A Pastoral Calling

I am applying for a chaplaincy intern position at several hospitals in the area. If accepted into the program, I will receive a Certified Pastoral Education credit unit and perhaps be eligible for a year-long chaplaincy residency. I thought I would share a brief excerpt from my application:


Frederick Buechner says that vocation is the point at which our greatest joy intersects with the world’s greatest need. If he is right - and I think he is as right as anyone - then I feel confident about my calling to the ministry. I can think of no greater joy than standing with the people of God, in the midst of the world’s pain, suffering and brokenness, as we witness in word and in deed to the kingdom which is now at hand. For what is so remarkable about Buechner’s statement is the fact that our greatest joy IS in fact the world’s greatest need. It is Christ who stands in the crossroads; and I believe I am called to stand with him.

On March 20, 2005 I was ordained into the gospel ministry by Lowe’s Grove Baptist Church – a church I was assigned to serve in while a student at Duke Divinity, and the church I choose to remain in because in serving the people there I found my self. Soon after ordination I began as an adjunct chaplain at Durham Regional Hospital. As a newly ordained person, I am discovering that my philosophical and theological investigations, while important, will ultimately fail to minister to the deepest needs of those whom I serve if I do not have the ability to listen well, and comfort well, and be the presence of Christ well.

In the future I hope to pastor a church. I would also like to work toward a PhD along the way. My wife also has plans for furthering her education. I think we are both gifted in many ways. We both love to read and write. We enjoy inviting others into the deep world we see around us. We call this community building. In biblical language I suppose it is called kingdom making.

I am the dreamer and she is the organizer. She is a better dreamer than I am an organizer. One day she will be a great scholar. One day I will be a great preacher. Naturally, we both want to change the world. This makes it all the more frustrating that this world wants so badly to remain the same. As an interracial couple (she is black, I am white) we feel the world dragging its feet over issues like race and culture everyday. It is difficult to turn dreams into reality. It is even more difficult to love something you are trying to change.

I suppose this is why I am applying for the CPE internship. I am applying because I am beginning to realize changing the world isn’t necessarily my job. My job is to remain faithful. Like Jesus upon the pediment outside Jerusalem, we too are tempted toward making an eschatological jump. We want to end all suffering, end all pain, end all death. We want to be effective. We want to play God. But the truth is it is in the shadows of our deepest doubts that God’s grace is most present and most real.

The call to minister to the world’s greatest need does not mean we will always solve all its problems and eliminate all its sufferings. The call to ministry is simply the call to be present with our gifts in times of need. I want to begin chaplaincy education, not because I need to be a more “effective” minister, but because I want to be a truer one.