ORDINATION & DENOMINATIONS

OK so let me preface this post by saying that i did not grow up in church nor have i taken the time (nor do i care) about the legal/political maneuverings of the "local church"

With that said...

I have a 3 hour ordination interview coming up in August. It is basically 10+ men sitting around a table asking me ALL sorts of questions making sure I am a "legitimate" pastor. Not that i have had the title for 6 years now and have been serving in a church for that amount of time.

I found the necessity quite not needed. I am not a crazy off the wall individual & neither is my church. I understand the reasoning for it, to make sure people that are licensed in the denomination are not heretics or off the wall.

Jesus asked his followers to follower and he left them with nothing but stories and memories to minister with. He gave them what they needed and said figure the rest out. How far have we come away from that!

I have all the questions, all 204 of them, in my hand so i can "prepare" for the interview. But that is just it. The questions that i am going to be asked are scripted. They are looking for certain answers for me to give so i can recieve their stamp of approval.
Now when it comes to the nature of God, the deity of Christ, the Crucifixion & resurrection of Jesus Christ i am not arguing at all.

But there are some areas that i know my personal view and convictions won't line up with theirs. But maybe that is a good thing!

This whole process, as lame as i find it, has allowed me to really wrestle with where i am at with some of my philosophical and theological understandings of life. It has also led me to see where i am at in a continual conversation about life, God, truth and humanity.

• I have really seen that i do not like the political structure in churches-
• I do not like it when the "un-churched" is not considered in our conversations in the church-
• I HATE (i don't use that word lightly) that the body of Christ is so lazy with being intentional and relational in the world-
• I dislike the fact that believers would rather run from difficult conversations than embrace them and engage in them
• I fear that unbelievers see Jesus represented in people who claim to be Christians but don't live in accordance with who Jesus is-
• I am tired of talking with people that are burned on church because of pious people that tried to make them into a certain form of a Christian-
• I dislike pastors who use the pulpit as a position of power instead of serving-
• My heart grieves that the students around me are hungry for conversations yet so many people just look at them as "only teenagers"

I look forward to this interview [one to get it over] but also because it has allowed me a renewed passion in a weird sense to pursue the things i love to wrestle with. I enjoy living in a world where change is daily yet Christ is still the same.

I think i shall return now to my studies...or should i say conversations?