It was late summer, 1986. My husband and I were getting ready to graduate from seminary, and the job hunt had begun. With the optimism of youth, we wondered how we would decide which church we should go to—as though churches would be lining up to hire a pair of green seminarians. Naive or not, we sincerely desired to know God's will.
My husband felt called to ministry in northern New England, but that was as far as the leading went. Assuming that a choice would be involved, we prayed for discernment in how we would recognize God's will when the time came. We both arrived at the same "scientific" conclusion: We would go to the first church that called us. We didn't want to get in the position of comparing financial packages, parsonages, congregations, or communities as some of our peers seemed to be doing. So we made a pact between ourselves and God—we would go to the first church that called.
Two interviews
An invitation came for an interview with a small country church in New Hampshire. The church's pastoral search committee invited us for a meal in a member's home with the interview to follow. And since we lived a couple of hours away, they offered to put us up for the night. We arrived on a beautiful August afternoon, and were treated to a delicious home-cooked pot roast dinner. There was fresh corn on the cob straight from the host's garden, and hot apple pie right out of the oven. The committee was a warm, friendly group of people—small but with a healthy mix of ages. The interview seemed to go well. We enjoyed the fellowship that evening and the spiritual depth of the conversation around the room, and we began to picture ourselves fitting right in with this sweet rural congregation.
We enjoyed a good night's sleep under a handmade quilt in a corner room of the old farmhouse, and were greeted the next morning with a delicious country breakfast. Our congenial host gave us an auto tour of the area that culminated with a look at the church and its rustic old parsonage that was definitely in need of some serious repair. We knew the pay wouldn't be much, but we could certainly see ourselves raising a family in this lovely country setting.
We drove back to seminary aglow with what was beginning to feel like a call to this struggling little congregation.
A couple of weeks passed and another search committee called asking for an interview. Since no formal call had been extended yet by the first church, we knew we at least needed to be open. My husband's initial contact with the chair of the committee was rather brusque. The committee would be meeting at the church at 7:00PM on Friday, he would see us then. Since the church was 2 or 3 hours away, we made our own reservations at a local motel. On the appointed day we made the drive after a long day of classes and work, grabbed a quick bite at a fast food restaurant on the way, and located the church building near the center of town. The meeting was in the church's cold basement, and only the necessary end of the room was lit—presumably to save on electricity. A few Styrofoam cups of instant coffee were foraged from the church kitchen and served with a Bundt cake brought by one of the members.
The interview didn't feel good at all. They made it clear they were looking to hire a man, and although my husband was the pastoral candidate, we didn't hide the fact that I had a seminary degree as well. After a fairly brief, somewhat cool interview, they brought us to have a quick look at the parsonage—a big house on a postage stamp lot with the front door opening right onto the sidewalk. I can remember thinking "Where do the children play here—in the street?"
As Dale and I climbed into our motel room bed that night, we looked at each other and agreed, "No, we're not feeling any sense of call here."
A big half-hour
We returned to seminary, to our classes and our jobs, and waited for some sign of how to proceed next. A week or two later, Dale got a call from our regional executive minister. Both of the churches in question thought they might be interested and wanted to hear Dale preach. It was an unusual situation, but he didn't see any reason why both pulpit committees couldn't hear Dale at the same time at a "neutral pulpit"—a third church where Dale would be a guest preacher on a Sunday morning.
Well, the big day came. We made the two hour drive, Dale preached a fine sermon, we shook hands with everyone as they walked out the door, and we drove back home to our seminary apartment and proceeded to wait. Late afternoon, the phone rang. The chair of one of the pulpit committees was pleased to inform us that they would like to extend an official call to Dale to candidate to be their next pastor. A half hour later, the phone rang again. The chair of the other pulpit committee was pleased to inform us that they would like to extend an official call to Dale to candidate to be their next pastor.
A half-hour. A brief half hour between calls sealed the deal in how we would determine God's call upon our life. Really, God? A half-hour? A half-hour that meant we'd go to the church with the instant coffee and Bundt cake rather than the one with the pot roast, fresh corn, and apple pie? A half-hour that meant we'd go to the church with the brusque old moderator and cold motel room rather than the warm friendly committee and cozy farmhouse? A half hour was the difference between raising our kids on a postage stamp lot to play on the sidewalk, and a rustic country home with a lovely yard surrounded by rural beauty. A little half-hour …
But our commitment was real. We would go to the first church that called us. That was the only way we felt that we could be sure that was where God wanted us to be. We didn't want a decision based upon feeling. And so we said yes to the church in the center of town with the frigid basement and the instant coffee and the parsonage that sat on top of the sidewalk.
