Pre-Trip Reflection

Today is laundry day. I'm sitting here at the back corner of a local "Quick Rinse" laundromat since our roommate Alan has yet to find a worth electronic washboard and clothesline. So as I'm sitting here in between "Speed Queen" #1 & #2 and the wash is moving to the rinse cycle, I thought I'd take some time to reflect on the upcoming weekend.

In my last post I shared a letter from Mark Tooley at UMAction to Reconciling Ministries Network. I hope it fired you up as much as it did for me. This coming weekend I'm flying to Estes Park, Colorado (thanks to a generous donation from a couple of people in my conference) to learn, observe, fellowship, and grow while at the RMN Convocation. Convocation is a time to "rest, relax, and restore in the beauty of God's creation; learn, organize, and launch reconciling initiatives; pray, play and sing the new creation into action." This is a time for those of us who are passionate about an inclusive body of Christ to come together and plan for change, encourage one another and to learn from one another. I cannot tell you how excited, nervous, ready, apprehensive, curious, energized, etc, I am to be a part of this upcoming weekend.

For a long time I have felt a very strong pull/call (whatever you call your own) to be in ministry. In the early years, I didn't know what that would look like. Until the day I was given the opportunity to preach in my home church. And as Wesley would describe it, "My heart was strangely warmed." I believe that experience was meant to reveal y call to ordained ministry.

A couple of years ago, I realized there was another part of myself that was pulling and calling. It was something that I had felt at other times in my life, but this time I could not ignore it any longer, it had hit me like a ton of bricks and it came in the form of an incredible woman who is now my partner. I was bewildered, confused and scared. But came through it and came out of the wilderness finding a very true sense of who God created me to be. I believe that this experience was meant to reveal my calling to ordained ministry and to be a voice for the silence and scared, and to deliver a message of hope to those on the fringes.

As I'm gearing up to go to convo, I know this will also be another experience that will reveal another key detail of the journey in ministry that I am on. I'm excited to share with all of you my thoughts, feelings, experiences, conversations, and revelations that this weekend will bring.