Remembering the Vocation

The excerpt below was written the week after I entered my current position in CRM... I was looking through some old newsletters today and I was struck by the clarity I had before I even got here!  Good to remember: 

Why am I doing this?  And what exactly will I be doing, by the way?  =)  These are common questions I face.  Since I graduated from college, God has been pointing my heart toward ministry, listening to and caring for people, with a particular passion and frustration for the work of the Church.  Though I’ve begun to consider ordination in the PC(USA), I don’t feel ready to say that God has called me to the pulpit—or to parish ministry.  Instead, with Urban Mosaic, I want to walk alongside church leaders and pastors who are figuring out how to be missional, how to lead, how to care for their congregation and their community, how to imagine what “God’s kingdom come” might look like for San Diego.  It’s some of what I do with the Global Urban Trek, when I invite university students to take God’s words about justice seriously and prioritize their lives accordingly.  It’s some of what I did in Miami, when I encouraged a small congregation to pursue its dream of opening an immigration clinic.  It’s some of what I do in my home church when I lead and go to Bible studies, retreats, or prayer services—planting seeds and watering ground for my brothers and sisters to grow in God’s good will.  Who can say for sure what God will have for me in San Diego, or for how long?  (This is a job without distinct service “terms.”)  I do hope it will involve lots of cups of tea, conversations, prayers, hard work and full laughter.  I hope I’ll meet many people and draw them together.  I hope I can show God’s heart for the poor to the isolated sorrow of the rich, and I hope for righted relationships to renovate the Church.  Those are not small hopes, but I don’t think we were called to follow Jesus with a couple of achievable goals on a to-do list.  I won’t get everything done, but I’ll do something, and I want to do it as well as I can, with as much love as I have.