Not long after my departure from my former job, as I was participating in a variety of assessments to gauge my strengths and interests, I sat down and created an outline of…well…I wasn’t sure what it was supposed to be. A course? An educational/training program? Behind the outline was a desire to help equip lay people to go deeper into faith and discipleship, to take ownership of their own spiritual development, and to then step out in ministries of their own, firmly grounded in the word and truth of God. I gave the outline a working title of “Rooted To Bless”. But I really had no idea how to go about implementing it. I mean, who was I to pitch myself as any sort of “expert” or “consultant” to churches? I have no seminary cred, no name recognition. So I just sort of filed it away.

Since the beginning of 2019, as I’ve continued to knock on vocational doors, and await an opening, my pastor (Laurie) has been increasingly encouraging me to question whether I’m being called to some sort of ministry. In a sense, asking this question: Is the reason that no doors have been opening perhaps because I’ve been knocking on the wrong doors?

For the past 30 years I’ve viewed myself as a “tent maker” – someone who works a regular job and does ministry on a volunteer basis. During that time I’ve become pretty invested in that view of myself, even prided myself in that role. But increasingly – and even somewhat reluctantly – I’ve begun to wonder if my pastor may be right.

If I am being called to ministry, I’m not yet sure what that would be. So far I haven’t really felt a strong call to traditional parish ministry. I’ve begun to specifically pray about it all – whether or not I’m supposed to dip my toe in the waters of seminary (there is a KC metro option), if so how the heck I’d pay for it, etc.  I’d covet your prayers in that regard.

In the meantime, while I’m trying to figure all that out, I’ve felt a calling to dust off and refine that outline from 2017, and implement it in the form of a website. The goal is to curate helpful links, feature short articles, book reviews, etc. that are approachable for the average lay person. The main focus is for each of us to deepen our faith so that we can then go out and be a blessing to others. After creating the site under another name for a period of time, it can now be found at RootedToBless.org.

There will be a little bit of cross-pollination between that site and this one, but my intent is to have both sites be largely independent of each other.

Now to see what God has in store for me…