It's Not Just a Job

Now that I have finished my doctoral program, I am just two days away from being unemployed. My only job the past five years has been as a student worker in the library at school. Since I am no longer a student, that comes to an end.

I am finishing in what has to be the worst year to be graduating with a PhD in my memory. Almost all colleges and grad schools have been hammered by reduced giving and shrinking endowment funds. There are very, very few jobs out there and too many of us chasing them.

So what do I do in the meantime. I have been asked several times if I might seek a church to pastor. Obviously, I could do that and could probably even find a church to take me. But it wouldn't be right.

I was a decent pastor. Some churches did well under my leadership. I started one that eventually closed. One church fired me. Quite a mixed bag.

But I really believed in 2000 that God was calling me away from pastoral ministry to teaching. Though I love the church and believe in the role of the pastor, I do not personally have the fire necessary to be one. That would not be fair to a church to try to fill the job when I wasn't wholly committed to it. (It also wouldn't be fair to my family who would have to go through the difficult moments of being the pastor's family if it were just a job.)

Because being a pastor is not just like any other job. It is not merely one of many vocations. To be a good, faithful pastor (notice I didn't say successful) is a life-consuming calling. Oh sure, when I was in the pastorate I took time for myself and my family. But I had no real hobbies or time-consuming interests. The church that I served was my life, as it should have been.

Since I do not have that burning in me at this time, I cannot take a church in good conscience. I suppose I could fill in during a vacancy, but that typically doesn't pay well enough. So I will probably do some accounting work while searching for that teaching position or next step that I haven't even considered.

But I won't pastor. That's more than a job.