My wife Miranda and I the next Sunday went to the services of the Church of God congregation to which I had visited a few times during my campaign. After the service, I asked the pastor if we could meet, and we made an appointment for a couple of days later at a local coffee shop. The meeting went well and long, and we were about an hour and a half into it before I even brought-up that I felt called to go into ministry. I now realize that this must have seemed an odd statement to the pastor, as the typical course of progression is to be “of church” before deciding to go into ministry, and I was this unchurched, rare attendee that declared my calling to him. After gathering his thoughts, the pastor outlined the process within the Church of God for one to become an ordained pastor.
Since our initial conversation at the coffee shop, we’ve had others about my progress toward this goal and the difficulties that he sees in my life toward accomplishing this goal. Also, I’ve become a member of his church, become a regular attendee of the Sunday service, the Wednesday night Bible Study, and have begun to volunteer in other ministries within the church. None of this is written as proof of my faith, but rather merely as explanation of the time-line of events that have occurred between my awakening and now, as I intend to shift modes at this point in my writing to capture concurrent history as it occurs in my life.
