Warning: This is going to be a very personal post and thus a bit vulnerable. I don’t think I have shared some of the following details in my blog. I rarely talk about them. However, I believe sharing some of the details might provide any reader an understanding of why I made certain decisions, my mindset over the past 15 years, and why this lesson was so difficult for me to learn. I can honestly say that I have no anger toward anyone nor do I see myself as a victim in anyway. I think everyone involved was simply doing the best they knew at that time.

This lesson has taken me almost 15 years to learn. And I’m still learning it. Let me give some background.

When I became a serious Christian around 1985, I soon began sensing a call to become a pastor. I spent some time speaking with different pastors and church leaders. I later attended a discipleship training school to receive training in Christian discipleship and evangelism. Upon completing the course, I started a youth group in a local church and attended a Christian university. During all of this, I received confirmation after confirmation that I should be a pastor. I was certain that God’s will for my life was to be a pastor.

I soon joined the staff of a small church. Six years later, I joined the staff of a slightly larger church. In total, I spent fourteen years in professional ministry. Confident in my calling as a pastor, it became my identity. I viewed professional ministry to be a very special and unique calling, different from the general will that God had for others. This was enforced by certain passages in Paul’s Epistles, where Paul spotlighted Christian leaders as having a special and unique place in God’s Church and therefore required to live by a higher standard than other Christians.

I soon started believing that I was saved to be a pastor. While most people were saved to be ordinary Christians, I believed that those who received a pastoral calling were saved for a greater purpose. Why else would there be such a special focus on and higher standard for pastors.

Then in 2002, our senior pastor announced his retirement. For the previous few years, he had been telling the congregation that when he retired, I would become the senior pastor. My family and I were excited to live in and serve this church community for years to come. But when he announced his retirement, he also created a new Elder Board to assume leadership of the church and to choose the next senior pastor. 

The Board asked about my vision for the church. When I shared it, they told me it would not attract enough new people to pay for the new building we had just completed. Their assessment was correct. So they decided to search for someone else to become the new senior pastor. I was told to seek God about what he had next for my ministry since my family and I could no longer be part of this church.

Hurt by my experience and disillusioned by the consumerist nature of many churches, I decided to leave professional ministry. Several families joined together to explore a home church model with decentralized leadership. Also, I was soon hired by a Christian mission organization. So while not in professional ministry, I felt I was still remaining true to my calling as a pastor. 

This endeavor went on for a few years. During this time, I had applied for the senior pastor position at a couple of churches. Both times, I withdrew from the hiring process. Both positions would have required our family to move away. Debbie and I didn’t want to move our young children away from friends and family, especially from their grandparents. In addition, I was not sensing God’s approval to accept either of these positions.

By God’s providence, I left the mission organization to accept a job at a local school district as a computer technician. Eventually our family and our best friends decided to join the Eastern Orthodox Church in 2009. 

Joining the Eastern Orthodox Church closed the door on my pastoral calling. I was informed by our priest that I was no longer allowed to perform pastoral functions. Also, only the priest could teach and pastor. I’m not sure if this was unique to our local parish, but this was my experience. One thing was sure from the moment I entered the Eastern Orthodox Church, I was not called to be a priest.

So for the past 15 years, I have struggled with the certainty of my pastoral calling in the one hand and leaving professional ministry and the subsequent inability to pastor in the other hand. You may wonder why didn’t I leave the Orthodox Church and return to the evangelical church in order to return to professional ministry. Believe me, I thought about this frequently during the past 15 years. But I never felt any direction from God to make such a move.

So for 15 years I wrestled with doubts, depression, and regrets. For some time, a small voice would tell me that I was going to hell because I rejected my calling and was out of God’s will for my life. Remember, I believed I was saved to be a pastor, a uniquely special call. And I had rejected it. I had said “No” to God regarding his will and purpose for my life.

During these years, I have tried to “pastor” those who would let me, such as my kids, my friends, my co-workers. But I could not shake the sense of doom from walking away from my calling.

