I recently discovered that I am not the type of leader that I thought I was, and what an amuzing story it is. In the ELCA as you work through seminary, there is several layers of accountability. Each layer includes time with mentors and significant time of reflection and personal obersation. The point being, the call of an individual into ministry is both an internal call and should be affirmed by the community of believers. It’s like a check and blanace system guided by princeiples of discernment.

In my case, early in my seminary studies, I attended a conference about mission development and thought, “This is who I am.” The ideas were supported by theology of who I believed best exemplifed Christ in mission. However, just because I thought of myself that way doesn’t mean I had the exteranl gifts to be a missional pastor. So the waiting game begins; patience, learning, more patience, and discerning, so much so that, quiet honestly, I had forgotten all about that 1st year seminary dream.

Then one day, while on internship, I get a phone call from the assistant to the biship of my then, current synod. “Nicole, the bishop would like to have dinner with you.” That is not a phone call I expected or wanted. I was trying to fly under the raider. My internship year had taken me 1500 miles away from my family into new terrain. I just wanted to do what I had to do, check my boxes, and move on. In retrospect, I think God was laughing at that. I never just check boxes. I check boxes and add to the description of what that box means. hahaha.

So I go to dinner with the bishop and the assistant to the bishop. He is asking me all kinds of questions. I wanted to know why he was so interested in me. What had I done? He wanted to know what kind of leader I was. About half way through the meal he says, “I have been asking you all of these questions, because I wanted to affirm some things I have heard. I think your this (missional) type of pastor.”

Well there it was. I had forgotten about it. The thing I knew to be true about myself internally just showed up in the external affirmation of members of the church. With his endorsement and recomendations, I went through the additional layers of background work and was officially identified by the ELCA as a missional and renewals pastor.

I have now spent six years serving as a pastor in this capacity, and for the first time last night I realized that the label I carry is not exactly right. My shadow self, the expereinces of my past that shapes me, yes have built me to be a pastor to help congregations, but those experiences that inform my pastoral leadership identity are more than just helping a congregation, or even a person, nurutre themselves back to healthy. My experiences suggest that to be nutured is only one part of the whole restoratin process, but my inquisitive self forces me to ask, is restoration, enough to help individuals and communities withstand?

My shadow of experience that goes with me, when I reflect on it, nuturing was a valuable part of developmment, but it is only a sliver of what is needed to come out of the storm and enjoy the fresh new life on the other side. Nurutring helps sooth the scared child, but knowing how to be reslient allows us to move past the storm.

My theological self suggest that we often reflect on Christ as this great nuturer, he is the master physician, but that isn’t all Christ is.

I think the world expects nurutring, but creating enduring people and church organizations, also includes hepling folks face, walk into, and deal with the uncertainties around them. Nothing is promised to us on any given day, and yes we need nutruing to tend to the heavingess that can strangle to soul, but we also need to be educated on the tools and means that allow us to move into what comes next, so we can enjoy the preciouos gift of existence.

In so many ways, each day we are just like the contestants on Naked and Afraid. All we have is our self, our body and our shadow, walking into uncertain moments. We can go out huntering for what we need to make the expeirnec not just survivable but thrivable, or we can hunkerdown and simple nuture our chills to calm our fears and wait it out.

For me and my shadow, we have been created to be reslient, and as a pastor I will now choose to help others understand that they to are created to be reslient. They were created in the image of God, and Christ as our best discriptor of what that might look like, he was and taught us mmethods of reseliency. Are we listening?

If you would like to discuss how these ideas are even biblical please feel free to email me at lutheranspice@gmail.com