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Service: A window into pastoral ministry
How do leaders grow? There’s no simple formula. It takes a convergence of inspiration and opportunity, as well as a mentor to offer support and the occasional nudge. Each Christian Service program can provide all three. Mennonite Voluntary Service’s involvement with the Volunteers Exploring Vocation program offers intentional vocational support. Practical service opportunities with a spiritual emphasis are available through Service Adventure, SOOP, Youth Venture and DOOR. And, The Journey program allows participants to focus intentionally on becoming better disciples. So how do leaders grow? Quite often, leaders grow through service. From social work to a pastorate, Service Adventure was the bridge Pastoring was the last thing on Jill Swiers’ mind when she entered Service Adventure in Albany, Ore., in 2003. Swiers had studied social work at Hesston (Kan.) College, where Bible and religion professor Marion Bontrager nudged her toward mediation and the ministry. The only service location she could find offering victim-offender reconciliation opportunities was Albany. Linn-Benton Mediation Services is a small agency. By the end of her year of service, Swiers, 23, was mediating small claims and victim-offender cases as well as presenting volunteer training sessions. She was challenged, she said, and allowed to grow into a leader. “There’s this sense of mutual gain from the agencies to the participants. If the participants are willing to give of themselves, the agencies are willing to give back,” Swiers said. “I felt as if they poured themselves into me.” At the same time, Swiers was leading a junior-high mentoring group at Albany Mennonite Church. Leaving those girls was difficult, but Swiers returned to school after her Service Adventure year. She was gone only two years. In July 2006, after graduating from Minnesota State University Moorhead, Swiers sent out feelers to Albany on the chance she could find either a mediation job or a position in congregational youth leadership. She found both. Swiers is program coordinator at Linn-Benton and youth coordinator for Albany Mennonite, working with the same group of teens she had mentored four years ago, helping them hear their own calls from God. Sweirs said her call from others and from God has evolved as she has grown and learned. Now, she sees similar possibilities among her youth. “We must offer opportunities and be willing to keep on offering opportunities.” she said. MVS experience leads to pastorate Two years in a row, Laura Helmuth prepared for seminary. She applied, was accepted, and was all set to begin classes. She planned to enter the ministry after receiving her degree. Two years in a row, Helmuth backed out. Instead, she went to Baltimore with Mennonite Voluntary Service where she already has started to minister. Helmuth, a 26-year-old Eastern Mennonite University graduate, said service allowed her to explore her beliefs as she worked at Baltimore’s Asylum Seekers Housing Network and served as a youth minister with North Baltimore Mennonite Church. “I wanted to see if pastoral ministry was something I was interested in,” Helmuth said. “This gave me the opportunity to do that.” Incidentally, she now is enrolled in a couple of seminary courses through a distance-education program. While she learns as she serves, Helmuth is participating in an optional Volunteers Exploring Vocations program through MVS, funded by a grant from The Fund for Theological Education. She keeps a journal, works with mentors, and attended a conference at Princeton Theological Seminary where she connected with other VEV volunteers and ministers. “I was able to build relationships with people who are already doing pastoral work of some kind,” she said. To better discern her call from God, she compared her struggles with those of others who are involved with the church in various forms and who also strained to find their vocations. Immanuel Sila, MVS unit administrator and recruiter, leads the Mission Network’s VEV involvement. He said the church has a responsibility to help youth and young adults — not to mention older adults — find places where they can listen to God’s call. “It takes a lifetime to discover God’s call,” Sila said. “We’re looking forward not to finished products of young adults we’ve created, but to providing young adults the tools they need for discernment for the rest of their lives.” Sila said the role of Christian Service is to foster relationships among young adults and the wider church. Just as Eli the priest mentored Samuel, programs can lead young people to listen to God’s call, whether that call is to the ministry or to other professions. Helmuth was working for EMU when she received an invitation through connections with a pair of prospective students to work at the Baltimore church and Asylum Seekers Network. “MVS was the way they could fund me,” Helmuth said. “I don’t know that I will ever find exactly what I’m supposed to do for the next 40 or 50 years of my life, but I put my whole heart and soul into everything I do. It’s out of those experiences that I find out where I’m led next.” Faith + service = pastorate Jeff Linthicum’s opportunities came later than he may have liked. As a young adult, he spent time living on the streets, doing drugs and drinking. He joined the U.S. Navy. Then he found Christ. Linthicum was 30 — older than the typical RAD (Reaching and Discipling) participant when he entered the program in 1998 to serve in England. His newfound faith included a fascination with the way of peace he discovered in Anabaptism. One year with RAD led to a second year leading a RAD team in Northern Ireland. Three years later, he and his wife, Megan, set out for three years of service in the Balkans through Mennonite Mission Network and Eastern Mennonite Missions. Now, he pastors Pine Creek Chapel in Arcadia, Fla., where he still pulls out his RAD notebooks during sermon preparation. Linthicum said one of his teammates compared Christian Service to the story of Esther, who spent a year in beauty treatments before going to King Xerxes. “That’s what RAD was,” Linthicum said, “a yearlong preparation before going into the service of the King.” In this issue: Features Highlights Viewpoints |
