I got ordinated!!

What is ordination? Well, various denominations and churches define it quite differently. As I've been describing my journey to folks over the past year or so, there has been much confusion about ordination, particularly its connection with both seminary and employment. The uber-abridged summary is that in my situation, ordination is essentially completely separate from both seminary and employment. A "traditional" approach would be for a prospective pastor to complete seminary, take on an initial pastoral assignment for a year or two, and then be officially ordained. But since my seminary experience was InMinistry, and I've had increasing pastoral responsibilities over the past several years, I decided to pursue ordination shortly after seminary graduation.

It began with some conversations with Dan Nold to verify that he was comfortable with me heading down that path. I chatted with some leaders in our district of our denomination (Converge Worldwide, formerly the Baptist General Conference) to get their approval. I met with 19 spiritual leaders from Calvary and other local churches as my ordination council. After several hours of answering their extremely good, thought-provoking, and often challenging questions, the council approved me for ordination. And all that remained was the actual ordination service.

So, on Sunday afternoon, June 26, I had one of the most wonderful, encouraging, humbling, exciting days of my life.

Dan Dorsey, Calvary's executive pastor and one of the guys who has worked with me most regularly over the years that I've been on staff at Calvary, began the festivities by defining and explaining ordination.

Ray Castano, one of my good friends from seminary who has walked alongside me through this crazy journey of spiritual deconstruction and reformulation, read a passage of Scripture.

Sherilyn Jameson, Calvary's children's ministry director, an amazing teacher, and a spiritual mentor for both Kate and me, shared a wonderful prayer.

Dan Nold, Calvary's lead pastor and my long-time preacher, teacher, mentor, coach, advisor, and boss, delivered a challenging message as I take this next step into "official" pastoral ministry. And as one of the true highlights of the day, Dan walked up on stage wearing a tie underneath his standard sweater vest, in honor of my preference for neckwear at church, but emphatically yanked it off before he even got started, to restore his neck to its normal state of non-constrictedness. This picture was taken during the eleven seconds that Dan was actually wearing his tie.

Vic King, one of Calvary's Gathering Pastors, and my most recent staff coach/advisor, led me through a time of pastoral vows and commitments.

Many of the most important people in my life shared some prayers, Scriptures, and words of encouragement and exhortation to me, and then placed those words into a beautiful wooden box, so that I'll always have access to reread those powerful words from such amazing people whenever I need a fresh burst of inspiration or rejuvenation for the ministry. There wasn't a dry eye in the room after my parents shared some very meaningful Scriptures and words of inspiration.

Calvary's trio (Kim Dick, Lynn Nold, and Kate) sang an awesome version of "Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow," as well as a vocal rendition of "To the Only God" from Jude as walk-out music.

Dan, Dan, Vic, and Neil Breneman (a childhood friend who recently came on board as a pastor at the State College Alliance Church) prayed over me.

And John Dorsey and Dean Christian made it all work in the tech booth, including some great audio and video recordings (which are available for anyone who wasn't able to attend) that we've already enjoyed and will surely revisit for years to come.

After the service was over, we spent some time eating good food (including many of my personal favorites, such as ring bologna, deviled eggs, Frozen Run white mountain birch beer, and pumpkin bread!!) and thanking so many wonderful people for being a part of this amazing journey.

Kate made a delicious, ginormous cake (actually, FIVE cakes put together) for all of us to enjoy!

We were blessed by so many friends and family attending, including my parents, sister, brother-in-law, nieces, several of my aunts and uncles, and several of Kate's aunts, uncles, and cousins, who traveled in from Lancaster, Philadelphia, New York, Harrisburg, and elsewhere for the festivities. And an extra, unexpected blessing was Ray and Katie's visit from Cape Cod. Though Ray is a professional carpenter, a skilled guitar player, and a true Cape Codder (none of which even remotely apply to me), it became increasingly clear over our years at seminary that we were kindred spirits, wrestling with some of the same questions, interested in the same issues, passionate about the same commitments, and enamored with the same burgers from The Nook. We both married Kat(i)e's. And he even wore my ordination uniform, sans neck-tie. What a blessing to us for them to take a crazy road trip down south from the Cape to participate in my ordination!

(Yes, we're holding hands in that picture. Some things make much more comical sense in the moment and just seem strangely uncomfortable and bizarre in retrospect...)

Hanging with the Dans...

They've both put up with a lot from me over the years. Incessant emails. Inconvenient knocks on the door for impromptu conversations. Problems that I created. Dilemmas that I couldn't solve. Persistent questions that I never stopped asking. Personality quirks that I refused to relinquish. As Dan N. brilliantly and poignantly stated in his message that day, "It's been a privilege always...a joy often...a challenge sometimes."

But through it all, they have supported me, challenged me, empowered me, equipped me, encouraged me, and inspired me. I'm immeasurably blessed for having the good fortune and rich blessing of working for them and with them for these many years. And I hope if I'm ever in a ministry position to lead others, that I'll be half the boss they were to me in so many ways.

Honestly, this was one of the best days of my entire life. Ordination certainly doesn't mean that I'm a finished product. It doesn't mean that I'm done learning or growing. It primarily means that a group of people, a local church, where I have served and worked over these past eight years, sees something in me that allows them to sanction and affirm my pursuit of full-time vocational pastoral ministry. I'm honored and humbled and look forward to whatever God has in store for us as we walk forward in faith from here...