After my last post, a friend asked about the relationship between vocational ministry and the call to artists that Amy and I feel. Before I answer, I want to make an observation:
Before Jesus came along, Peter was a fisherman. After Jesus called Peter to follow him, Peter was privy to the greatest ministry the world has ever known. The night Jesus was crucified, Peter denied him three times. After the Resurrection, Jesus finds Peter doing what he found Peter doing in the first place. Fishing.
When you reach the end of all you know and are faced with an uncertain future, sometimes you long to return to something that you know, something that you've been successful at, something that will validate you during a time when you don't have the vaguest idea of what you're doing.
Ministry is my fishing. I don't know if God will allow me to return to vocational ministry or not. I know that I've been successful at it. I know I was passionate about it. I know that my time with my family benefited from the schedule I kept. I find myself in a vocation that lacks all these things. I don't hate it. I'm blessed to have a job with people I like doing a task that I don't despise. But it isn't the same.
I'm not sure whether vocational ministry and my ministry to artists will ever cross paths or if it will be something that requires me to work a 9 to 5 (or 3:30 to midnight as the case may be) to support my family. I do know that God is refining me in ways that are painful and the vision is still a long way off.
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