Relationships deepen when personal stories are exchanged.  With such a goal in mind, I share the following story of how I entered ministry.

I didn't know I was headed toward parish ministry until after I graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary.  The time I spent at Wheaton College (IL) and Princeton Theological Seminary (NJ) studying the Bible, theology and Church history is comparable to a long excursion, except the excursion had no final destination other than to follow a vague itinerary that consisted of places that seemed to meet my personal interests.     

As a junior in high school applying for colleges and universities, I couldn't imagine myself spending four years of my life at an institution at which my growing interests in church history and theology would not be part of the curriculum.  Wheaton, for this reason, made perfect sense. 

While at Wheaton, quite a few students grumbled about the many required Bible courses.  Understandably, the complaints were mostly from those who had a clear sense of what they wanted to do with their lives upon graduation.  They wanted to be physicians, lawyers, chemistry professors, and to them, the long list of required Bible courses seemed like speed bumps. 

As for me, although I hadn't the faintest idea as to what to do with my life, learning about Luther's "indigestion" at Diet of Worms (general assembly of the church), to borrow my theology professor's witty comment in reference to Martin Luther's trembling heart and his staunch adherence to the tenets of the Ninety-Five Theses in the face of enormous pressure to recant, fed my soul. 

Mentored by professors who were deeply committed followers of Christ and surrounded by students who had uninhibitedly displayed their passion for God, it became clear to me that my faith in Christ and my Reformed heritage ought to be factored into my yet undefined future vocation. 

While I appreciated the depth of evangelical scholarship at Wheaton, toward the end of my junior year, the homogeneous culture of the campus regarding Christian beliefs and expressions of faith had slowly kindled a rebellious spirit within me.  Deep down inside I felt compelled to protest the culture's cookie-cutter way of legitimizing only certain beliefs and perspectives that are akin to the evangelical community, while shielding itself from other divergent Christian views.  A gentle whisper became louder as time went on; "Sam, this is not IT.  The Christian life, its expression and witness have got to be broader in scope than this.  I applied to Princeton Theological Seminary.

The first semester at PTS was like discovering the deepest and the most interesting secrets about your parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents, and great grandparents, both living and long gone.  My understanding of self as a Protestant Christian had broadened extensively.  I began to see myself in a whole new light.  The students who came to study at Princeton professed their loyalty to the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Methodist, Baptist, Episcopal, Pentecostal, Anglican, and of course the Presbyterian Church (PTS is after all a Presbyterian seminary); also almost every continent was represented.  As you can imagine, any thoughtless regurgitation of "tried and true" answers that had been ingrained and stored for safekeeping in one's "Christian mind" was quickly challenged. 

Rather than feeling threatened, for me, it was a breath of fresh air.  I began to realize the implications of the Reformed mantra: "the church reformed, always reforming."  The Christian life, or having faith that is rooted in the Reformed tradition, is not about reciting verbatim the confessions of the ancient or the 16^th century Christian community (although this is part of it) while categorically rejecting those who do not abide by the confessions, but rather it is about faithfully living out our confessions in the midst of rapidly changing society where our neighbors are no longer same-minded people, but are Catholics, Orthodox, Episcopalians, atheists, Hindu and Muslim.  In that sense, I thought that life at Princeton resembled the life in America in the 21^st century more closely than life at Wheaton.       

As the graduation date approached I became uneasy.  Like Jonah, I was reluctant.  Unlike Jonah however, my reluctance was not so much based on my unwillingness to cater to God's radical grace which also happens to include our enemies (I dare not claim to have overcome this temptation), but rather it was my apprehensiveness toward parish ministry. 

The burden of seeming "sacredness" of ordained ministry and the tedious work of everyday pastoral work that I had observed over the years through my father's ministry were the reasons for my apprehensiveness.  Deeper still was my angst that had to do with my inability to imagine another vocation, alternative to parish ministry.  With a bachelor's degree in history and biblical studies and three years of graduate work in theology and church history, I felt as though I was trapped.  I was at a crossroads.  I was so certain that it was either working as a cashier at a local supermarket, or go into parish ministry.  I chose parish ministry. 

At first, my reluctance did not dissipate right away.  What followed was a time of fear, hope, and confusion.  I was afraid I was not being relevant to my parishioners.  I didn't know how to relate my studies practically without being irrelevant.  Strangely, however, I also felt empowered and hopeful as I tried to connect my parish with the ancient faith communities in affirming their common goals and vision through the study of the Scripture and Church history. 

Fluctuating between a sense of irrelevance and a sense of hopeful empowerment, I wasn't sure whether this was something I could do for the rest of my life.  The only certainty I have in parish ministry is that through both planned and unplanned circumstances of ministries God has continuously challenged me to rethink my faith in Christ.  It is such certainty, coupled with my growing conviction regarding hopeful empowerment that have overshadowed my sense of fear and sustained me in ministry to this day.       

                            -Pastor Sam