I was 27 years old when I was first appointed to serve as the associate pastor at Keith Church in 2001. I was 29 when I completed my ordination process and was ordained as an elder in the Holston Conference.
Will Shelton was 30 years old when he was appointed as the associate pastor here at Keith in 2012. He was 33 when he was ordained an elder in 2015.
Andrew Lay was 26 years old when he was appointed as the associate pastor at Keith last year. He was commissioned as a provisional member of the conference this year and, if all goes according to plan, will be ordained as an elder and full member of the annual conference in 2022 at the age of 30.
I don’t know how old Jason Gattis or Nicole Hill Krewson were when they were appointed as the associate pastor at Keith, but I’m sure they were in the age range that the church considers “young adult” – under age 35.
I share all this age-related information because last week, the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley seminary in Washington DC issued their annual report on aging trends in clergy (https://www.churchleadership.com/research/clergy-age-trends-in-the-united-methodist-church-1985-2019/). This report shows that the number of pastors serving as elders in our denomination who are under age 35 is down for the third consecutive year. This means there have been fewer young people, men and women, entering ordained ministry. This trend is reflective of an overall decline in the number of elders of all ages in the UMC, from 21,378 in 1985 to 13,155 this year. Fewer people of all ages are entering into ordained ministry.
This past Sunday afternoon at our Hiwassee District Conference, which we hosted in the Gathering here at Keith, Rev. Hugh Bryan shared with us that for the first time he can remember, there was no one from our district who is entering the candidacy process for ordained ministry this year.
It makes me wonder: Where will our future pastors come from?
As a child growing up in the church, I wasn’t exactly sure where our pastors came from. Sure, they may have most recently come from this or that church in this or that town. But even though I knew they came TO our church, I knew they didn’t come FROM our church. It wasn’t clear to me back then where pastors came from at all. They were always just there.
Since then, I’ve come to discover where pastors come from. Do you know where pastors come from? Let me let you in on an apparently well-kept secret: They come from local churches. Most of them do. Some of them may come out of campus ministries or other settings, but most pastors still come from local churches, like Keith.
On the wall in the conference room at Keith is a row of framed photographs of people who have entered the ministry from Keith Church.
- Erbin Baumgardner.
- Bill Climer.
- David Ensminger, Neal and Maggie’s son.
- Cheryl Foree Gans, Bill and Carolyn Foree’s daughter.
- Lauren Johnson Jackson, Bob and Joan Johnson’s daughter.
- Reed Shell, Becky Smith’s brother.
- Peytyn Kiblinger Tobin.
Not all of them went into the Methodist ministry and not all of them went into local church ministry. But they all sensed a call from God into Christian ministry out of the Keith church congregation.
There are others who have heard and answered a call into ministry here at Keith Church. People like Rick Lay who is currently being credentialed as a certified lay minister in our district. People like Joe Ratledge who left our youth director position years ago to enter seminary and is now serving as a licensed local pastor here in the Hiwassee District. People like Emily Liner who is exploring a call to ministry while she is already serving in leadership in campus ministry at Tennessee Wesleyan. Keith Church played a formative role in their sense of God’s calling them into Christian ministry.
So how does God’s call come to folks like these in churches like Keith?
Well, God’s call comes to different people in different ways. But I can tell you it often happens like this. Someone feels a stirring, a whispering in their heart and mind that they begin to wonder, to suspect might be a calling to consider ministry. Very likely they question that call. Wait for further confirmation. All the while wondering if (maybe even hoping that) God got the wrong number.
Some of them might reach out and discuss these stirrings with someone else, to check signals with them, to see if they might be hearing things right. But more likely, they keep it to themselves, put it on the back burner, or dismiss it entirely.
But sometimes the spirit of God inspires someone to say something to them, something like, “have you ever thought about the ministry?” To which the person might reply, “whatever on earth gave you that idea?” To which this someone might say, “oh I don’t know. I’ve just watched you for a while and I think you have some gifts that may be well suited for ministry.” To which they may, like Mary, choose to ponder these things in their heart. Or they may respond with something like, “funny you should ask, but yes, actually I have been giving it some thought.”
There’s a saying going around these days about reporting suspicious behavior: “if you see something, say something.” I’d also want to suggest that if you suspect someone you know may have gifts for ministry in the church in some way or another, if you see something like that in them, then literally for the sake of Christ and his church, say something to them about it. It may end up being nothing more than a nice compliment. But it may be the very thing they needed to hear.
That’s kind of how it happened with me. I was in high school, wondering whether my questions that spilled over into our family’s Sunday lunches about the Bible and the Sunday school lesson and the Sunday sermon constituted a call to ministry. But I hid those thoughts in my heart. One day, my tennis coach, Dallas Brown, who didn’t even go to our church but who knew I was thinking about being a high school teacher like he was, caught me after practice one day, and he asked me, “have you ever thought about going into the ministry?”
You may never know what difference a question like that can make in someone’s life. Or in the life of the church.
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