Deconstructing Thoughts on Ordination

It’s funny, as for years I have fluctuated between almost and sometimes in church ministry. Sometimes close to official ordination within a tradition (what some would call a denomination) and other times far away.  Sometimes the journey was almost complete, and something by the sponsoring church would end it, or I would pull the plug. As I continue the journey and reflecting it is one of those things that I begin to realize.

This idea of deconstructing is the newest term tossed out for when one actually examines their tradition’s beliefs and values. It has come into vogue with the recovering or converting fundamentalist or evangelical to the ex-vangelical. Some due to my educational journey, think I fall into this category, yet this miss key points of my own spiritual journey. 

I was a VBS kid so had never been “formed” or rather indoctrinated into a specific tradition. As I returned to church as an adult, it was into a United Church of Canada, a progressive tradition, and my confirmation process was about being inquisitive, asking questions about each piece of dogma, and ponder how social sciences and life experience intersects with the texts. Being able to say some were horrible, grief was real, and the theologian John Shelby Spong’s Why Christianity Must Change or Die shaped the discussion points. From the beginning, it was not a settled with simple answers faith.

And even a simple question about how to pray, with not much guidance from the church, left me to explore on my own and as I was working at Smithbooks, discovering my patron, through musician John Michael Talbot, with the Lessons of St. Francis. Francis of Assisi. Yet even then, couldn’t belong because I wasn’t the right tradition.

But it seems like rambling, but back to inquisition, exploring, trying to make it real and to make something better.

And then there is the question of whether I would ever be ordained.

The easy answer would be my gremlins in my own educational spiritual formation kept me from getting the biblical languages so I could blame that.

Yet that wasn’t it.

Is it I was a rambler who would engage with different communities because of pulpit supply, ministry building, or helping or going with this friend or that family member.

Yet that wasn’t it.

There was moments when a stance was taken against misogyny, queer hatred, anti-youth or ableism.

Yet that wasn’t it fully.

What happens when you settle into and dive into the process, the questions, the lengthy wait (for churches do not move swiftly in some cases).

But then realizing what it came down to within this journey, is that it is almost impossible regardless of the Christian Church spectrum to be able to be all into state that is my belief system, and as such I can follow through with the collar there. As it is lost in such the minutiae, even in some traditions questions that no longer matter or apply to be asked in the process…

Hmmm…