When You Work for the Church

When I was called to serve as an interim pastor, I had a Master of Christian Studies degree, some experience preaching, teaching, and being involved in congregational life, but no particular pastoral experience. The church’s senior pastor had left abruptly the year before, and the church had been searching for new leadership without success.

So the church asked me to serve while they continued to search, and the conference minister in my denomination agreed to meet with me periodically during that interim time. To my surprise, God took me from not at all thinking about pastoral ministry to being curious and then excited about what I might learn and contribute to the church during the next number of months.

I fully intended to return to my half-time teaching position at a local Bible college and my half-time writing. I had arranged a leave for the summer months and the fall semester, and surely, by then we all thought that the church would have called a new lead pastor. But what a surprise—what all of us thought would be my short stint as an interim pastor turned into a call that lasted for over twenty-five years of ministry with that church.

Welcome Questions

Meeting several times with our conference minister during my first months of ministry helped orient me to my new role and laid a good foundation for my years of ministry that followed. He welcomed my questions, but I soon discovered that he rarely gave a direct answer. Instead, he would ask questions that helped me think more deeply about the issue or pastoral problem I faced. He would suggest helpful resources. Instead of simply telling me what to do, he helped me to reflect, discern, and discover who I was as a ministering person and how God was calling me to respond in any given situation.

Learn from Jesus’ Example

In John 6:22–34, the people ask Jesus three questions, and each time he responds in a way that encourages them to think more deeply and leaves them wanting to hear more. A crowd had followed him to the other side of the lake, and when they see him, they ask, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” (v. 25). But instead of answering them in hours or minutes, Jesus directs their attention to a more important question: why were they looking for him? Was it only because he had given them bread when they were hungry? Instead, he tells them, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you” (v. 27).

The people ask, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” (v. 28). But instead of giving them a detailed to-do list, Jesus replies, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” (v. 29).

They ask, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do?” (v. 31). But the people had already seen Jesus multiply the bread and fish to feed the crowd. They had been part of that crowd! So Jesus says to them, “You have seen me and still you do not believe” (v. 36). With these words, Jesus as Teacher challenges them to re-visit and re-think their own questions, and to keep coming back to him for more: “Sir, give us this bread always” (v. 34).

Keep Asking Questions of Your Own

Like the crowds around Jesus, as I turn to God in prayer, I often have questions and long for a straight answer. What must I do and when? What will God do next in my life? But just as Jesus directs the crowds to more important questions, just as my conference minister encouraged me to reflect more deeply on who God was calling me to be, the answers to my questions do not always come in the form that I might long for. The answers to all of our questions might not come in the ways that we expect. Instead, Jesus as Teacher encourages us to think more deeply, to continue wrestling with our questions, to live into them, and to keep returning to him.

So may God’s grace and guidance lead us forward with our questions. And may we as teachers learn to engage with the questions asked of us—not because we have all the answers, but because our interaction with others can help them wrestle with their own questions and discover the answers as God leads them.

An earlier version of this article appears on Asian American Women on Leadership.