Tomorrow, I will be celebrating my twentieth ordination anniversary as an Elder in the United Methodist Church. Looking back, it has been an exciting, strange, scary, and exhilarating experience. In those twenty years, I have served four congregations, had two children, moved six times (two parsonages in one town, and changed houses in another), officiated at 45 weddings, baptized 91 new Christians, confirmed 34 youth into the faith, officiated over 155 funerals, celebrated one church's 50th anniversary, and another's 30th. (I cannot even begin to count the number of meetings I've sat through!)
In twenty years, I have had the privilege of working with some of the finest folks Christianity has ever known. I've sat with people as they shared their inmost fears, witnessed their highest joys, shared their pain, worked through their sorrows, welcomed new members, and said goodbye to those who moved on.
I have witnessed the "lights go on" when God speaks in a moment of revelation during bible study (I've taught over 35 classes!), and have watched as people could not shake the way that God allowed suffering. I've laughed with little children who taught me the joy of being a child of God again, and witnessed the pain of families who have suffered the onslaught of divorce and brokenness. I have helped young families welcome a new child into their homes, and I have held the hands of those who embarked on that final journey through the transition from this world to the next. I have shared in the joy of serving communion to folks whose next meal would have been at Christ's holy table, and I have served Communion to those who knelt at the Chancel Rail for the first time without their beloved spouse of many years.
In all these experiences, one thing has forever been on my mind and in my heart. Each moment in time was forever etched as a holy moment - a sacred moment. God was eternally present in every single moment. I wish I could say that it was because of me. But that would be extraordinarily arrogant of me. No, I believe that those moments were not because of me or anything that I did, but rather those were the moments that God had planned to be present, and I was blessed enough to have been there to witness it.
Ministry is a phenomenon that is difficult to describe. And yet, it is one that boasts the blessing of being able to see those holy moments - those sacred epiphanies - those revelations of grace - when God comes to be present with God's people, and touches their lives with a grace that is astounding, and amazing.
I have been most especially blessed to have been given the opportunity to labor in God's vineyard these last twenty years. But I think I'm looking forward to the next twenty years. Who knows what new mysteries might be revealed, or in what ways God will surprise us all, suspend our worldly reality, and invade our lives with the magnitude and fortitude of Grace as only God can! I tell you what, though. I know I don't want to dare miss it!
See you in Church!
Grace and peace,
Brad
