Coming to Grips With a Silent Ministry

I'm at that age where ghosts of my past keep popping up where I least expect them, reminding me of what could have been, and a little bit of the journey I expected to take when I was younger.

The journey since has been nothing like that. As a young convert to Christianity, I sincerely believed I was meant for ministry. To me that meant being a pastor somewhere, or a missionary; really, anywhere God wanted me.

And I started off with that in mind. I went briefly to a small Baptist Bible College, but was struck by the inherent hypocrisy of a school that did not allow students to attend movies, but said nothing when the students would gather together in their homes and watch the same movies. It's more likely than anything that the college was just not a good fit for me, but I really didn't see any other option at the time.

And then I moved back home for a span of three years, continuing my college experience, but being stifled by the intricacies of the student loan system. A technicality made it a monumental hurdle to get financial aid until I was 24, and I was unwilling to jump those hurdles.

Then came family. It wasn't long until I was a parent, and put that on the backseat at a number of low to mediocre paying jobs, putting in long hours. All that became important in that stage in life was holding through to the next paycheck.

Then a series of steps led to where I am now, finished with a degree, but not really in the direction I had once considered, and with the thoughts of "ministry" I had when I was younger all but over. In sum total, my "career" in the pulpit lasted all of three sermons as part of a group of people who filled in for a rural Oklahoma church. The disappointment of never being able to launch in something that was very dear to me, something to which I have always believed that I was called, left me bitter. And it didn't help that I was watching as many of the churches I saw were completely being swallowed up by a materialism and secularism that were certainly not Christ's intent.

But gradually, time has led me to understand that ministry is not confined to the face in the pulpit; that there are a lot of ministers out there that nobody will ever see, and that for reasons not completely known to me (although I know some of them), that just might be God's direction for me. That maybe, just maybe, the marks I leave on those around me won't be seen until after I'm gone. And that, while I may never preach another sermon from a pulpit in my life, that doesn't mean that I'm not preaching through my actions.

I don't feel comfortable sharing the opportunities that have opened up for me lately. I don't feel it's right. But it's my prayer that somehow my life can steer more over time towards Kingdom work than the tedious work often needed to sustain ourselves in this life.

But what I've had to come to grips with is the fact those opportunities have always been there, they just come without applause.

And I'm OK with that.