A few observations about call...

For those of you who have not yet heard the news: the Else Family is moving to Sioux Center, Iowa, where I will be serving as Pastor of Care and Community at First Reformed Church. We are so excited to be joining this vibrant community of faith, however sad to be leaving FCC and Chicagoland. It has been a very good five year run in Illinois.

Call is a rather elusive thing to describe. It is very basic: pastoral position becomes vacant, you apply, you are offered the job ("called"). In so many ways it looks like any other hiring process.

What is interesting is the way in which God moves me from point A to point B. He is not coercive, but works in a way that is beyond my cognitive or emotional faculties. I've never before experienced what I would term the "inexorable pull" of God in moving me to FRC and us to Sioux Center. It is not so much that this is increasingly true as it is that I am increasingly more perceptive to the ways of my Lord.

Back in May, FRC telephoned me to inquire as to my interest in becoming a candidate for the pastoral position that would be vacated by a retiring pastor who had served the church for thirteen years. At that time, Julie and I had just entered into a covenant of prayer, asking God to "settle us with contentment here (at FCC) or increase our desire for something else." While moderately intrigued by the idea of serving a church in Iowa, we were quite comfortable in West Chicago.

Over the course of the summer, God answered our prayer: he increased our desire for the opportunity opening in Sioux Center. Both Julie and I thought about it a lot. We prayed about it a lot. Interestingly, however, through the process I felt that while I was intellectually and emotionally invested, a genuine sense of "call" was transcending any thought or emotion. It was an inexorable pull, God saying to me, "Travis, I do care about how you think and feel regarding this move, but understand I am sending you here..."In other words, whether you like it not, and irregardless of how you think or feel about it.

I don't mean to suggest here that God was being less than gentle. He was remarkable gentle in shepherding me. But it was very much a matter-of-fact process. I was puzzled about this at the time, but now I am grateful. The reason: I tend to be fickle, ambivalent, and unsure of myself in both thinking and feeling from one moment to the next. We had asked God to be clear with us ("Speak loudly, because we are often deaf!"). I don't see the signs real well, and usually pray that God will write his will to me in the clouds in big bold letters. As my friend Tanner said, however, "God doesn't mumble." I trusted he would be clear. He was. And it was breath-taking.

So, here we are, about to move back to the great state of Iowa. My last Sunday is a mere days away. We will spend Christmas with the Cedar Falls Else's, come back to pack up/load up, and then we hit the bricks west for Sioux County. And, I will live in great peace knowing that this isn't my great idea, but God's great idea. His call.

Knowing that, I trust he has good things ahead for us, for FRC, and for FCC. We are grateful.