I've been in a strange place in recent months. I quit one bus driving job because I couldn't stomach a terrible administration and am getting ready to start one in another district, hoping that things will be better. My kids are getting older, and rarely do they need me much anymore beyond just me being the 'provider' so they can do their own thing. My body in recent months has finally started to feel older than the young man I thought I was, even into my mid-50s. My heel has been through a period where insoles and stretching are necessities; my flesh continues to grow as my energy seems to wane; waking up in the morning do I rarely fly out of bed; even my libido seems to finally be slowing down.
And my ministry, the thing that sometimes I feel has been my defining quality for almost three decades, seems to be in a strange place. Church attendance is down everywhere: the amplifying COVID shutdown pushed people out of church, increasing secularism means that people realize that they have options that make it where they don't 'need' organized religion, and the realization that many 'Christians' are little more than MAGA acolytes means that genuine evangelism is getting harder all the time. Even here in the heartland of America, where trends finally arrive years or decades after the begin on the coast, I'm seeing this more and more. In my own ministry I've seen numbers go down, and even those who have come to our little church as the effects of consolidation mean we get members from closing churches have not offset the deaths of older saints and the indifference of too many others. Far too often I wonder if my preaching and teaching and ministry is making a difference with people.
I still love to preach. But I wonder if my life of being a Preacher is coming to an end. I'm starting to think about what my next decade looks like, and more and more I can see that perhaps the other aspects of my life change are just preludes to a different career altogether. Lots of churches would still need me to come and fill on occasion, as there are less and less people willing to preach almost everywhere now. But the adminstrative side of being a preaching minister may end sooner than I once thought. I don't have any desire to move to a new full-time ministerial position, as I don't know if I could start all over again. What has been my second job for the last few years may well now be the first job or the gateway to some other kind of career entirely.
So what does all this mean? Several times this summer I have been taking days to pray and spend out in the wilderness to consider this question. Today I went down to a place near the river that has a bunch of nice hiking trails, and I spent a few hours in consideration of the Future. Through the heat and the spiderwebs I made it down to the sandbar and saw that the river was very low, as it has been around here for almost a year. Even as we have had some summer rains and it is surprisingly green almost everywhere you look, almost a year of drought meant that the river remains low and slow.
But I took time to watch it, and yet it continued to move. Slowly, without any sense of urgency the waters continued to flow. The mosquitos and water bugs would make little indentions in the water, small branches would float by, and patches of riverbeds that are still uncovered continued to sprout green grasses that normally are drowned. And it hit me in this that perhaps this is my stage of ministry. I've never been much of a raging river like some preachers, crashing down like a mountain stream or even at times flooding so much that destruction followed in its wake. I've prided myself on always been a simple, steady kind of mature river that never got much out of the banks but nourished everything. Maybe now, in my later middle ages, after years of spiritual drought of COVID, exhaustion with aging and family and driving, and just the increasing apathy of American culture when it comes to the Lord, slower and drier is now the norm for my life. Maybe I shouldn't get so upset that the expectations of a young man to do great things are no longer realistic. Like the river, I'll be low and slow yet perform a vital function in ways that may not be awe-inspiring yet are vital to the health of everyone.
I don't know what this means for my life as the Preacher. But I trust that somehow the Lord will find a way to use me to his glory. I just wish I knew what that is...
