Sense of Call

After accepting Christ into my life and experiencing both the grace and truth that is talked about in Scripture, I made the decision that living for Christ was better than anything else this world had to offer. That decision affects the calling in my life because no matter what I am specifically doing at the time, the overarching theme of life that I am called to live is what I like to describe as ‘Christ Plus Nothing’. This means that my calling in life, whether I am officially working at a church or not, is ministry. To expound on the call of ministry in my life, I will discuss the gifts that I have been given and I will interact with some of the questions that have been posed in the Soul of Ministry class. 

 A large part of my self-identity comes through the realization and development of the gifts that I have.  My four predominant gifts are teaching, leadership, serving and mercy. Time and time again I have seen the Lord’s calling on my life to be a minister no matter what the situation because of how he has designed me and how committed I am to keeping in step with that design. With out the Trinity’s involvement in my life, I can do nothing of eternal value.

             In regards to teaching, I have had many opportunities to teach in various venues including church services, small groups, jail bible studies, mountain top chapel ministries, mission trips, Bible Life classes and at Timberline Lodge Bible School in Winter Park, Colorado. But how can you teach that which you do not know? I feel that to teach on the level that the Lord is asking me to, I need a higher education. This is why I have chosen to get my Master of Divinity Degree at Regent College. Of all my gifts I would say that this one is the one I can improve on the most. I am very excited to see how God is going to do that through my time at Regent and within the community that He has currently put me in.

In my work experience, it is hard to remember a time that I wasn’t in a position to lead other employees. Whether that was in my culinary days, leading a kitchen crew, or in the more recent days when I have had management roles in several jobs. Outside of work, my greatest responsibility as a leader is in leading my family. Praise God that although I did not grow up having the chance to see this lived out, He has put awesome examples in my life that I can learn from and strive to pattern my own life and leadership after. This gift is continually growing and being challenged as I am learning to follow and desiring to be more and more in participation with the Trinity. I am learning that the fruit of my labor is not mine and that God alone receives the glory, but that there is a responsibility on my part to live a godly life and to be an example of Christ centered leadership.

Serving is a gift that, to be honest, I can only explain has come from the Spirit, because there is nothing I have done to develop it. I just love to do it! I did find out quickly though that I can’t volunteer for everything and I need to prayerfully consider which things God has established for me to do. I would cease to be Seth and I would feel unfulfilled if I wasn’t serving someone, whether it is my family or others.

I think that the gift of serving and the gift of mercy are intertwined, because when you serve someone, no matter who it is, you are showing mercy. There is nothing that a person can do that makes he or she worthy of grace. There is only that which the Lord has done. I realize that mercy is a gift every time I begin to tear up at anything somewhat emotionally related to life changing testimonies. I am grateful to have an abundance of mercy for everyone because of the mercy that was given to me! The call that God has placed in my life is a direct result of the work done at the cross, the grace that was offered to me, and the gifts that I have received since accepting that offer.

            The joy that comes from living a life oriented to God’s design and full of the gifts He has given has to be the greatest joy in the entire world.  As I have pondered this over the last few weeks, the same thing keeps coming to mind. I have such a heart for people that my greatest joy comes when I am able to love people in a way that allows Christ to change their life. When I think of why this would even be a desire of mine, I am drawn back to the time when I first received the love and grace of Jesus Christ.

In some miraculous way, when I was 19 I landed a job at Glen Eyrie, a Christian conference center in Colorado Springs. The miraculous part was not that they had offered to pay for my culinary schooling in addition to being paid for work, but rather it was that they hired a drug-dealing heathen to be part of their Christian work environment. At that time in my life, I loved to party and after about four or five months of working at Glen Eyrie, I jeopardized my employment. We were on lunch break when Chef Brian looked over at me and said, “Seth your drugs fell out of your pocket.” When I looked to the right of my chair I realized that sure enough, those drugs were mine. I did what any drug user would; I picked up my drugs and headed back to work. I knew that at any moment Chef Brian was going to come in and tell me that I was fired.

