Last week, I had so much to do that even though I'm such a conformist, I
really wanted to skip my conference's mandatory retreat for all of its
pastors at Pine Springs Ranch. I had a sermon to prepare by the end of
the week, a newsletter to craft, a large all-conference event to
strategize, and a certain amount of pressure to get things rolling on my
wedding planning. It just seemed nuts and counterproductive to take
three days out of such a week as that just to hang out with other
pastors because the conference said so.
But a few things nagged
at my conscience that got me to go. One was that it was required, and I
generally do what I'm told. The other is that it was the first time
all of the pastors in our conference have been called together socially
across our separately managed regions in a very long time. I am
passionate about cross-regional relations with the hope of someday
seeing the regions vanish, or at least no longer be drawn along ethnic
lines. So as not to be called a hypocrite for saying I believe that and
then not supporting the conference when it does something like that, I
went. But I still had a bad attitude about the time it would take.
On
the way up to Pine Springs Ranch, though, my attitude started to
change. My regional director had told us all to read Dr. Joseph
Kidder's book, The Big Four, before going, and I was listening to
it on the Kindle text-to-speech feature. As I listened to how taking
time out to pray transformed his ministry, I realized that this retreat
would probably give me a good reality check about that.
And it
did. After an initial presentation about how different thinking styles
affect ministry (which is very similar to brain quadrant preference, but
this guy explained it more clearly than anyone else has), Dr. Kidder
was the speaker for the rest of the weekend, and it was all about prayer
and keeping Christ the center of ministry. While many of his talks were
almost word-for-word from The Big Four, the passion with which
he delivered them was powerful. His life story, which wasn't in his
book, was amazing, too--native to Iraq, he became a Christian and an
Adventist at the cost of being beaten and disowned by his family. After
many hurdles and difficulties, he came to the US and eventually became a
professor at Andrews.
I sought him out at lunch the middle day
of the retreat, partly because I was curious about some aspects of his
life in Iraq but even more curious about some aspects of life at Andrews
University. He took me aback by taking an interest in me and my story,
especially my plans to go to Andrews in the fall whether there is a
sponsorship involved or not. He surprised me, at the end of the walk,
by actually praying for me one-on-one to get a sponsorship. Somehow,
until he did that, it had never occurred for me to pray for that
specifically myself. My prayers had just been feeble sorts of, "If you
want me there, God, you figure out how to get me there."
I've
known so many people who have been disappointed by asking God for
specific, concrete things that I suppose that I've been afraid to ask.
But I realized after Dr. Kidder prayed for me that this has been holding
back my ministry. It is no crime to pray for specific results, after
all, if those results are already a part of God's revealed plan. I had
never had the guts in my whole life to pray for wholesale heart
conversions or baptisms, even though theoretically these are the things
my ministry is supposed to produce. I realized, then, that the three
days I was spending away from the supposed business end of my work were
really being spent exactly where they need to be--in prayer for my
congregation, God's mission for it, and the people I care about.
That
night, the conference treated all of us pastors to a very special
communion service modeled after the Passover celebration. We were all
mixed up so that no one was next to a pastor of their same region, and
that was powerful. At the end of it, the conference officials all
spread themselves throughout the room and made sure that every single
pastor got anointed. It was really strange and powerful to see these
men and women I was used to seeing wielding authority in suits at their
offices humble themselves to serve us in this way.
Our worships
consisted of both music and testimonies, and the testimonies were the
most interesting, because it was kind of the first time I've heard that
many pastors be that honest at once. They owned up, in front of their
peers, to their failings and their growth. Pastors who had never met or
spoken to each other before bared their souls. It made me smile to
realize that most of them had an equally bad or worse attitude going
into it than I had, but had also gotten something really amazing out of
it.
From there, I plunged into the work of the week and weekend
to follow. But I felt so much more directed, clear in my thinking, and
connected to why I was doing what I was doing. The Sabbath, which was
perhaps the busiest I'd had in a long time, energized me instead of
wearing me out (though i did crash the next day). When I encountered my
colleagues throughout the weekend as I collaborated with them on
various things, they looked more passionately focused on their purpose
in all this activity as well.
And once I had recovered from the
weekend in all of its insanely busy splendor, I finally gathered the
courage to pick up the phone and start calling my family, one by one, to
tell them that Stephen and I confirmed our wedding date of August 4 at
the Yountville SDA Church. Was I scared of them? No. I was scared of
being overwhelmed by all the wedding talk, and yeah, by the end of the
day (it takes all day to talk to each family member individually, even
if a few do go straight to voicemail), I was emotionally wiped. After
all, calling all those people is like taking a person-by-person tour of
relationships that will change in some way once I get married. But it's
like something inside of me has finally clicked enough to face not just
my work better, but these major life changes of marrying Stephen and
going to Andrews with more courage than I had before. I have my health
back, and for that, I am grateful, but I am even more grateful for this
wonderful attitude adjustment that my conference just forced me to
attend.
This time, when I sign off to the email edition of
Jillian's Journeys, I mean it more sincerely than ever that you are in
my prayers. I love you all so very much, and pray that God will
energize, bless and focus you in whatever it is that you are doing this week.
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