They started telling stories, from the story of separation from family in Indonesia, problems at work, problems with immigration status, and last but not least, language limitations.

Hadi helping with Indonesian translation during Conference Assembly

At that moment, I started helping those with language limitations. I took them to the doctor, dentist or lawyer, and gave them free translation service. Slowly without realizing it, I found peace in the midst of my own problems. I found that half of the people had bigger problems than what I had, and that I’m not alone facing problems as an immigrant in this country.

As time went on, I started to think maybe this was God answering my desperate prayer after leaving Indonesia. In 2010, I found and joined Philadelphia Praise Center Church. PPC is an active church, helping the Indonesian Community in areas such as handling immigration documents and identity cards, English classes, etc. I’m also involved with those activities.

I started to look to PCC for vision and mission. One of their missions is “to become the living example of God’s love for people”. I began thinking that through my activities with PPC, I am living out this mission, which is the answers to my prayers. God wants me to do what I can to help other people. Finally, I decided to become a member at PPC. I was officially ordained in 2014 and I am still actives in my duties today.

Called to Worship

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by Larry Diener, Franconia congregation

Larry Diener leading worship at Conference Assembly

My sense of call has always been to the church, to the Body of Christ, and my primary area of ministry has been in music and worship.  When I was a youngster, someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I answered—a “working preacher”.  My dad was a bi-vocational pastor, and I guess I wanted to be like him.  He worked hard at carpentry, and was a pastor/preacher for many, many years.

As I grew older, the “work” part stuck with me, but the “preacher” part didn’t.  Even though I currently serve as a pastor at Franconia Mennonite Church, I have never felt called or gifted to be a preacher.  Serving in music and worship as well as pastoral care are the areas into which I have felt called and equipped. 

For much of my adult life, I was employed as a music teacher.  I taught both vocal and instrumental music in elementary, junior high, and senior high schools.  During that time, I was heavily involved in music and worship in various congregations.  Sometimes it was in the form of a part-time job, but often it was on a voluntary basis.  I have served in Brethren, Methodist, and American Baptist churches as well as several different Mennonite churches in different states.

So how did my sense of call to the church develop?  I have no clear or precise answer to that question.  I would simply say that as I matured in my faith during my teen years and early 20’s, I gradually developed a passion for music and worship in the congregational setting, and volunteered to serve in various capacities in whatever church I happened to be involved with.  While in college, I took a part-time job as minister of music in a local church, and found that I loved the work, loved the people, and felt a deep sense of meaning and fulfillment in leading people in worship. 

After I retired from teaching music, I was employed at Bahia Vista Mennonite Church in Sarasota, FL as the minister of music and worship.  My wife, Doris, and I moved to this area in the fall of 2014, and I am currently serving at Franconia Mennonite Church in music and worship, and pastoral care.  This call to church ministry has been very meaningful, humbling, and fulfilling.

Becoming an Authentic Pastor

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by Ben Walter, Ripple

I grew up attending a Church of the Nazarene congregation every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening, well into my teenage years. Our family was at church whenever the doors were open.  My parents often sang up front, Dad playing the guitar and Mom banging the tambourine against her leg.  They asked me to join, but I was too shy and self-conscious.

I can’t tell you when I became a Christian, or when I was “born again,” because as far as I can remember, I have always looked to Jesus as Lord, savior, teacher, and friend.  Despite my semi-forced dedication to the church, becoming a pastor was not on my to-do list; standing up front, talking, and inviting people to kneel at the altar to get saved for the tenth time wasn’t my idea of a fulfilling job.

As I entered my late teens and early twenties, I drifted away from the church.  I thought about God often, and prayed occasionally, but my faith wasn’t guiding my decisions. 

After spending 3 years in the military, I prepared to start college.  I was thinking about becoming a pastor, but I felt like, if that’s what God wanted for my life, I couldn’t be obedient to that call.  A nagging feeling of guilt began following me around.  So I went to talk to my pastor.

I remember my pastor said, “You will know.”

I didn’t really “know” at the time, so I ran.  I guess I assumed God would get the message to me if I needed to hear it.

During my final year of college, like the prodigal son, I returned.  I started attending church and met some good Christians friends who helped me stay on track.  The youth pastor at my home church asked me to help with the youth.  This turned into seven years of teaching, chaperoning, and mentoring.

Over time, particularly after the start of the Iraq War, I began thinking more deeply about Jesus’ teachings on peace, justice, oppression, and solidarity.  I didn’t have a label for it, but I was on my way to becoming an Anabaptist.

In 2008, I decided to pursue a Masters of Divinity degree from Biblical Theological Seminary. I wasn’t interested in pastoring, but wanted to dedicate a few years to serious study of scripture to help in the ministry I was already doing.  

During my studies, I learned about the Anabaptists and was told by one of my close friends that I was one.  This was news to me, but I embraced the label.  I also had the opportunity to be taught by a Mennonite adjunct professor, Steve Kriss. 

Steve was the teacher for my final class at Biblical Seminary.  As I walked out the door of my last session of that class, marking the end of my seminary education, Steve stopped me to ask a few questions.  He told me that there was a church in Allentown that might interest me and wondered if I’d like to meet Tom Albright, the pastor of Ripple.  I decided I would check it out.

Ben spending time with Ayanna and Angel in Ripple’s Community Garden. Photo credit: Angela Moyer

When I got to Ripple, I saw a church that was dedicated to being a safe, welcoming place of worship for people who have been pushed to the margins of society, those with whom Jesus calls us to solidarity.  A few weeks later, Ripple called me to be one of the pastors, and I “knew.”

I initially thought I couldn’t be obedient to God’s call to be a pastor because the pastors I had known seemed to be straight-laced and uptight.  There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not me.  At times I still feel pressured to fit a certain pastoral mold, but for the most part, Ripple has allowed me to pastor from a place of authenticity and vulnerability.  I have learned that being a good pastor is simply about being the person God has created me to be.  I don’t have to pretend.

Thank God!