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Friends United Meeting |
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November 1997
Called by a Good Message
By Alan Weinacht
My green Schwinn Varsity 10 speed squeaked to a stop. To my right was Herbert Hoover Park. To my left was Herbert Hoover's Boyhood Home. Hoover's home is Newberg, Oregon's presidential landmark which in my five growing up years in Newberg, I never once thought to visit. Neither was I thinking that God would use the next 30 seconds to set the course for my life in ministry as a pastor.
A car pulled up next to me. The passenger's window descended and a familiar voice said, "Hey, Alan." It was our pastor. What could he want? I had already been to the altar and was a budding tither.
He proposed to me that, upon my graduation from high school, I take a year to go to South America. I would go with Wycliff Bible Translators to Colombia. There I would work on a farm which was part of Wycliff's operation. He'd help pay my way. The money sounded good, but I was not quite clear on how a farm fit in with Bible translation. Still that did not restrain my natural impulsive tendencies. With a full five seconds of reflective deliberation I said yes. After all, to a freshman, graduation is an eternity away. He drove off his way, I pedaled off my way. I forgot the discussion. He did not.
Three months after graduation I found myself in San José, Costa Rica. Having promised myself I'd never study again, I was engaged in a life and death struggle to learn Spanish in three months. I was on my way to Colombia and the farm. Never having been one to wear out a text book, study was a new venture for me. Spanish was new, and so was study of the Bible. I had read it but never studied it.
My little stucco walled room with the tin roof became a sanctuary of spiritual renewal as I began to delve into the life of Jesus. Night after night I would spend a couple of hours exploring the sermon on the mount or the parables.
I distinctly remember the night I leaned back in the straight back wood chair and said out loud, "This is good stuff, somebody needs to tell others about it." My call to ministry began with the simple realization that the gospel is a good message and a worthwhile use of one's life is to tell others.
In this brief sketch I have given you the two elements that hindsight has shown to be the primary methods God used to direct my life into pastoral ministry. The first element is the input of godly people. I've discovered people often see something in me before I see it in myself. John Fankhauser, the man who rolled the window down and offered to help me get to South America is just the first of many who've helped shape my life.
God's specific direction for me in ministry, both as a call to full-time pastoral work and specific direction as to where to minister, comes in part through the counsel of godly people. Trusted Friends have always been a part of divine direction for me.
The second element is the worth of the message. The gospel of God's grace freely offered through Christ Jesus is a wonderful, life giving, message. To date, my heart's desire is to be one who proclaims that message is best satisfied by being a pastor in full-time ministry.
I do not know what the future holds. But I am confident of two things: the life changing message of the gospel is worthy of proclamation and godly people will be glad to help me discern my role as one who proclaims.
Alan Weinacht is pastor of Dayspring Friends Church in Indiana Yearly
Meeting.
Copyright (c) 1998 Friends United Meeting
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