When he finally did come into the kitchen, all he said was, “Seth let’s go to the office.” I am an emotional person and so I just started tearing up, knowing that my culinary opportunities were going down the toilet. The fact that I had totally messed up this amazing opportunity kicked my butt more than the fact that I thought I was getting fired. Once in the office, Chef Brian shared his testimony with me about how Jesus Christ had delivered him from a life of drugs and partying. Then, the only thing he said about the whole incident was that he had already talked to everyone that knew it had happened and that it was now a closed matter. They were giving me a second chance. Though I did not accept Christ right then, it was a life changing moment.

At first I was blown away by the fact that someone actually cared that much about me and I slowly began to realize that God was not only the source of these people’s love, but that He is love. Even after that had sunk into my heart, it took me a while to get the picture that others were in the same boat that I had been in. There were other people in the world that never really been loved before with Christ’s love.

One of the ways I figured this out was as I went on mission trips, especially several trips I took to the inner city. I realized that even though some of them didn’t realize what they were really longing for, what people desired the most was the same thing that I desired; they just wanted someone to love them. For most of them, just like it had been for me at Glen Eyrie, when I showed them the love of Christ, it was for the first time in their lives. How amazing it is to be part of God’s plan to show true love to the world.

            Ten years later, as I look out at the world, I know that my greatest joy comes from being part of what God is doing. But what is the world’s greatest need and how can I be part of what God is doing to address that need? I have to agree with Ross Hastings that one of the greatest needs in our world today is the need for healthy churches. This is one of the reasons why I desired to come to Regent. I felt like if I were going to be a teacher of Christ and His Word that I needed to know Him in a deeper, stronger way. Since I did not grow up in the church, I am eager to become more and more involved and to be used by God in a healthy church setting.

I believe that one of the greatest things I can do for the kingdom of God is to learn to love my family. If I learn how to do this well and to implement the things we do as a family into the things we do at a church, it would become a healthy church. From a healthy church comes a healthy community and so forth and so on.  Ultimately the whole world is affected by the love of Christ reaching out from within the walls of our homes, into all aspects of our lives. I am a young husband and a young father, but I am encouraged to see how God is going to use my whole family for His kingdom.

One of the things I am gaining out of my New Testament class is an understanding of how Christ changed the world with His life, death, resurrection and ascension.  He did it in a way that no one expected, by loving people and giving them a great hope for the rest of their lives. This is what I want to see happen in the lives of other believers, that they too would grasp the power of Christ. Rather than a world lacking in humility and vulnerability, wouldn’t it be amazing to get to a place where we all desire to walk with God, to be in His presence and to invite others into that presence without any stipulations. To love truth that sets us free and does not bind us up.

Also because I’ve not grown up in the church or even in a Christian home, I can’t recall a time in life where someone has given me a name. I think the name or image I would give myself would be ‘a joyful heart of tears’. I think this image is fitting because, as I stated before, I tear up at anything life-giving.  One of the coolest things I have experienced was at our church when we had a baptismal alter call. We took away every excuse you could think of for a person to not get baptized and the result was incredible! At the conclusion of that service there were forty people who were baptized and in total over a hundred and fifty people were baptized that weekend. It was awesome. And I wept the whole time.

For me, once I hear and get to know people, I right away begin to think of ways I can serve them and help them grow and love others. The greatest area I need to grow in is confidence. A lot of the time I feel like I have nothing to give or that what I could say is stupid. I literally have to live in a moment-by-moment reminder that it is not me who changes people, but Christ. Sometimes instead of reminding myself of truth, I just become lazy or I run away and hope they can get their issue fixed by someone else. I guess when it all comes down; I am a joyful heart of tears in constant need of resuscitation and encouragement.

Thanks be to God that in the midst of my joyful tears and in my constant need, He is the one that has saved me, has given me new life and has called me to be His minister to a broken and weary world.  As I continue to employ the gifts that God has given me and to work through the tough questions in life, I am constantly reminded of who God has made me to be and how He promises to work in and through me.

What a call, what a God. Thank you for calling me. You are worthy! Amen.