hallway season

So now that my formal leave request is submitted and we have announced to the congregation and etc etc, I can answer the big question:  what on earth am I going to be doing after June 30?

Some of you are familiar with our itinerant appointment system in the United Methodist Church.  Some of you are not.  Let me explain briefly:  I am an ordained elder in full connection with the Tennessee Conference of the United Methodist Church.  Essentially, this means I belong to one of the strongest unions still in existence.  It's a closed shop.  I am tenured.  Unless I do something ridiculously unethical (or choose to surrender my credentials), I will retain that tenure for the rest of my life.

The covenant that I have made, in exchange for this lifetime guaranteed appointment/job/minimum salary, is that I will itinerate.  This means that the bishop and cabinet will assign me to a church somewhere within the geographical confines of middle Tennessee.  I get some input into this decision, but at the end of the day:  I am assigned.  There are a hundred reasons why John Wesley thought this was such a good idea in the late 1700s, but that's not really what I'm gonna talk about today.

There are some accommodations that can be made in the case of those who need to take leave, while retaining full connection in the conference.  You can be placed on leave (involuntary), or take voluntary leave for transitions or the care of family.  I have submitted a request for one year of voluntary family leave, to begin July 1 of this year.  After seven years under full-time appointment, I will not be taking an appointment for 2017-2018.

So, what will I do with this year?  

1)  work with an area church and Vicki's elementary school to complete my Doctor of Ministry project, which focuses on increased engagement and investment in neighborhood schools to stem the tide of charterization in middle Tennessee.

2)  spend pretty much all of July on an epic family road trip, touring the West.

3)  complete a 200-hour yoga teacher training at Kali Yuga Yoga from August through November.

4)  take my daughter on her first trip to New York!  To see my best friend and her baby and her husband and Brooklyn and see the Thanksgiving Day Parade.  This is such a rite of passage for us, introducing her to The City.

5)  spend a lot more time with my son and daughter, cat, dog, and chickens.

6)  take a German class at Vanderbilt (modern languages . . . ugh).

7)  apply for about 15 more Ph.D. programs in Religious Studies/Theology.  Including reapplying to Stanford.

8)  take my kids to DC in May of 2018 for my graduation at the National Cathedral.

Big questions I've been asked:

1)  How can I do this, financially?

I am by no means independently wealthy (have you seen my house/car/life?!), but I have enough saved from inheritance and cheap living that I can afford to do one year this way.  We won't be able to live extravagantly, but I can take a year to breathe.

2)  Will I return to church ministry?

I have no idea, honestly.  I am trying to be as open as I possibly can.  I have spent a lot of my life rushing through whichever door opened easily and quickly, because I couldn't stand the ambiguity and discomfort of standing in the hallway.  But this is my hallway season.  This is the time to stand and observe the doors and see which one cracks open and which one shuts and which one can be the door that is wisest and most accommodating for all three of us.  Perhaps I am accepted to the perfect Ph.D. program, and that is the door that opens.  Perhaps I am not, and I realize that God is pulling me back to the church.  Perhaps God pulls me in some other direction entirely.  I have to take the time to see.  There is no substitute for time, not even hard work and determination and grit.  Not even pushing as hard as I can.  I have not done a good job in my life of respecting the role that simple, observant, engaged time plays in any given situation, and now I need to do that.

3)  Will I miss City Road?

Um . . . yes!  This place has been my home in ministry for the last five years, and they have seen me through some of the most horrific and celebratory times in my life.  They have seen my son born, my marriage disintegrate, my heart be broken about seven times.  They have seen me grow as a leader and a person.  They have accepted my vulnerabilities and flaws.  This church is far from perfect, but the people here are as good as any people I have met in my life.  They have cared for me in a way that is truly Christ-like:  challenging and nurturing and trusting.

This is an exciting season for me.  I am somewhat terrified, but I feel ready.  Open and ready and accepting.

career day

It was sophomore, or maybe junior year of high school.  (So, 2000 or 2001.)  In a ritual familiar to high school students everywhere, we were invited to find some adult who would take us along on a day in their work environment.  Ideally, it would be something that we saw ourselves doing.  I was fairly uncertain about what I wanted to be doing with my life, aside from reading a lot and talking about ideas.

I was super-interested in the idea of skipping school for a day, though.  So I asked my youth pastors from Lawrence First UMC, the inimitable Jan and Mitch Todd, if I could come along with them for a day at seminary.  (This was when St. Paul School of Theology was still its whole own free-standing thing in Kansas City, before it became just another tentacle of the Church of the Resurrection Octopus.)  They were both studying for the Master of Divinity degree and it seemed like they could give me some pointers about ministry as a career.

It was a fun, if unremarkable, day of poking around the library and sitting in on classes and eating lunch in the refectory.  I filed it away in my memory box and moved on with life.  I was accepted to Columbia a year or two later and proceeded to do a lot of reading and talking about ideas.  (And a whole lot of other much less responsible stuff.)

In a few more years, I found myself in my own theology classrooms at Vanderbilt Divinity, studying for that very career that Mitch and Jan had led me into.  I poked around the library and sat in many classes and ate lunch in the refectory.  When I graduated, I moved into full-time ministry.

And there I have been for the last seven years.  In churches that have loved and supported and infuriated and challenged me.

This morning, after I dropped off Todd at his preschool and I was driving over to church, I remembered that Career Day for some reason.  I realized:  I had always thought I was going on that day to learn about becoming a pastor.  But what I really did was wander around an institution of higher education.  I was doing the work of an academic on that day:  reading, studying, germinating ideas, discussing, writing.  And today, that realization is freighted with meaning.