Things I liked about it, things I disliked about it and the burning question of whether I will ever return to it I'm talking about "ministry", by the way.
According to my aunt, the pleasure of whose company we are enjoying for three months, all the folks at church back in BC are asking after me, wondering what I'm doing, and wondering what the hell I'm doing being confirmed in the Anglican Church. The one-time-Senior-Pastor probably thinks I've gone totally off my rocker. I remember him dismissing Anglicans as "a bunch of pinks" (I think that is roughly equivalent to "commies"), pretty much the same way he'd dismiss anyone who didn't meet his standards. Anyway, he's probably praying for my soul as we speak. And I think the burning question folks everywhere -- well, any of the handful of folks who ever had the misfortune to know me as "Pastor" -- are asking is, Will he ever return to ministry?
For those who don't know, I was Associate Pastor in a smalltown Pentecostal church for about eighteen months. After that, I was a sort-of-intern at a wee evangelical church somewhere else, but that lasted less than a couple of months. And, just to round off the story, when I returned to England last year, I went back to a place I had revisited time and again on my Christian walk: The Anglican Church. In May last year I was confirmed.
So, back to that burning question: Will I return to ministry?
Well, apparently a good way to approach these things is to make a list of good points and bad points, and weigh them up against each other. I'm an INFP, and they're not supposed to be good at that kind of thing, but let's give it a go anyway.
Actually, for all the pain that went with being a rapidly apostasizing (he says tongue-in-cheek) minister in a fairly fundamentalist church, I can't say I regret the experience one iota. I loved the people, and I cherish the good memories. I loved ministry, and the bad experiences didn't put me off. I loved having an excuse to help people and reach out to people. I'm not always that great initiating contact with people, depending on the situation. (That's the I in my INFP.) But having that label "Pastor" is like an excuse or a reason so no one thinks you're crazy for wanting to help them and spend time with them and do something good for them. I guess I loved ministry because I'm a "people person" (see, I'm contradicting myself now), and I relish opportunities to share the grace, love and acceptance of Jesus in all the million and one ways there are to do it. I loved that people looked to me to hear the good news that God loved them and forgave them and accepted them in Jesus, because that's a message I want to proclaim, and it changes people.
Here's what I didn't like. I hated the way you'd be expected to have black-and-white answers to everyone's pressing questions. What was especially frustrating was that if I failed to give people the black-and-white answers, they'd run to the nearest Bible-bashing fundy study leader who'd spin them some yarn they just heard from their favourite televangelist on TBN. They were just like that: They'd been nurtured as Christians to believe that the Bible was the equivalent of God's 101 Questions and Answers about Life, the Universe and Everything, and they expected me to dish up the condensed version all the time.
I hated having to keep all my questions to myself, but I guess that was more a product of being a heretical wayfarer in a static fundamentalist culture.
Actually, now I think about it, I can't really find all that many negatives at all. I mean, sure, there were lots of negatives -- I was treated pretty shabbily by a certain Senior Pastor -- but I'm not so sure I can attribute them to ministry itself so much as the particular religious milieu I found myself in, or the attitudes of people I happened to be working with. The other day I found myself reading a bunch of letters I had sent to a friend during some lonely times in ministry, and the one thing that really shines through is that despite all my struggles, my heart was really in ministry. I spoke with real joy and enthusiasm about serving the Lord in that way, even though there were a thousand other things taking place back then that could easily have robbed me of that.
So I guess the answer is looking like, Yes, I will return to ministry. Actually, I already knew that, but just wanted to show you how I got to that place.
But there are added complications now, I have to admit. Despite being an Anglican, I have this ironic non-conformist streak, and I don't know if I can see myself in a dog-collar and robes playing by the rules. This entry was going to be an exploration of that issue, but I can see it's gone on far too long already. (Which reminds me, when I was taught to preach half-hour- or hour-long sermons, how on earth will I make out trying to keep within the standard Anglican seven minutes?)
To lots of you, this post is going to look like an incoherent mess, a ragbag assemblage (is that a word?) of musings. It does to me. So many other questions pop up all over the place when I ask myself about returning to ministry, like, What is "ministry"? Since when was ministry the domain of a professional? What's all this about being a "priest"? But it's going to have to remain an incoherent mess for now, and maybe I'll address all that other crap in another entry, another day.
Dave
10:53:34 PM 
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