Leslie Spainhower Reflection on Ministerial Identity November 30, 2009 Reflection on Ministerial Identity I don t know what I think about the term calling. I hear it a lot in different contexts and sometimes it makes sense to me and sometimes it really doesn t. I have never felt like God had a specific call on my life. I know people who say that God told them exactly what they should do with their lives, and while I think that that is really great for those people that it happens to, that hasn t been my experience. That s not to say that I don t think God has called me to anything. I think that there are some things that God has called all Christians to be. I believe that, as Christians, we are called to live lives that look forward to the coming Kingdom. That s really vague, but I think it means to treat people, all people, as beings made in the image of the Living God; with respect and kindness. I believe that each Christian has been given a unique set of gifts. These gifts include life experiences, education, talents, skills, and just being in a given situation, and that it is from all of these things that each person finds his or her own calling. I think Christians are called to look at our own experiences and skills and look at the situation we are in ask, how can I best serve God here? Each Christian is called to particpate in God s work on earth, in whatever way she or he can in whatever situations he or she is in. So, I think when looking for my ministerial identity, I need to ask myself, where have I come from, and who am I now, and how can I best serve God using all of those experiences? I think it is necessary to being by considering where I have come from, and how that shapes who I am today. Church has always been a really important part of my life. I have been an elder s kid since I was six. I was born, and then I went to church three times a week for 18 years.
Spainhower 2 I love my home church. It is a small congregation where I know everyone and everyone knows me. They were my family, still are, even though I haven t lived there for a while. I first thought about going in to full time ministry when I was sixteen. I liked youth group and I thought youth ministry was something that I could be good at it. I didn t say it out loud until about a year later. I was riding in the car with my dad and we were talking about college. I had never met a female minister or heard of one. I didn t know it was a thing. So I said to my father, I think maybe I would want to be a youth minister, quickly followed by, But I know I can t do that. His only response was, Why not? After that I decided I would go to school and major in youth ministry. Unfortunately, not everyone responded as well as my dad did. Most people at my home church didn t approve of female ministers. At first I was incredibly discouraged by their lack of support, until I realized that not one person was questioning my ability, only my gender. The discouragement turned into frustration and anger. It was very difficult for me to face these people, who were people that I loved and who loved me, and to listen to them tell me that I couldn t do something, just because I have the wrong anatomy. By the time I got to ACU as a freshman I was very angry at church, especially the Churches of Christ, and I wanted to be a minister because people kept telling me I couldn t. I would not have admitted it at the time but proving everyone wrong was probably my biggest, and maybe my only, motivation. There were several things that helped me work through my anger in my first couple of years at ACU. Partly it was taking classes and learning things I didn t know before. I was given a chance to think more deeply about some issues that I had never taken the time to think about in the past. A large part was meeting other women who shared some of my frustrations. There were
Spainhower 3 girls I was in class with as well as some women further along in the program who understood why I felt the way I did, but also helped me see that dwelling in and on my anger was never going to help me or anyone. What really had the most impact on me as a person and as a minister were my experiences in ministry. In undergrad I had three internships and I also was very involved in Seekers of the Word Drama Ministry. Seekers was important because it was a place where I could practice ministry without my gender being any more of an issue than it should be. Men and women both took leadership roles without any major issue, and we worked together well. I found a community of people my own age who were earnestly seeking ways to serve Christ with the their talent and their time. We did a lot of work with teenagers and it helped me see that I liked working with people. We traveled a quite a bit and we stayed in people s homes and ate with people. I love drama and it was an important part of the ministry, but what I valued the most was the chance to see so many different faces and hear so many stories about the people of God. The opportunity to build relationships and hear about so many different people lives was one of the things that helped see the church as people, people trying their hardest to live Christ-like lives, rather than as an entity that I was mad at. Seekers also gave me an opportunity to become very close with a group of peers who took ministry seriously. It was about the work we were doing, not about proving anything to anyone and that was a lesson I really needed to learn. My internships were also really important for me. My first one was at my home church. We didn t have a youth minister on staff that summer and I was allowed to be in charge of the Junior High group. There were about 10 Jr High kids, one 18 year old Leslie, and a calendar I put together about a week before school got out. It probably wasn t the most amazing ministry work