So, here is what I have been learning over the past year: There’s a difference between God’s will, purpose and plans for our lives. While the distinction between these three categories may not be found in Scripture, making the distinction has been helpful in detangling my understanding of my pastoral calling.

First, God’s will for us is to be God’s image-bearers, true human beings who reflect God’s character, compassion, and love into his world. This was the original vocation of human beings in Genesis. While we are corrupt and broken, it has remained God’s will for humankind. And Jesus’ campaign and unique work through his life, teaching, crucifixion, resurrection and outpouring of the Spirit was to show us what a true image-bearing human looked like, to break the powers that have prevented us from being that kind of human, and to enable all those who trust and follow him to learn from him how to become that kind of human. God’s will is to learn from Jesus how to be like Jesus — true image-bearing humans in his likeness.

We are to live and dwell deeply in Christ so that his life, nature, character, thoughts, values and confidence in and loyalty to God become ours so we may become genuine image-bearing human beings like him just as God intended for every man, woman, and child.

Second, God’s purpose for us is to work for God’s kingdom. Jesus’ campaign was also to make God King in a new way and launch God’s New Creation. By becoming and living as image-bearing humans, we continue to implement the New Creation launched by Jesus’ resurrection. The community of image-bearing humans form God’s new Temple, the place where heaven and earth overlap, the place where God’s will — his kingdom — may be on earth as it is in heaven. As N.T. Wright has said many times, Jesus said that his kingdom was not of this world, but it is definitely for this world. And we get to live in and work for this kingdom within this world.

Third, God’s plans are for us to live in God’s will and purpose in the specific contexts of our lives. We make decisions and go through changing circumstances. As we do so, we experience the providential plans of God in our lives. We may choose a career and then change it after several years. We may be single and then get married. We may have children. We may experience success and promotion. We may experience loss and ruin. We may suffer failure and even rebellion. We may move to a different city or country. We may change churches. Those circumstances are the providential plans of God. And through the changes, we continue to live God’s unchanging will and purpose. While God’s will and purpose for my life don’t change. God’s plans for my life do change as the context of my life changes.

My pastoral calling fits into this third category of God’s plans. I was not saved to be a pastor. I know that now. Sure the role of pastor is unique and special, and requires a higher standard as described by Paul. But the role of pastor is neither God’s will nor purpose and therefore, not my identity as a human being. My identity is that I am saved and being saved so I can be a follower of Christ, learning to be an image-bearing human in his likeness. As I live as such in his world, heaven and earth may overlap and God may become king in anticipation of the full New Creation he will one day bring.

Retiring this year has helped me understand this. Circumstances change and so God‘s plans change. When I was a pastor, the church that I thought would be our home shifted in leadership and priorities. I no longer fit there. There was nothing wrong with that. Nor was I willing to change my values to accommodate their new priorities. Again, there was nothing wrong with that. The result was that I needed to leave. There was nothing wrong with that.

If I didn’t experience it then and had remained in professional ministry all these years, I would have experienced it when I eventually retired from professional ministry. What would have happened to my pastoral calling and identity then? 

So I think I have come to terms with walking away from my pastoral calling. In hindsight, I think if I had stayed in professional ministry, I would have succumbed to some of the pressures prevalent in many evangelical churches today. And I think I could’ve done severe damage to my marriage, my family, and any church I was pastoring. I think I have become a better person and apprentice to Christ, by leaving professional ministry. I also think I have learned to be a better pastor by leaving professional ministry. By not having a title and position to entangle my identity, I have learned just to be with people, to see them, to hear them and hopefully to love them.

I am not certain what God‘s plans are for me as I transition into retirement. But one thing is certain. I will continue to pursue God’s will to be shaped and formed into the likeness of Christ and to pursue God‘s purposes as I live as an image-bearer in his world. The circumstances will continue to change. However they do, I will do my best to adapt and live for him.

And that will be the next Lesson Learned I want to discuss.