jaded

I am pretty jaded. The world seems bleak. I am saddened, mostly, by my experience with men in church. There are so few that will engage in spiritual conversation, fewer still who will begin one with a younger man. Few act as though God is anything more than a topic of intellectual debate, or a means to getting to an end. He is acknowledged when someone is diagnosed with cancer, heavily consulted, and then, at last breath, forgotten again.

I have little desire to be a part of that world. To be a part of that church. I am even more afraid of becoming that kind of man.

I think often of my own conversations. Do I bring up God? Do I pursue Him along with others?

I don't want to turn into that. I can't. I won't.

I am learning more about what I want to do in life. What I am passionate about, and what I can actually do.

I don't know if I want to be a pastor. For the most part, in our "modern world", the pastor is almost exclusively the sole source of evangelism in the church. People invite their friends to hear their pastor, and let him do the work of leading their friends on towards salvation.

Pastors have often been the only ones to bring up God & things of value in discussion, and least in what I've experienced of life.

So I think I'd like to have a job, make money, outside of ministry. And in that way, I would find myself with more freedom, more intention, more joy in ministry than ever before. I would love to be a really good deacon, I would love to be a really good #2. Maybe an associate pastor, with lots of time and opportunity to be under the wing of a Sr. Pastor. But either way, I want to learn, I want to grow, I want to help and give. I want my intentions to not be questioned. By myself even more than by others. Thanks for reading.