The Call Of God
Stories
Object:
Contents
Sharing Visions: "The Call of God" by Bill Dow
Good Stories: "Jesus Loves Rocky Dumar, Too" by Jo Perry-Sumwalt
John's Scrap Pile: "Roy's Call To Ministry"
Sharing Visions
The Call of God
by Bill Dow
Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, "Samuel! Samuel!"
and Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant is listening."
1 Samuel 3:10
On Ash Wednesday of 2000, I had a very powerful worship experience. I was tired, cranky, and in a judgmental frame of mind. I really didn't think that communion and being marked with ashes should be administered at the same time. Ashes on Ash Wednesday, Communion on Maundy Thursday, that's the way it should be. I was distancing myself from what was happening. I was just about totally divorced from the service when the pastor asked me and our Lay Leader to assist him with communion (darn!). We were to assist him after we took communion at the first table. We were using the intinction method, something we don't often do, and the pastor had asked us to pass the loaf between us and break off a piece of bread and eat it.
"Well, this is going to go well," I thought. Those who were thinking ahead waited for the cup. Those who followed directions got some more bread when they figured it out. I was really in a wonderful state of mind by then! I got up and went behind the rail and waited for the next table. The pastor handed me a loaf and one of the cups, and I approached the rail to the first communicant. It was Dick Bonney, a retired pastor in our congregation. I mumbled something about the body and blood of Christ and offered the elements. As he communed, I began to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit passing through me and the elements and on to him. As each person took the communion elements this energy flow intensified, and I found myself silently praying for each individual in a way that I couldn't have planned or initiated.
After serving that table, I stood off by the side, waiting for the next table. That's when a voice said, "See? That's what it's like!" I don't remember much about serving the remaining tables. I was too confused (read shook up) to focus or channel any energy. I doubt that anyone noticed anything unusual during this whole time. I've been left to wonder if this is a call to higher ministry.
William L. Dow is now a Licensed Local Pastor serving the Amherst and Buena Vista United Methodist Churches in the Wisconsin Annual Conference. He is the owner-operator of a laser engineering and cutting business. Before his call to pastoral ministry Bill was a trainer in the quality improvement process for a Fortune 500 company.
Bill's story appears in Vision Stories: True Accounts Of Visions, Angels, And Healing Miracles, compiled and edited by John E. Sumwalt (CSS Publishing Company, 2002), pages 50-51.
Good Stories
Jesus Loves Rocky Dumar, Too
by Jo Perry-Sumwalt
For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Psalm 139:13-14a
The new young pastor of Lake Bluff Christian Church had seen the man on the streets of the town frequently. In the first busy weeks of his new pastorate, he hadn't taken the time to inquire about him. But when he discovered that the man sat quietly on the steps outside the church every Sunday, listening, he was determined to find out about him.
"Oh, that's Rocky Dumar," the secretary replied when he inquired on Monday morning. "His mother is a member, but she hasn't come to church for many years. She's a shut-in now. Rocky just likes to listen to the music."
"But why doesn't he come inside?" the pastor asked.
"I don't know. I've been here for ten years and I've never seen him 'in' a worship service. Why don't you ask him?"
The next Sunday, as he took his place at the rear of the sanctuary, waiting to process behind the choir, the pastor peeked out the door. There, on the top step, sat Rocky Dumar.
"Good morning, Rocky," the pastor said. There was no surprise on the round face that turned toward him, just a smile. His narrow blue eyes and slightly protruding tongue indicated Down's Syndrome.
"Good morning," Rocky answered softly.
"Why don't you come inside and join us for the service?"
He shook his head. "I can't come in. I'm not baptized."
Although the pastor was surprised and puzzled by Rocky's response, the opening chords of the processional hymn signaled an end to their conversation for the moment. "Well, you're welcome to come in any time, Rocky. I'm glad you're here," the pastor said, and turned to enter the service.
It was more than a week before the busy work of settling in allowed the pastor to pursue the puzzle of Rocky Dumar's reluctance to enter the church.
"That's an old, long story," the chair of the parish board said when she was questioned on the subject. "When Rocky was about twelve or thirteen his mother wanted him to be baptized and confirmed, like the other youngsters. There were a lot of strange ideas back then about retarded people. His parents hadn't even tried to have Rocky baptized as a baby, but when she saw how well he turned out, and how much he loved the church services, his mother wanted him to become a member. The pastor and the elders back then refused, saying Rocky could attend the class and be baptized, but he wasn't ever going to understand enough to become a member. They wouldn't allow him to come into a position where he could vote and take communion. Of course, back then women couldn't vote, either! Rocky is two or three years older than me, so this was a ways back. My mother would never have dreamed that I would someday be parish board chair! But there are some here who would still hold onto those old ideas in regard to Rocky."
