Where do Church of the Brethren pastors come from? Has the thought ever even seriously crossed your mind? If I could easily take a poll, I would be quite interested to learn what the most typical answer must be. Failing the accumulation of such data, I would however speculate that so many of us have so many other questions on our minds that we seldom, if ever, even think about it. By simple observation, I can tell you the Brethren are a humble lot who certainly do not seem to answer that question in any of the following ways. Well, the next pastor could be the person sitting to the right of me, or the one to the left. Well, my goodness, the next pastor could even be the person sitting in the seat I am sitting in! But I submit to you, this is exactly what they should be thinking. Peter wrote in I Peter 2:9, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” Each one of us who believes and has come willingly into the community has the right “pedigree,” and many more than you realize have gifts that would benefit them, and many others were they to heed a calling to pastoral ministry.
My own call arose from a time when as the newly minted Board chair (first meeting, mind you) our pastor informed us that he would be moving on to serve a new congregation. We went through a significant period when the pulpit needed to be filled from week to week, and my gratitude and admiration for those who came to serve our need grew week by week. I found myself possessed by a steadily deepening desire to be able to do what they did, whether it would be for my home congregation, or some other congregation in similar need. Many of those answering my telephone calls were bi-vocational, and their ability to serve the church in the important pastoral role of delivering sermons convinced me that I too could serve in ways I had previously felt to be out of my gifts range. Through those diverse souls who helped my home congregation continue to worship, God extended a call which for me shed light on the much more varied pallet that is pastoral ministry.
I have been answering that call for over twenty years now having been licensed in 2007 and ordained in 2011. Because of my own bi-vocational approach, both milestones were facilitated through what had been the Three-Year Reading course, but what became SVMC. The years have lent validity to the understanding that God may indeed set us on the road with little in our pockets (not even any pockets for that matter!), but as we trust Him for the journey, He equips us along the way. The sisters and brothers in ministry, SVMC and others called to the task of equipping have always been there to hold out God’s hand when I needed it. I trust them for my journey and with God’s help you can trust them for yours too, that is once you fully realize the next Church of the Brethren Pastor may indeed by YOU.
Robert Stein serves his home congregation at the Uniontown Church of the Brethren in the Western PA District as their Associate Pastor.
