Let Your Life Speak

Many important things happened to me at Asbury University. That's where I got my Bachelor's degree in Christian Mission (way back in 1996). It was also there that I met my wife. Asbury provided what turned out to be pretty much the quintessential Christian college experience: I learned how to think, write, pray, and play well with others. And it was there that I worked out a calling to be a missionary. Phil Thornton's classes in Mission, a summer internship in the Solomon Islands, numerous practice hours in the Fine Arts building, excellent Bible instructors, and good friends who prayed with me -- all these experiences equipped me for a career as a missionary.

Within five years of graduation I was in the Philippines with my wife and children serving as a missionary ethnomusicologist. I had joined the near-countless number of overseas missionaries produced by Asbury University.

But that wasn't the end of working out my calling at that small Christian school in Wilmore, Kentucky. During a furlough about 6 years into my career, I ended up back on campus. Clair Budd, one of my Christian Ministries professors, had invited me to sit in on one of his classes. The students were working through a book by Parker Palmer called Let Your Life Speak. Clair gave me a copy to keep. Maybe it was the pink cover, but something led me to devour the book right away. And once again, Asbury re-entered into the story of my calling.

Something shook me in this little book. It had to do with listening to God's voice around the contours of the personality and gifts that God had built into me. It is easy to get the sense that everything about faith has to be difficult. Find it a struggle to pray, read the Bible, or get to church on time? Just try harder. Deciding between a career in investment banking or running a homeless shelter? God must certainly be calling you to the option that requires the most sacrifice. Don't get me wrong, Christ does ask us to do hard things. Anyone who reads Philippians chapter 2 has to take seriously the call to sacrifice and laying down one's own desires.

But the call to sacrifice is not the only voice that God speaks with. Our own lives -- that is, our desires and skills and talents -- can say a lot about what we are called to do. Eugene Peterson writes about a butcher who follows the contours of the animal's tissues; it is a chore to carve up steaks and cuts, but a good butcher works with rather than against the grain. (See his book The Contemplative Pastor.) So too are we called to "go with the grain" of how God created us. There are things we were made to do. And there are things we have no business doing. Palmer writes about an invitation he received to be a university President. He seriously considered taking the job, until he realized that the only part of it that he really wanted was to see his name on the university letterhead. When he honestly assessed his own skills, Palmer admitted that he had no business being the president of anything.

Clair Budd handed me this book at a point in my life when I sensed that something needed to change. Living out my calling was becoming more difficult that it should have been. I was away from my family too often. It was clear that a change was needed. In the words of an obscure Bruce Hornsby song: "Sometimes it's the right thing to cut the cord, you've been holding on hard but your hands get sore." (See the clip of Swan Song at the bottom. That lyric comes up around 2:30.)

So this great little book got me thinking about what things God had created me for. What parts of my life did I enjoy? Well, I very much liked to preach when I had the chance. I loved to teach about the scriptures. Leading Bible study discussions gave me a special thrill. Planning meaningful worship services was more fun than most other things I was doing. So over the next months and years I came to realize that God was calling me to be a pastor. Not that the previous decade had been a waste of time. But the next chapter of life would involve doing some things that I wasn't ready for in the 1990s -- things like studying Biblical Greek, going to seminary, and standing before a denominational board to explain my calling.

The last 16 months have confirmed that calling in every way. I love being a pastor. I believe that the UMC has more things going for it than against it. I am also thoroughly enjoying going back to school at Duke Divinity School. I'm looking forward to listening to how my life will speak in the years to come.