"What about his mother?"
"Oh, she retained her membership, but she and Rocky stopped coming to worship. She's pretty crippled up with arthritis now, and doesn't get out of the house much, but it was protest over Rocky's not being confirmed that made her stay away. She never let him be baptized, either. That must be where he got the idea that that was why he couldn't come into the church anymore. But Rocky always loved the music. He's come almost every Sunday, all these years. He wears his good bib overalls and sits on the steps to listen to the service, even in winter. But after they refused to confirm him, he's never come in."
The young pastor did a lot more visiting with people on the subject of Rocky. Although he was careful to work it in casually in other conversations, so as not to make it a big deal, rumor began to spread that something was up. Those who disapproved made it known in their subtle ways, but he began to form a plan on how to get Rocky Dumar inside the church. The most vital information came from Rocky's mother and Rocky himself. By spring, just before confirmation time, and after a lot of prayer, the pastor knew what to do.
Many of the older members of the church were surprised when Ella Dumar made her way slowly across the front of the sanctuary from the side door on Confirmation Sunday. An usher helped her into the front pew with the confirmation families. And after the confirmation class rose to stand before the congregation, the pastor looked expectantly toward the rear of the sanctuary and said, "Okay, Rocky, you can come in now."
Rocky Dumar walked down the center aisle of the sanctuary in his good bib overalls, his baseball cap in his hands. He took his place in the confirmation line, his grey hair and size sharply contrasting with the rest of the class. The pastor proceeded to question the students on their catechism, and they answered ... some well, and some not so well. Rocky stood quietly, turning his cap in his hands and waiting.
At last the pastor said, "One member of this new group of confirmands is long overdue for this ceremony. Rocky Dumar received his confirmation training in 1941, but he's been brushing up this last couple of weeks with the rest of this class. Rocky needs to be baptized before he's confirmed, and I want to ask him one question before we proceed."
The pastor motioned Rocky forward and turned him to face the congregation. "Rocky Dumar, what does baptism mean?"
Although his speech was thick and a little slow, Rocky's voice was strong and sure when he answered, "Jesus loves the little children. All the children of the world. Jesus loves Rocky Dumar, too."
Then, with his mother's eyes shining on him in pride, Rocky Dumar was baptized and confirmed as a full member of Lake Bluff Christian Church. And all of God's people said, "Amen."
John's Scrap Pile
Do you remember how God called you to ministry? I thought of my own call as I sat in worship last Sunday in my home congregation, Willow Valley United Methodist Church in Ithaca, Wisconsin, where I preached my first sermon 36 years ago at the age of sixteen. What a joy it was to come home after all those years and to worship with so many neighbors and friends who had nurtured my faith. The preacher of the day was Shirley Braithwaite, a retired grade school teacher who was my Sunday school teacher when I was in high school. (Like me, the pastor was on vacation.) As I listened to Shirley I was over come with emotion (read Holy Spirit), the same Spirit that grabbed hold of a simple farm boy 36 years ago and has never let me go.
Roy Nelson is an active lay person at St Matthew's Lutheran Church next door to the United Methodist Church I serve in the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa. A little over two years ago he shared a powerful vision story which was in the Advent 3 edition of StoryShare (see http://csspub.com/ss/samples/021215.shtml), and which appears on pages 20-21 of Vision Storiespresence calling him to pastoral ministry. This story will be included in our next book of "Vision Stories," which will be released by CSS in June.
Roy's Call To Ministry
I had been struggling with the call to the ordained ministry for several years. I knew God was calling, but I didn't really want to go. After all, I had a wife and two young children to support, I had a great job that I really enjoyed, and I was active in men's ministry at my church. Why couldn't God be happy with what I was doing in ministry as a lay person? Why couldn't He just leave me where I was? It was nice. It was good. It was, well, comfortable.
I felt as though God was really on my back. The weight of knowing he wanted me to enter the ministry, and me not wanting to leave my comfort zone, had become a heavy burden. In the privacy of my car early one morning, as I was making a one-and-a-half hour commute to a nearby city, I had a conversation with God about all the reasons why it was just too difficult (read inconvenient) for me to go to seminary and was proposing other ways I could serve from where I was. But God wasn't buying my excuses. Throughout this discussion, in response to every excuse I made, God just kept saying, "Be a pastor. Go to seminary."
