Moving Forward
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Former, no more
For better than two years, I have toyed with the idea of moving forward with my life as it pertains to ministry. I have blogged here and there, teased a podcast that never came to fruition, and served at my new church a time or two.
Well, as you know if you read my last personal post, I have now committed to serving weekly in the praise band at church and will be producing a podcast.
As I am making this transition, my attention was drawn to my bio here and on twitter. I start it with “Former Pastor and Christian School Administrator.”
I had tried to convince myself that I did this in order to lend myself some credibility in the “Christian” world. Although, if you know why I am “former,” you probably wouldn’t take that as a positive.
But, I think I have discovered that I put that because for more than half of my life, that is what defined me. I began preaching at 14 or 15 and began pastoral ministry not long after that. I worked as a youth pastor, associate, worship leader, and pastor. Later in my ministry I helped start a Christian school and became full time as teacher and administrator. This was the culmination of my life’s work. Everything I was, was wrapped up in what I did, to the point that it cost me some things that were far more important than that. And even after all that, I was still hanging on to the former things. The things God had ripped away from me. Things that I have begun to see were a lot less important than God Himself.
So, my bio is now revised. I will be former no longer. I am moving forward. That is the call, after all.
Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. -Philippians 3:13–14
Let’s move forward for Jesus. As long as we are bogged down with the past, whether it be good or bad, we will be hesitant to move forward. But, forward is the only direction we can move.
Come with me. Come and see. Move forward.
Love one another.
