It's all good so far

I saw a Facebook query a couple of days ago. A friend of mine was asking people to recount how / when they first met him. I thought it was a very interesting idea.

I first encountered him when I spied upon him at the Cathedral. Our church was in the process of calling a new Priest and I was a member of the search committee. We had been given names of likely candidates, and some of the committee had already interviewed him and were very impressed.

I was a little skeptical, I was one of the more conservative even stodgy, members of the search committee. I felt the obligation to represent the “frozen chosen”, the older and grater members of the congregation that still wanted the formality, choir and hymns, the minority in our church.

So I sat there in the Cathedral and listened to him preach. His sermon was tied to Independence Day and the theme was that not everyone could celebrate independence. That there were those that were dependent of day work, dependent on the whims of the economy, struggling to live good lives.

It was a sermon that was challenging me. I began to realize that this was the man that could challenge and move our Church. The other candidate that we had seen would keep us at the status quo, and that is not what our Church needed. This was a moment of discernment.

He became our Priest. He became a close friend. He engaged me, challenged me, and pushed me way out of my comfort zone. We worked together on the Vestry. He challenged me again when he called me to be Senior Warden. I learned more about discernment. I learned that I could change and so could our Church.

Time has passed, and there have been a few more changes. He has been called to plant a different Church. I finished term of leadership and now am back in the pew as a parishioner.

Sometimes, when you hear a challenge to your preconceived notions, it’s a good thing to listen, to discern, and see where you will go.

This entry was posted on February 2, 2013 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.