I began to weep uncontrollably as I drove, crying out, "But why me? What's so special about me? Why can't you call someone else who's more available?" (I even suggested the names of some people who I think would be great pastors.) I really didn't know why I was crying and was hoping other drivers wouldn't notice, but I couldn't stop. Suddenly, through my tears, I heard myself saying, "Thank you for calling me. I will go to seminary. I will trust in You and your plan for me. Show me where to go and I will." It seemed that all of the sudden, somehow, in the midst of my tears, my will was conformed to God's will for me.
A feeling of peace washed over me, which I understood to be God assuring me that all was well, that my fears were unwarranted, and that he would provide for my family. I was able to pull myself together as I arrived at my destination and put in a full day's work.
Several days later, I was reading a devotional which explained that sometimes, in the presence of the Holy Spirit, a person weeps uncontrollably. I then understood that during that early morning commute, the weeping that I couldn't stop or explain was because I had experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit in a very real and personal way.
Roy Nelson is an attorney, mediator, and arbitrator. He will enter seminary in 2003 in preparation for the ordained ministry.
We would love to hear about your call to ministry. Write to us this week at jsumwalt@naspa.net.
StoryShare, January 19, 2003, issue.
Copyright 2003 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
Sharing Visions: "The Call of God" by Bill Dow
Good Stories: "Jesus Loves Rocky Dumar, Too" by Jo Perry-Sumwalt
John's Scrap Pile: "Roy's Call To Ministry"
Sharing Visions
The Call of God
by Bill Dow
Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, "Samuel! Samuel!"
and Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant is listening."
1 Samuel 3:10
On Ash Wednesday of 2000, I had a very powerful worship experience. I was tired, cranky, and in a judgmental frame of mind. I really didn't think that communion and being marked with ashes should be administered at the same time. Ashes on Ash Wednesday, Communion on Maundy Thursday, that's the way it should be. I was distancing myself from what was happening. I was just about totally divorced from the service when the pastor asked me and our Lay Leader to assist him with communion (darn!). We were to assist him after we took communion at the first table. We were using the intinction method, something we don't often do, and the pastor had asked us to pass the loaf between us and break off a piece of bread and eat it.
"Well, this is going to go well," I thought. Those who were thinking ahead waited for the cup. Those who followed directions got some more bread when they figured it out. I was really in a wonderful state of mind by then! I got up and went behind the rail and waited for the next table. The pastor handed me a loaf and one of the cups, and I approached the rail to the first communicant. It was Dick Bonney, a retired pastor in our congregation. I mumbled something about the body and blood of Christ and offered the elements. As he communed, I began to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit passing through me and the elements and on to him. As each person took the communion elements this energy flow intensified, and I found myself silently praying for each individual in a way that I couldn't have planned or initiated.
After serving that table, I stood off by the side, waiting for the next table. That's when a voice said, "See? That's what it's like!" I don't remember much about serving the remaining tables. I was too confused (read shook up) to focus or channel any energy. I doubt that anyone noticed anything unusual during this whole time. I've been left to wonder if this is a call to higher ministry.
William L. Dow is now a Licensed Local Pastor serving the Amherst and Buena Vista United Methodist Churches in the Wisconsin Annual Conference. He is the owner-operator of a laser engineering and cutting business. Before his call to pastoral ministry Bill was a trainer in the quality improvement process for a Fortune 500 company.
Bill's story appears in Vision Stories: True Accounts Of Visions, Angels, And Healing Miracles, compiled and edited by John E. Sumwalt (CSS Publishing Company, 2002), pages 50-51.
Good Stories
Jesus Loves Rocky Dumar, Too
by Jo Perry-Sumwalt
For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Psalm 139:13-14a
The new young pastor of Lake Bluff Christian Church had seen the man on the streets of the town frequently. In the first busy weeks of his new pastorate, he hadn't taken the time to inquire about him. But when he discovered that the man sat quietly on the steps outside the church every Sunday, listening, he was determined to find out about him.
"Oh, that's Rocky Dumar," the secretary replied when he inquired on Monday morning. "His mother is a member, but she hasn't come to church for many years. She's a shut-in now. Rocky just likes to listen to the music."
"But why doesn't he come inside?" the pastor asked.
