Jesus Creed
I never intended to be a pastor. If you’d told me in high school or in college that this is where I’d end up, I’d probably have laughed in your face. No, for me, my journey to the pastorate was more circuitous and unintentional. Ever since I was little, my intention was to be famous. (Insert a wry smile here.) For most of my growing up, “famous” meant being a “famous” concert pianist. I was classically trained and excelled in music; in fact when I went to college, I was accepted into the music conservatory of a well-known Christian liberal arts school. But once I got there, I realized that at that point I didn’t like music for music’s sake, but rather because I was good at it — it was an idol. And I also realized that my mind needed more than the “just music” of the conservatory. So I switched into the English literature program, where I thrived. And that’s when I discovered theology.
When I took my first class in theology, I discovered that I had a natural penchant for it, and my professor encouraged me to consider theology as a career path. So a new idol developed: I was going to become a famous woman evangelical theologian and save the world with my daring mind and academic prowess. (Yes, that was meant to be humorous.)
With that goal in mind, and with the encouragement of my professors, I went to seminary. Except, at that time, I felt “seminary” and “pastors” in general were in a lower category than what I was seeking; so I would always tell people I was in “grad school” to make it clear that I was an academic who wanted my theology to be rooted in the church, not a pastor-in-training. Though I began in an M.A. program, I soon switched to an MDiv program, not because I’d sensed a call to pastoral ministry, but because I loved languages and wanted to study Greek and Hebrew!
At the seminary I attended, MDiv students were required to take several different personal assessments as part of their training, including a version of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which assigns 4 letters to describe how an individual functions in the world. When I took the MBTI and discovered that I am an “F” (feeler) and not a “T” (thinker), I was absolutely devastated! I retook the test over and over, trying not to see if (without outright lying) I could come up with a different result — but to no avail. Not only that, but the descriptor for my four letter type was “The Counselor.” To me, counselors were on a lower level even than pastors! They were touchy-feely, the antithesis of how I saw myself: as a mind. The rest of my time in seminary was fundamentally a time of God showing me who He had actually made me to be — an “F”, if you will — and helping me come to accept that person, apart from what I idolized.
Around the same time of my dramatic MBTI assessment, I was sitting in class one day, when out of the blue I distinctly heard the words, “You’re going to be a pastor.” I practically fell out of my chair. “You’re going to be a pastor”??? This was never an idea that had crossed my mind, never something I had wanted, and I wasn’t even sure if I thought girls could be pastors anyway! So my response was, “God, if that’s you, you’re going to have to make me want it.”
And he did. It took a situation that turned me inside out and upside down with pain to do it. That situation caused me to feel so much pain that I ran to the very people I had despised: counselors. God used my experience in counseling to change my life. In the crucible of pain I came face to face with my people-pleasing tendencies and the chronic depression that had bound me for years. I felt like C.S. Lewis’ character Eustace when Aslan is ripping off the dragon skin from his body. And I also discovered that I was pretty good at walking alongside other people who were in pain, that something in me came alive when listening and praying and giving counsel to others.
Throughout all of this, I was serving in a church community, as a music leader. Jay Greener, Redeemer’s senior pastor who is now both my colleague and my friend, along with his wife Susan, saw me. They saw potential in me that I didn’t see and worked to encourage me and draw me out. I cannot overemphasize the importance of their leadership and of my church itself in raising me up as a pastor and a minister, and I am more grateful than I can ever, ever express.
My final semester in seminary, I was in the deepest depression of my life. I had finally accepted my “F”-ness and switched my MDiv focus from academic research to pastoral care, albeit with a deep sense of failure (I continue to fight idolatry of the academic), and I knew deep in my soul that I was called to Redeemer — but I couldn’t live, much less pay school loans, on the weekly stipend I was receiving as a music leader.
But God worked a miracle. Through the advocacy of Jay and others at Redeemer, the church created a FULL-TIME position for me. In a small church. For an evangelical woman right out of seminary. At MY church, the congregation I loved, in which I had “grown up” in so many ways. My very own personal miracle — thanks be to God!
I recently marked my five year anniversary of full-time pastoring at Redeemer. In so many ways, this is not a life I chose — but it is so much better than what I would have chosen apart from following God. This is not a life of fame, but rather of thousands of moments so holy and precious and hidden and profound and — dare I say — sacramental, that I cannot imagine a better way of living. God called me to be a pastor… and then made me into one. And I am grateful.
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