WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP? Part 4

As I said last week, I knew I wanted to try to be a pastor. But how do you do that? I guessed rightly that you had to take the first steps through your own pastor. That's still true now. But for me that meant talking to Pastor X with whom the family was on the outs. So this would be the first test. I would have to talk to Pastor X, and if he told me this was wrong, it would be a sign from God. I'll give Pastor X the credit that he heard me out and didn't say no. He did ask me why I didn't leave that congregation when my uncle's family did, and I told him that was their decision, not mine. I explained my notion that I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing in trying to become a pastor, but I felt I had to try and if I failed, it would be a sign that I shouldn't do it. He asked me if I was leaving room for God in all this–but he didn't offer me the slightest idea of how you figured out what God wanted. Before we were done, he called the seminary and got them to send our applications.

The next step was to talk to my parents about my decision. To my surprise they weren't surprised. It was as if they thought I had gotten my life back on track after this silly excursion into music. Their concern was how I was going to pay for seminary. Pastor X had offered me the job of choir director. (It's another story how I got rooked on that deal.) I could also do substitute teaching. (Boy was THAT a horrible experience.) Having gotten over these hurdles, I was free to talk to people about my decision to try (emphasis on "try") to become a pastor. Absolutely no one was surprised or discouraging in the least. This is something I've learned. Often times other people know you better that you know yourself. I think that's true for someone who is as uncertain and self-critical as myself. Other people can see your gifts and positive attributes when you can't. It probably works the other way as well. Other people can tell when somebody is full of baloney. They know when someone thinks too much of themselves. It's a good thing to find someone who can be honest with you about yourself.

There are two things that need to happen when you start down the path to become a pastor. You need to be accepted at a seminary, that's a graduate school for training pastors (you have to have a college degree before you can go to seminary). The other thing you need is to be endorsed by a synodical committee. They decide if you really should be a pastor. I saw these two things as being more tests along the way to help me know if I was doing the right thing.

The synodical committee requires you write essays about yourself, take psychological tests (today they also require criminal background checks) and interview with a committee member. One of the people on the list was Pastor John P. Petersen who had been pastor of my church before Ralph Riedessel, so naturally I interviewed with him. It went OK, but he was not happy that I wasn't sure that this was what I wanted to do because he though the church couldn't afford to train people and then have them quit. Despite this, I was endorsed. A good sign, I think.

The seminary was a different matter. I applied to the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. They didn't like it that I had a B. Mus. degree instead of B.A. Too much music! How did they know if I would be able to do the work in seminary? Didn't I know that being a pastor was more than having beautiful worship services? What would I do if they refused to admit me? I answered that I would apply to another seminary. Well, they decided they would admit me if I took eight more college courses.

So what kind of sign was this? A bad sign? Maybe I shouldn't be a pastor after all? Well, I plowed ahead and took eight courses in history, social psychology, logic and other stuff to satisfy them. Got As in all of them except one, I think. Finally, I was admitted to the seminary.

In the seminary were all sorts of experiences that were tests for me. The first quarter was tough. I took a required course called "Theological Methodology." I just couldn't figure out what was going on in the course. To this day I'm not sure what it was about. I don't think the professor knew, either, but I got a B. I had to learn Hebrew (not a requirement anymore) and Greek. I did well, very well academically. The worries I had concerned the practical courses where you learn Christian education, preaching, worship leadership, pastoral care, and social ministry. I knew I wouldn't have trouble with some of them, and I didn't. Preaching scarred me. I was (and still am) nervous when I preach. I fidget the whole time. To my surprise, I was good. My peers, my fellow students, thought I was good. I think that is the highest form of praise, when it comes from your colleagues. My room mates at seminary were a great support to me. They saw me as a pastor, and that meant a lot to me. Two of them went on to become assistants to bishops.

After two years of classes you spend a year as an intern (a sort of student pastor in a church) and three months in Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) which is usually in a hospital. CPE worried me. First, because you work as a chaplain in the hospital, which I had never done, and second CPE in those days had a reputation of being an emotional nightmare. The CPE directors seemed to intentionally try to upset you, to make you angry or make you cry so they could show you what was wrong with you. Fortunately, it's not like that anymore. I survived. In fact, I considered taking more CPE, but that fancy passed after a while. I got through my internship reasonably well. Again I had a good pastor to work with, one I could respect and learn from. (The picture in the blog is of me during CPE at MacNeal Memorial Hospital.)

After internship it was back to seminary for one more year of classes–a breeze. And then the dreaded examining committee that would decide if you could be a pastor. You can finish seminary, get a degree, but it doesn't matter if the examining committee doesn't recommend you for ordination. Your whole career can stop before it ever starts all on the basis of the examination.

The evening before the examination, there was a social hour with members of the various examining committees and the bishop. The idea was that this would put everyone at ease. For an introvert like me it had the opposite effect. The real nightmare was that the members of the examining committee knew who they would be questioning the next day, but none of the candidates knew which of the examiners would actually question them. So you're wandering around trying to look nonchalant but feeling like a steer parading around a group of butchers eyeing you for the slaughter. Worse yet, I had a brief conversation with the bishop, and it was obvious that he didn't think much of me. Was this a bad sign? (Yes, as it turned out. More a bit later.)

Well, I got through the exam the next day. Then you were supposed to wait until you got a letter in the mail telling you what the decision was. Fortunately the bishop's secretary saw me in the hallway and told me I had been approved. In fact the chair of the committee had recommended me enthusiastically. Later the chair of my examining committee said that after the party the night before, he had grave doubts about me, but after hearing me during the oral examination he had been impressed. I was the only candidate they interviewed who could tell them how I went about preparing a sermon, and I was the only one who knew what was in church constitution.

Well now I'm feeling good. I have gone in five years from not having a clue if I was doing the right thing to being pretty positive I was doing the right thing. When you get too sure of yourself, you're ready for a fall. And it came. You cannot be ordained a pastor without a call to a congregation. It doesn't matter if you have been approved by the synod and completed seminary. If a congregation won't take you, you can't be a pastor. Period. The bishop was not convinced that I could manage a church by myself, so he would only recommend me for positions where I would be an assistant pastor with responsibility for youth work. I was interviewed by three senior pastors none of whom wanted me on their staff. One didn't like me because I thought communion every Sunday was important. Another didn't like me because I couldn't play the guitar and I thought the book of Jonah was a parable and not a historical fact. Another (the nicest of the three) was concerned because I didn't engage in winter sports like skiing and tobogganing which were major activities of the youth group. I began to wonder why I had studied all that theology and Bible in the seminary, if that wasn't going to be what I used as an assistant pastor.

Then that was it. No more recommendation to any church. Depression was setting in. I dangled for a year until a bishop in Canada showed an interest in me for a multiple church parish somewhere north of Winnipeg. I began thinking about buying long underwear and flannel shirts when I was contacted by a church in Miami. I had visited that church on vacation once. A friend of mine had been pastor, but was leaving This congregation was interested in me as pastor. Now, congregations are supposed to wait until bishops submit recommendations to them. This one wouldn't wait. Well, to be honest, the bishop didn't like this congregation very much anyway, so he probably would have left them without a pastor for a long time. I contacted the bishop in Florida. It seemed to be a happy solution for everyone. He got rid of a problematic church, and the bishop in Illinois got rid of a hard to place candidate. So I wound up being called to my first church. I was ordained at my home church in Chicago and went to work in Miami for the next 21 years. The people liked me, and I appreciated their confidence in me. And from there to Ocala where I have been 8 1/2 years.

May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne