My "Ministry Career"

 As I've been going through recording the events of my life, one of the things which has been reinforced to me is that even as I chased after and pursued professional ministry as a pastor or missionary, I was already doing the work of a pastor and missionary. It wasn't in any way most pastors, denominations, or churches would recognize. It was in seemingly chance meetings with seemingly random people who were in need of a pastor, a guide, a priest, or a counselor right in that moment, and who would not have otherwise gone to a "professional" minister. 

     It was in the meeting with a young man in tears in Lewiston whom I literally ran into coming out of a church and who was desperately lost trying to find his way back. It was in a fellow classmate in Bible School who had just been told he was being expelled and was in tears. It was in a young couple who had come to be married as Christians, but whom no one had thought to offer baptism. It was in a man I'd never met from Brazil contacting me because he'd read one of my fan fiction novels and asking for guidance. It was in a hotel worker who, upon seeing the clerics I was wearing, asked me privately if I would hear his confession, when I had only driven up to the hotel to see a friend visiting California. It was in a former drug addict atheist dying of Aids who just wanted to talk. It was in a woman lying in a hospital bed who'd been a "Christian" all of her life, and once again, no one had thought to offer baptism to. It was in a drug addict in the hospital for burns who'd only turned to drugs after her infant daughter died and her family and church told her she needed to be joyful, and didn't allow her to mourn or even question God openly in her pain. My ministry has been dozens of people over the decades whom I might have only met once, but the Lord acted and spoke to them through me right at the moment when and where it was needed wherever I happened to be attending to some other business usually. All I had to do was just be there, be willing, and let the Lord do the rest through me. My ministry has just been making myself available wherever I am and whatever I'm doing to whomever needs Jesus Christ through me in that moment.

      I had been doing individual, personal ministry just being there and being who I was. Sure, I have done church services, preached, performed baptisms. I've written books, a blog, done YouTube sermons. But as I look at my life, my real "ministry career" has always been these one on one encounters where Jesus Christ has come through loud and clear to the person whom I've just met, and, most of the time, never meet again.

     I can't help but think this is more the kind of thing that Jesus was talking about when He said, "Going into all the world, disciple the nations." "Ministry," "discipling," "evangelism," and "pastoring" aren't just recognized jobs like a paid pastor at a church or an overseas missionary on support. Making disciples, and just channeling Jesus Christ isn't just for when you're "on the clock" in an employment setting, and it doesn't always end up in starting a Bible study that becomes a non-profit religious organization that meets at 9am on Sundays. It's in every moment, in every random encounter and meeting with someone you may or may not know. It's making sure that you are submitted to and cooperating with the Spirit of Christ so that the person they see and talk to is Jesus Christ through you, and He is the one whom they encounter, hear, and by whom their paths and lives may be changed. It's in letting go of the rules, the religious laws and regulations, the proper procedures and just letting Him love and care for that person through you no matter who they are or what the circumstance. Baptizing when many churches would refuse, or require classes. Giving the Eucharist to someone not even Catholic. Withholding judgment from someone whom most would condemn. Just making time for someone in pain, in tears, and in need.

      This has been my career in ministry more often than not. Most of the time without pay, without recognition, without respect from peers. Penniless, sometimes homeless, sometimes going without enough food. Tolerating verbal and emotional abuse and not responding in kind. Being told I wasn't a Christian, or not Christian enough. Accused of being in a cult, trying to start a cult, and of preaching heresy when I preach Jesus Christ. Being suspended from "official" service as a minister. But in all of these things, frequently being sent to those places where other pastors just didn't go. Talking to people that would never feel like they could talk to a "real pastor." Chasing something that I didn't know I already had and was already doing. I guess writing out all of it as I have been doing has led to a lot of revelations for me.

     God didn't just give me the ministry He knew I could handle. He trusted me with something He knew others couldn't and wouldn't even try. I can only hope I've kept that trust as well as I could.

To Reach the Resurrection of the Dead

 "To know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the communion of His passions, being formed together with His death, if somehow I would reach the resurrection which is from the dead."

(Philippians 3:11)

     Paul wasn't here saying that the resurrection was conditional. He wasn't talking about the resurrection at the end of time at all per se. Instead, in the context of everything he had just said in Philippians 3, he was talking about reaching the state in which he would be in the resurrection in the here and now. That is, in the entire context, he was talking about stripping everything away that he had to and submitting to and cooperating with the Spirit of Christ to such a degree that, somehow, he might already attain that state of transformation and total "synchronization" with Jesus Christ. 

