Penny for your thoughts

You know that you are an avid blogger when people call to make sure that you are ok after a day of silence :-)

I've been trying to process things that are being thrown at me right now. I'm scared to prayer right now. I'd been taught that prophesy should be confirmation, not information. Over the years, I've had several people speak things prophetically into my life that I dismissed because they were things that I had not yet discovered about myself. Lately, however, those words have brought back to the forefront of my memory. And God has been expanding on them.

I've always had a dream of traveling the world, preaching the gospel on every continent. What I never thought of, until recently, was what would fill the time between trips. Obviously, it won't be a typical 9-5 job. I am invested in what is going on in NJ. I love where I am and what I'm doing. I'm learning the practical, day to day stuff that they don't teach you in seminary, or in any classroom.

The amazing thing for me is that with every church I've attended, I've learned different facets of ministry. At one church, I learned the ministering part--how to pray for people, how to teach. At another church, I was taught the administrative stuff...how to run the office, how to be the front person, the armor bearer, how to play the political game of church life, how to prepare for and execute mission trips. Now I'm learning the establishment part of church--how to get out in the community and make a difference.

It has been my desire for a long time to go to different places and plant churches. There have been people who I allowed to speak into my life who tried to kill that desire, for whatever reason. But now, that desire is coming forth again.

I looked at the list of people whose blogs I read regularly. With few exceptions, I am drawn to the church planters, to innovators. Even in my professional life, the jobs in which I have excelled have been those in which I was constantly mobile, creating something out of nothing. So, I suppose that I must move from the place of denial to a place of freedom to be me.

There aren't exactly a multitude of examples for me to follow, being a woman. One of my friends is a Methodist pastor. She's told me that many of the male pastors in town don't speak to her. I understand the thoughts behind a woman as a lead pastor. Being a woman, I don't know that I would attend a church that has a woman as the lead pastor. As a matter of fact, I won't work for a woman because of my experiences with many different female bosses.

So, I find myself in a precarious position right now. And the reason I was silent yesterday is because this is a subject through which I have been wrestling and will continue to wrestle.

A penny for your thoughts...