Teaching Minister

In the United Church, there are two streams of ministry.  A person can be ordained to word, sacrament, and pastoral care or commissioned to a diaconal ministry of social justice, Christian education, and pastoral care.  For a while now, I have struggled with what that means for me.  I feel like I straddle a line between both.  If you've read past posts, you know that I feel a deep calling to diaconal ministry and the many nuances of what that means, but what I struggle with is this named differentiation of function between the two streams.

In the beginning, I chose diaconal ministry because it does not name a focus on the word.  Preaching terrified me.  Standing in front of a lot of people and sharing the gospel and my truth was something beyond my scope of thought and skill.  Christian education, on the other hand, called to me.  For a time, I had studied to be a teacher and I had always wanted to work with children. 

I soon learned that, just by virtue of being a candidate for ministry, people wanted to hear from me.  They wanted me to share my experiences and my learnings from behind the pulpit.  Also, through my studies at the Centre for Christian Studies, and its dynamic and transformative model of education, I began to find my voice.  I began to learn that I had something valuable to say and that others actually wanted to hear me say it. 

During my last year of studies, I decided that it would be best for me to be placed into a church where I was the solo minister, doing word, sacrament, and pastoral care.  I needed to learn how to stand on my own two feet and find my identity as a minister in the church.  The church settled me in Saskatchewan, where I stayed for five years, and preached almost every Sunday, and offered pastoral care to a small community. 

After five years, I decided that I wanted to try team ministry, where I was not in the pulpit every Sunday and doing pastoral visitation, but following my original call of doing Christian education, leading adult groups, Sunday School, and youth group.  I have now been doing this for almost six years.

What I've discovered is that I love what I'm doing but that I miss worship and preaching.  So although I'm not ordained to word and sacrament, I do feel called to do this work.  A term I heard recently is "teaching pastor," which seems to fit my calling.  I love my small group work with adults and young people, but also love to share my teachings in a larger space, within worship.  I love sitting one on one, talking about faith, our struggles with it, our doubts, and our fears.  I also enjoy creating programming or liturgy that engages people in growing their faith and sharing together as a community.  I also love learning together and teaching each other.  I learn most from the youngest among us and those who are different from me and the more I learn about myself and my faith, the more I can teach and share with others. 

I will continue to identify as a diaconal minister but I will function as a teaching minister, one who leads worship and preaches, leads small group studies with adults, creates programming for children and youth, and continues to seek knowledge and gain valuable experiences and grow in my own faith.  And who knows?  I've got many years before me.  That call may continue to change and grow.  For now, it's where I am.