     Paul knew the resurrection was coming. He was not content to wait. He chased it down, he pursued it, disciplining himself like an athlete to seek total control by the Spirit of Christ at all times. Reaching this point, attaining this state was the prize, the laurel wreath he was chasing, and it was and remains the prize all disciples of Jesus Christ are to seek. Because it is only in submitting to and cooperating with the Spirit of Christ that we are truly His disciples. It is only in disengaging from our own malfunctioning flesh and coming under His control that we become like Christ, and that we live what is meant to be a "normal Christian life." It is only when Jesus Christ is manifest within us and through us that we are genuinely and actually Christian.

     Paul knew this, and he was done playing games. He was done keeping the Torah. He was done keeping rules and laws to be seen as good, dutiful, or right. It was either Jesus Christ through him, or it was nothing.

     We would do well to remember this.

About False Gospel

      The Gospel of Jesus Christ isn't about gender. It's not about family values. It's not about whether someone is gay or straight. These kinds of discussions are a distraction, a sideshow, and lead people astray so that they don't actually learn what the Gospel is actually about. Because if people knew what the Gospel of Jesus Christ actually taught, then financial, political, and religious empires would fall. 

     The Gospel of Jesus Christ is about one thing, and that's Jesus Christ Himself, union with Him, and His acting and speaking through His disciples. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of Jesus Christ, is that we don't have to be enslaved to our own fear, our own aggression, or our own bodily cravings if we submit to and cooperate with the Spirit of Christ with whom we have been made one through the birth, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

     The Good News of Jesus Christ is God with us, and God within us becoming the source and origin of our behaviors and responses. It's about letting go of the fear which dominates every aspect of our thinking and embracing the God who is Love so that His love is manifested within us and out through us to all those around us. It's about being and manifesting Jesus Christ for all those around us.

     If the Gospel anyone is preaching doesn't center on this, then it's a false Gospel. Gender, sexual orientation, race, financial status, and so on have nothing to do with it, because none of these exist for those who are submitted to and cooperating with the Spirit of Christ, connected to Jesus Christ as the members of a body are connected to their Head.

     The next time someone says that being kind, considerate, or compassionate to someone who is gay/queer/transgender, or of a different race, or even of a different religion is a "false Gospel," understand that this person has neither part nor parcel in Jesus Christ who taught us to love every single person without exception: God, those closest to you, strangers standing next to you, and even your enemies. If a person is preaching hate for anyone, they are preaching a false Gospel and preaching against Jesus Christ. The person who teaches to hate is antichrist.

Reflections on God and His Role as a Father in My Life

      Recently, I've been working on a personal project which I honestly don't know if I'll ever publish. I'm writing it, setting it up, as though I am, but the truth is that I'm still not certain about it, and if I do, it won't be soon. There are too many people who might be pictured in a negative light at some point along it, though I have taken pains to make certain that my own sins do not go unrecorded. This project is currently called, "The Testimony of a Wandering Priest: Trying to Make Sense of My Life." It is both a confession and a memoir of my life. I have written many versions of my life story over the years, most of them as condensed as possible depending on what I was writing them for. Even then, it has been difficult to condense the story of my life even at only forty eight years, almost forty-nine, because of everything which has happened within it. A paragraph simply will not do. A few pages barely suffice to provide an outline. Mine has not been a stationary, uneventful story. I have had it in the back of my mind for years now to write it out in detail, and recently it seemed to finally be the time.

     The thing which continues to stand out to me is how much of an active role God has taken in my life. As I wrote therein, and have said for over thirty years, there was an agreement between God and myself when I was fourteen that he would take over the role of Father in my life, and I would be His son. He has never gone slack on His end of it. I suppose writing it out though has demonstrated to me exactly how much He kept His end of it in terms of provision, guidance, and discipline. Not punishment, but discipline as the places, situations, and people He brought into my path shaped me, my behavior, and my ways of thinking in the way He wanted them to go, sometimes incredibly painfully, but not always.And He has expressed His love for me in a myriad of ways as well, even when I didn't understand it at the time, also being careful to not overwhelm me, knowing my autistic limitations. He took things at the speed I could handle, even when I thought differently.

     There have been many father figures who have come and gone in my life, many who tried, many unintentional, and a few who just clicked at times. I owe little bits of who I am today, and the kind of dad I became, to all of them. But in writing out my life story, the one who truly acted as my Father, protecting me, nurturing me, teaching me, disciplining me, and providing for me throughout my life, has been none other than God Himself. And so while I am appreciative to all those men who tried to briefly fill that role at least in some part, I think that my own "Happy Father's Day" wishes go to only one Person, and that is the Father who stayed with me and never left.