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Dear Seminarian,

This month we asked our bloggers what they wish they’d known as they graduated seminary and began their ministry. Here are their answers.

CONGRATULATIONS! You are finishing seminary.

You survived your first year, when your faith was this beautiful television set that you brought with you all the way from home. It was clunky, but it was yours, and you knew all the channels. Then, some classes felt like the professor had just asked you to throw it down the stairs. And so you did. And, there at the bottom of the stairwell you learned, sometimes weeping, sometimes intrigued, the inmost parts of this tradition you love, some of it labeled in German or Greek. The whole mess was soaking in a puddle of feelings. How would it ever fit together again? You and your friends stared into it at length, and then you started staring into each other..

You survived middler year when you tried on different theologians and preacher voices, like hats in a store, and you started to realize that few of your dear friends had it figured out. You would have to “find your own voice.” And so you did.

You survived your senior year, when you started to feel like a ship in the port. Every sermon you heard was like the captain speaking directly to you. Every headline was a weather report you’d have to heed for the voyage to come. Every mother-loving thing was important because it affected your “discernment.” And you were forced to listen hard to that holy thing you had learned to call a “still, small voice.” And so you did.

But off you go. And, there is more advice than time to absorb it all. There is more fear and logistics than you can hold, and you already feel you are casting off entire first year courses from your brain to make space for these weighty thoughts.

But you should know these things:

Ministry is a joy. From that first look of a bride to a groom that you get to see up close, to that cathartic laughter at the lunch after a funeral, it is holy ground. Get ready to take your shoes off.

You change. The church changes. With God there are always surprises. So, don’t hold that MIF or CIF or RIF or GIF or whatever it is called when you graduate with too tight a grip. Churches know what they want, and they don’t. You know what you want to do, and you don’t. Wherever you go, there is good ministry to do, and in this 21st century voyage, you’ll be off the grid anyway, so be flexible. We are all interim pastors to some extent, shepherding a church we did not start from one chapter of its life to the next.

Finally, you are enough. You are the pastor God has called. And if you let that sink in, something interesting happens. You start to pray. The old story is written on your heart, so you travel lightly. You drop the script. You succeed and fail and move on. You work hard, and sometimes it really feels like work. You remember again that you don’t go it alone. And there again is that faith, less like a TV and more the way you experience the whole world, in HD, the drama and the comedy, beauty and agony, in exquisite detail because you are a professional in the art of paying attention. You see resurrection happening, in the twinkling of an eye, and over the long haul. And you get to tell about it.

And, if I know only one thing, it’s this: Jesus loves you, this I know. For the Bible tells me so. That’s it, and that’s everything.

BeccaMessmanBECCA MESSMAN is the associate pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Herndon, Virginia.

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