The call seeks the man. . .

From the beginning let me admit that I am not fully enamored with Missouri's understanding of the call of the pastor.  It seems to me that it is prone to problems -- not in the least of which is the idea on the part of the congregation that it is a euphemism for hiring and firing.  Considering the way resignation has been urged upon a pastor in a congregation which has undergone some conflict, I fear we do not have much respect for the idea of a call.  But I have expressed these misgivings in other blog posts.  It does provide a backdrop for something else I have some meandering thoughts about.

The two calls I have taken were both from congregations I did not even know existed prior to the call.  One was through the seminary and the system of first placements that operates in our Synod.  The DPs and Seminary Placement Officers come together to parse out the calls and the men and make assignments.  The old joke was that if you said you wanted to go to Alaska they would send you to Puerto Rico and if you wanted the an urban setting you would end up in South Dakota and if you wanted a small town you would end up in Queens.  You get my drift.  I had already asked to be within three hours of New York City for vicarage and bingo it happened.  So I played it safe and asked to be somewhere between my wife's family in Indiana and my own family in Nebraska.  Yup.  You guessed it.  I ended up halfway between Albany and New York City in the southern Catskills.  The other call I took was the surprise that came from Clarksville, TN.  I immediately thought to say it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and me to say no.  Instead, I went to visit.  Little in the congregation interested me but the setting did.  A growing city with many amenities for my wife and children and the possibility of helping a moribund congregation grow as well offered possibilities but left me unconvinced.  In the end, it was the fact that the parish I had been serving for nearly 13 years was as stable, solid, and secure as it had ever been and, if I was to leave without causing them harm, this was the time.  So right place and right time let me to accept that call.  Curious though, they did not know anything about me before they called me.  They were calling a name on a piece of paper with the recommendation of district presidents to encourage them.

Sadly, that is not quite how calls generally happen today.  Our technology has led us to a different and not better path.  We rely less on the Church and her agencies and leaders and more on what we find out on Facebook or who knows who or a hundred other venues to try and find a parish we might like to serve or to find an pastor to serve it.  I do understand why.  With all the variations on the general theme of Lutheran pastor, people are nervous -- perhaps justifiably so.  But what seems to be missing is the whole idea that this is the realm of the Spirit, that there is not simply a right place but a right time, and that we are not shopping at a pastor store or a parish market to find something we like.  There seem to be more variables at work here than the Spirit and I am not at all sure it is a good thing.

Let me explain.  As Circuit Visitor I found it more and more common for pastors to be less than mobile -- not because they were attached to a congregation but because they are attached to an area.  They have attachments to places and circumstances that mean that they are functionally not open to calls except to the narrowest of locations.  Their circumstances are tied to a region or state or even more narrowly to a city and they have spouses whose work or families with situations that mean they are looking pretty narrowly to a specific place.  Maybe I am jealous.  I never got a call in 42 years that would have placed me nearer to my family or my wife's family.  It never came.  But I worry about the idea that pastors wake up one morning and decide it is time to move or that they have conditioned their service on living in closer proximity to family or that they can only serve the Lord where their wife can find a job transfer.  These kinds of things are new to the process and complicate and already complicated process.

I was taught that the call seeks the man and not the man the call.  Is it becoming something different?  I thought that every pastor and every congregation could be the right person and the right place if the time was right.  Now I sense that we no longer believe that.  I fear that we think less in these terms.  I wonder if pastors are thinking about where they want to go instead of where God wants them and congregations are thinking of getting the person they want instead of the man God wants for them.  Sure, I know that there are times when pastors have to move and when congregations and pastors are at odds.  But has this become acceptable?  Are we convinced that a call is the best fix for a place which the pastor finds challenging and the people do not seem receptive to him?  Whatever happened to reconciliation?  I wonder if time is not the problem -- because it is faster for a pastor to leave than to come to terms with the issues at play, time is not spent where it could be -- repairing the distance.  

As you probably already know, I am an advocate for a longer tenure for pastors.  It was said to me that you barely get to know the congregation in three years and do not make a big impact on that congregation until seven or ten years have passed.  God knows I would have left my first parish and this parish if the calls had come.  They did not.  When they did come, it was not the right time.  Except for this one to Tennessee.  So I stayed and believe it was the right thing.  I cannot say it was perfect for my family or for me and it certainly was not good for my extended family but it was the right thing.  So here are my two cents.  Stay longer.  Make it the best place you can make it.  You will end up burying some of your friends but also some of your enemies.  Stay a while.  If people know you are planning to stay, they will find a way to live with you and you them.  Do not look for a call.  Do not look for a region or state or locale in which to live.  If it comes, it comes.  If it does not, it was not meant to be.  Worry less about that than about doing your best for His glory where you are.  Believe it or not, it took me over 40 years to learn to say that.