Loved, Embraced, Challenged...and Going Forth

Opening my heart, only to have it broken again. -a thought I wrote during worship last year

Whenever you have an encounter with God, you are different. -Randy McMillen (during a sermon sometime in the last year)

Today's sermon made me cry. Actually, weep is a better term, because I was crying so hard that I had to grab the entire box of tissues on the table in the back of the worship space. It's the fifteenth time in as many months that Randy's sermon has made me cry, and the fifth time I've actually wept during the sermon. Not that I'm counting or anything.

I think it's become sort of a joke at OG...or at least among the people who know me well there...that Patti cries during Randy's sermons. The word is definitely "out" after today, because about ten people came up to me after the service, hugged me, and asked me what was wrong. I then told them why I was crying. I can understand why people are taken aback when I cry so readily at Randy's sermons...because I've never been a "cry during worship" person, and not a lot of people are. But then, I've never experienced God so powerfully anywhere else.

I have written about my awful, no good, very bad experience in my first appointment (look at the label "Danville-gate" for those posts). I have shared parts of it with many people at Oak Grove, and Randy knows most of the whole sordid tale. It was devastating, and two of the worst after-effects were that my relationship with God was damaged, and so was my sense of self-worth...I often entertained thoughts of turning in my ministerial credentials (the nifty sheet of paper that lets me act in the capacity of a pastor, according to the United Methodist Church), because I no longer had any passion for ministry or sense of calling.

After going around to various churches, my family began attending OG in 2009, because it had a great contemporary service. For over a year, my worship attendance and participation were purely out of habit. Over time, my heart began to heal, mostly because I began to experience the people of OG loving and embracing my family and me. Little things that said, "I care" kept chipping away at my hardened and broken heart, because I was experiencing the church (the people of God) being the church (the chosen vehicle to bringing God's hope and healing to a broken world and broken people). Eventually, I got to a point where I was willing to really engage in and commit to the body of Christ again, so we joined OG and began financially supporting a congregation for the first time in three years.

That's when I began really listening to Randy's sermons, and when God began speaking to me in a very powerful way. I was reminded of Whose I am (a child of God, a person of worth) and who I am and who God is calling me to be (a pastor). I made the commitment to go back under appointment (to be a pastor), and began seeking out opportunities to serve God, to serve God's people, and to use my gifts for ministry. 

Over the past year, God has transformed me, reminded me of gifts that I had forgotten, and shown me new gifts that I didn't know I possessed. God has given me the strength and love to open my heart and reach out to others, and renewed my passion for ministry and my heart for God's people. And that has all taken place in the context of Oak Grove United Methodist Church, in the midst of this wonderful (yet far far from perfect) congregation. For that I will be forever grateful. 

Today's worship experience, and particularly the sermon, reminded me powerfully of two things: first, it reminded me of all that God has done and is doing through OG to touch my life and the lives of others. Second, it reminded me that in a few months I will have to leave OG, and how painful that leaving will be. My heart, which God softened and opened wide, will once again be broken by having to leave people and a church that I love...a church whose vision resonates in the deepest part of who I am, as a person and as I pastor.

I would love to be able to stay at OG...to continue to be a part of what God is doing here. However, because of all that God has done and is doing at OG and in my life, I am changed. I am becoming who God has called me to be, and that involves becoming a pastor again, and having my own congregation to lead and my own congregation with which to dream. So, some Sunday in June, you will see me weeping during, after, and possibly even before, worship. And it may be because Randy's sermon has (in the words of a friend) "touched me for the 32 millionth time". However, it will most likely be because my heart will be breaking over the thought of leaving a pastor and congregation with whom and through whom I have experienced God so powerfully, and whose loving, embracing and challenging have helped me rediscover my true worth, rediscover my calling, and reveal the pastor who God is calling me to be. When I re-enter the pulpit on July 1, 2012, I will not be the same pastor I was in July 2006. Nor will I be the same pastor I was in May 2008, when I left full-time ministry. I have been changed and transformed because of the ways that God has worked and is working through the people of Oak Grove United Methodist Church.

So, people of Oak Grove, keep loving. Keep embracing. Keep challenging. Keep stepping out in faith and following God's vision, because God has done, and is doing, amazing things at Oak Grove. I, and so many others, are proof of it.