Moving in
But the process wasn't quite complete. The next step was a "candidating weekend." The entire congregation would get a chance to meet us on a Saturday night and ask questions. Dale would preach on Sunday morning, and then there would be a congregational vote. And this time, the church would make reservations and pick up the tab for the motel room.
It was Columbus Day weekend. Fall foliage was at its peak in New Hampshire. It was a beautiful drive from our seminary campus to New Hampshire. The church "meet and greet" evening felt pretty positive, although you could feel some tension in the room. Afterwards we followed the directions we were given and drove ourselves to the specified motel. Junk cars littered the motel parking lot, and the primary front lawn ornament was a huge green dumpster. We found our room—what a dump! We decided to think positively about the meet and greet, ignore our surroundings, and try to get a good night's sleep before Dale had to preach the next morning. We found it no easy task as we could hear people coming and going all night long, while the smell of pot wafted in around the loosely hung door.
The following morning Dale preached to a congregation of about 50 older people, and then we were escorted downstairs by a kindly older gentleman so the church could take a formal vote. "I'll stay down here and keep you company," he said. "The last candidate they brought in for a vote resulted in a shouting match upstairs and they voted her down. I'd hate for you to be down here all by yourselves and hear anything like that going on over your heads." "Gee, thanks … " we thought. "Really, God? Could you possibly be calling us here?"
The vote was unanimous in the affirmative. Apparently the answer was "Yes." God was calling us here. We returned to seminary to wrap up our final semester and pack up our little 2-room apartment.
On December 9, 1986, my husband's 28th birthday, we moved into the big 7-room parsonage that sat on a postage stamp lot on the sidewalk. We arrived in the middle of an ice storm. There was no one there to greet us or help us move in, or even to unlock the door. With the help of a neighbor, the pulpit committee chair was finally found, and he stopped by long enough to unlock the house for us. A kind, younger man showed up a couple of hours later and helped us move in the big stuff. We didn't hear from anyone else until we walked into church on Sunday morning.
Instead of introducing us to the congregation, the pulpit committee chair looked at Dale, pointed to the pulpit, and said "It's all yours." And we said to ourselves, "Really God? Is this really where you've called us?"
After the service, while standing in line at the potluck lunch that had been organized to welcome the new pastor, the same committee chair—who we were coming to realize held other leadership positions in the church—fired the church's custodian over the table of casseroles. "You can't fire me, I quit!" the custodian responded. "And I'm leaving the church and taking my whole family with me," he continued, as he flung his keys across the table—a family which we quickly realized was roughly 1/4 of the congregation, and included the kind young man who had helped us move in.
And we went home to that cold, empty parsonage and said, "Really, God? You called us here?"
Last chance pastors
It took us a couple of months to learn that the church had voted the year before we came whether or not to close its doors. They'd decided to give it one last chance, and apparently we were it. By the grace of God, the same Holy Spirit that had nudged us to commit to going to the first church that called us had also given us the conviction that we needed to be willing to give that church a minimum of 10 years. During the early years, the promise to stay was sometimes the only thing that kept us there.
Over time, God showed us how to love that congregation. My husband invited us into peoples' homes, and most of all he listened and prayed. Listened as people poured out their hurts and history. And gradually the church started to change. There was healing, there was hope. Over time the church became a healthy, growing congregation and a shining witness for Christ in the community. On January 15, 2012, after 25 years of ministry, we said goodbye to that little congregation. Only it wasn't so little anymore. About 250 people showed up to say their tearful goodbyes.
About 6 months before that difficult day, Dale had come home from the church office to say colleagues were suggesting that he apply to be our region's executive minister. And I can remember wondering—Weren't the headaches of one congregation enough? Would he really want to take on the headaches of 140? But we agreed to pray about it and ask God to show us his will. The search committee voted unanimously to extend a call to Dale to be their next executive minister. And our own congregation and church family voted unanimously to release us to this new call. And I said, "Really God? Are you really calling us to leave this place where we've raised our kids and where we love the people and they love us? Are you really asking us to go?"
Laurie Carnright Edwards is a freelance writer, substitute teacher, and ministry partner with her pastor husband Dale Edwards.
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