Richard Rohr said “We do not think ourselves into a new way of living as much as we live ourselves into new ways of thinking." Similarly, my path of ministerial formation has been one of living my way into ministry, rather than thinking my way in. To be sure, a great deal of thinking has gone into my preparation and training, but it has been the actual, lived experience of ministry that has made me a minister.

 

In my first year of ministry, I had a moment of realization that I had, in fact, become a minister. It happened while I was offering a prayer during a worship service at my congregation. I looked out at these people—people with whom I had worked in committee meetings, in small groups, in religious education classes, in pastoral conversations, in acts of prophetic witness—and I realized that I loved them.

 

My sense of having become a minister was not handed down from on high. It wasn't as if I'd won some kind of wrestling match and, as a result, had been awarded ministerial authority or ministerial identity. It was all about the fact that I had worked with these people in challenging times and in moments of great joy, and I had come to love them.

 

And of course it's about love. My journey has been about love from day one. Ministry is my answer to the question posed by Mary Oliver in her poem “Spring”: “There is only one question: how to love this world.”

 

Ministry is how I have chosen to love this world. Inviting others to share this ministry is how I hope to help others answer this question for themselves.