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Religion News - Brought to You from On HighPicturesOnGold.com, Internet - Joining the ministry has a not so common job qualification: a "call" to serve God, without expected anything in return. Katie still can remember how the "call" came to her. When she was in fifth grade, she was asked to preach on Youth Sunday, by the minister of her Presbyterian Church. "On the way to church that morning, I was all ready to preach and I was very excited," she recalls. "My mother turned to me at a stoplight… and said, 'Katie, are you nervous?' And I said, 'No Mom, this is what God is calling me to do.' "I know we sat through two or three turns of the light," she adds, "because we both realized that was not something that I had said, but it was something that the Holy Spirit was saying through me." For Chris, Katie’s husband, the call came in a more measured way. While he was on various mission trips or teaching kayaking he had insights, which built on one another. One time while teaching kayaking, he insists G-d spoke to him. "I have more in store for you than just going down a river," Chris says. "You're going to share your faith…even when you're teaching people how to kayak." A month after graduation their graduation from seminary, Chris is at Middletown United Methodist Church, in rural Maryland and Katie has been given work in two small churches nearby. Ministers work long hours, evenings and weekends, for less money. "I know we could make a lot more money doing other things," notes Katie. "I just don't think we'd be happy." She admits it will be hard to raise their children on their salaries. But she believes they’ll be able to show them that life is more than money or a big house. Katie and Chris have something very important backing them up financially—they have no debt—a situation that has pushed some new pastors out of the ministry, or caused younger prospects to become so disheartened that they didn’t join the ministry at all. Katie and Chris are also serving in the same general location, which is unusual in most denominations in two-clergy homes. Yet the most important thing of all is that they have each other. |
