When I first started working with LAMP over five years ago, one of my favorite things to do was to get to know my city... Pittsburgh. Growing up I did not spend very much time in the urban environments of Pittsburgh except for sporting events or museums. I love Pittsburgh! And, I love showing people around Pittsburgh now. I really enjoy exposing my mentees to learning opportunities in this dynamic city, and I enjoy visiting different places with family and friends. God is giving me a heart for the city, and I feel like my eyes have really been opened to God's ways of moving through the complexities of urban life.
Now that I have a love for the city, God has given me the great privilege of casting vision for North Way's new urban campus in the East End. Even though the campus will most likely not launch until this winter, I have been intentionally scheduling one to one meetings with people who are considering making that campus a church home. In my mind, there is nothing better than dreaming about doing church in the city, and then actually having God work through me to implement those dreams! That's what gets me going every morning!
If we pay attention, we can find amazing joy in the callings that God gives us. That is why it is so tragic when people land in miserable jobs and stay in those miserable callings or circumstances for years. God has much more for us in life than painful exercises in vocational futility over years or even decades. God designed each of us to have unique skill sets that we offer the world. So why do we settle? God wants to bring us joy, to have us enter into our places of passion and calling based on fulfilling his purposes for reaching this world. I would have never dreamed of being an urban pastor when I was growing up, but God has brought me to this point because he loves me and he wants me to experience the richness and fullness of life while he works through me in the city. I am loving this opportunity in Pittsburgh!
2 comments:
your post directly deals with "calling." God calls us and places us and it's up to us to follow or ignore. Do you think God places people in jobs and situations they dislike? People in those places do not want to hear "christianese" and feel empty and lost. I'm blessed I'm not in those shoes but many people are in those circumstances and I'm sure many of them are your neighbors.
As you know, Jas, often our callings may involve suffering. However, we can find joy in suffering if we understand the purposes that God is trying to accomplish through us. So, I think calling is not so much about happiness as it is about obedience. Still, as I embrace my calling in the city I am able to find great joy in obedience even through the calling is often difficult. That's the tension that we all live in... between the "now, but not yet" because God's Kingdom is here but we still live in a fallen world. God assures us that we can find joy in our callings even in a broken world.
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