Spainhower 4 anyone has ever done but we had a great time. It was really valuable to me not only as an experience but because, to me, it was my church validating my goals and supporting me in a way that I hadn t yet experienced from them. There were still some things to work through with certain people but it was a really big step in healing the relationship between me and my home church and, by extension, the church in general. My other internships were also really beneficial. They were at different kinds of churches but each one gave me a chance to get really involved, try some things, and experience some of my strengths and weaknesses. It was these ministry experiences that helped me remember why I love the church and helped me move from a desire to prove myself to a desire to serve God. My experiences in ministry and in school also helped me to discover more about myself and my own strengths and weaknesses. I have an administrative strength. I m a planner. I have the ability to plan an event and see it through to completion. Along with that, I also I have the ability to plan in larger sequences, to look at overall goals and look for what can be implemented to accomplish those. For two years I was the President of Seekers. I learned that I can be assertive when I need to be and that I am good at finding the balance between being in charge and allowing people to complete the tasks they need to complete without micro-managing. I also tend to be pretty realistic and practical. I can think theoretically, but I like to bring theory to the level of practice and think through the positives and negatives about how something would work in a given situation. What makes me a good planner also makes me pretty good at thinking through the positives and negatives of an idea before it is implemented. On the flip side of that, I do have a tendency to be a little pessimistic and that can quickly turn into cynicism. My supervisor at one of my internships pointed this out to me a couple of years ago. That sometimes
Spainhower 5 my tendency to think of why things won t work can give the impression that I think I m the only person who knows the right way to do things. Since then I ve made a real effort to check that tendency and not allow my desire for practicality to become cynical. I sometimes need to be surrounded by people who are idealist or dreamers to remind me that big ideas are inspiring and helpful, even if they don t seem practical to me. My other biggest weakness is that I am pretty introverted and painfully shy. Once you get to know me, I ll probably never stop talking, but in groups of strangers I m very uncomfortable and I have a really hard time speaking. In some ways there s not a lot I can do about it except get over it. And to some extent I have. I know that it s a problem for me and I know that I have to force myself to be more outgoing in some situations than I would be naturally. But there are some things I won t ever get over. I don t really like speaking in front of groups, I can do it but I don t enjoy it. I ll never be a preacher. And I m not an extrovert so sometimes I really need to create time and space for myself or I get unhappy and irritable. But it also means that I do really well in smaller groups. Something else I ve noticed is that because I don t necessarily like to be the center of attention I m more able to notice other people, especially in groups. One of my gifts is that, when I pay attention, I am good at noticing the needs of other people and I m good at identifying with people s feelings. I feel deeply the pain and unhappiness of others and it makes me someone who is easy to talk to. I also tend to be good at putting myself in someone else s shoes and giving them the benefit of the doubt. It helps keep me from being too judgmental of others. Sometimes I have a hard time with my specific set of weaknesses and strengths, because they are not what is typically looked for in ministry. Usually when someone says what they
Spainhower 6 expect of a minster, especially a youth minister, shy and cynical aren t at the top of the list. I have a tendency to be too self-critical and it s easy for me to convince myself that I am not the right kind of person for a full time ministry job. And it is true that there are some things that I will never be good at. But there are also things that I am very good at. I have learned to be at peace with the gifts I have and to look to others for help with the things that I am less good at. As far as what I want to be when I grow up, I don t know for sure. I know I want to work with teenagers somehow. My experiences have led me to care deeply about young women, especially in the Churches of Christ, who feel marginalized or hurt by the church. I would like dedicate time to working with those young women and helping them find who they are and discovering their place in the community God, just as people worked with me and helped me discover the same thing. In the same vein, I m very passionate about the role of women in the church. I don t mean in the controversial way, though I do have some strong opinions about that, but I feel strongly that women, both young and old, need a ministry that goes deeper theologically and spiritually than most women s ministries do. Usually women s classes and retreats are focused on service, encouragement, and being a good wife. Those are important and valuable things, but I think that we could go some much deeper and discover so much more if women s ministries were given a professional face and the same kind of purpose and effort that other ministries are given (I think the same thing about men s ministries but I don t think I m the person to do anything about that). I m also interested in finding new and different ways to present the gospel. I was part of a drama ministry in college and I worked quite a bit with drama ministry at my home church. I m good actor and if I found a way to incorporate that into my ministry I would like that. I don t know how all these desires manifest themselves into any sort
Spainhower 7 of career or vocation yet. I know that God has given me some rich experiences and those experiences have given me passions and desires for specific kinds of ministry and certain kinds of people. I think that I want to work within a church context. Partly because I think the Churches of Christ need female ministers, because I think the teenage girls in the church of Christ need female ministers, but also because I love the church. I want to be a part of helping other people discover the same love for God s people that I have discovered. But I am also kind of interested in working in community organizations that help at-risk youth or reach out to women who are in difficult situations. So really I don t know what I want to do yet. I know that I have grown a lot spiritually and emotionally in the past four years and I want to continue to grow. I hope that through that growth I will discover specific ways that I can use my gifts and experiences to bless the lives of others and hopefully the life of the church. But regardless of where I end up or what job I end up having I know that I can use my experiences and my gifts for the good of the Kingdom, even if it doesn t look like I expect it to.