"I don't know. I've been here for ten years and I've never seen him 'in' a worship service. Why don't you ask him?"
The next Sunday, as he took his place at the rear of the sanctuary, waiting to process behind the choir, the pastor peeked out the door. There, on the top step, sat Rocky Dumar.
"Good morning, Rocky," the pastor said. There was no surprise on the round face that turned toward him, just a smile. His narrow blue eyes and slightly protruding tongue indicated Down's Syndrome.
"Good morning," Rocky answered softly.
"Why don't you come inside and join us for the service?"
He shook his head. "I can't come in. I'm not baptized."
Although the pastor was surprised and puzzled by Rocky's response, the opening chords of the processional hymn signaled an end to their conversation for the moment. "Well, you're welcome to come in any time, Rocky. I'm glad you're here," the pastor said, and turned to enter the service.
It was more than a week before the busy work of settling in allowed the pastor to pursue the puzzle of Rocky Dumar's reluctance to enter the church.
"That's an old, long story," the chair of the parish board said when she was questioned on the subject. "When Rocky was about twelve or thirteen his mother wanted him to be baptized and confirmed, like the other youngsters. There were a lot of strange ideas back then about retarded people. His parents hadn't even tried to have Rocky baptized as a baby, but when she saw how well he turned out, and how much he loved the church services, his mother wanted him to become a member. The pastor and the elders back then refused, saying Rocky could attend the class and be baptized, but he wasn't ever going to understand enough to become a member. They wouldn't allow him to come into a position where he could vote and take communion. Of course, back then women couldn't vote, either! Rocky is two or three years older than me, so this was a ways back. My mother would never have dreamed that I would someday be parish board chair! But there are some here who would still hold onto those old ideas in regard to Rocky."
"What about his mother?"
"Oh, she retained her membership, but she and Rocky stopped coming to worship. She's pretty crippled up with arthritis now, and doesn't get out of the house much, but it was protest over Rocky's not being confirmed that made her stay away. She never let him be baptized, either. That must be where he got the idea that that was why he couldn't come into the church anymore. But Rocky always loved the music. He's come almost every Sunday, all these years. He wears his good bib overalls and sits on the steps to listen to the service, even in winter. But after they refused to confirm him, he's never come in."
The young pastor did a lot more visiting with people on the subject of Rocky. Although he was careful to work it in casually in other conversations, so as not to make it a big deal, rumor began to spread that something was up. Those who disapproved made it known in their subtle ways, but he began to form a plan on how to get Rocky Dumar inside the church. The most vital information came from Rocky's mother and Rocky himself. By spring, just before confirmation time, and after a lot of prayer, the pastor knew what to do.
Many of the older members of the church were surprised when Ella Dumar made her way slowly across the front of the sanctuary from the side door on Confirmation Sunday. An usher helped her into the front pew with the confirmation families. And after the confirmation class rose to stand before the congregation, the pastor looked expectantly toward the rear of the sanctuary and said, "Okay, Rocky, you can come in now."
Rocky Dumar walked down the center aisle of the sanctuary in his good bib overalls, his baseball cap in his hands. He took his place in the confirmation line, his grey hair and size sharply contrasting with the rest of the class. The pastor proceeded to question the students on their catechism, and they answered ... some well, and some not so well. Rocky stood quietly, turning his cap in his hands and waiting.
At last the pastor said, "One member of this new group of confirmands is long overdue for this ceremony. Rocky Dumar received his confirmation training in 1941, but he's been brushing up this last couple of weeks with the rest of this class. Rocky needs to be baptized before he's confirmed, and I want to ask him one question before we proceed."
The pastor motioned Rocky forward and turned him to face the congregation. "Rocky Dumar, what does baptism mean?"
Although his speech was thick and a little slow, Rocky's voice was strong and sure when he answered, "Jesus loves the little children. All the children of the world. Jesus loves Rocky Dumar, too."
Then, with his mother's eyes shining on him in pride, Rocky Dumar was baptized and confirmed as a full member of Lake Bluff Christian Church. And all of God's people said, "Amen."
John's Scrap Pile
Do you remember how God called you to ministry? I thought of my own call as I sat in worship last Sunday in my home congregation, Willow Valley United Methodist Church in Ithaca, Wisconsin, where I preached my first sermon 36 years ago at the age of sixteen. What a joy it was to come home after all those years and to worship with so many neighbors and friends who had nurtured my faith. The preacher of the day was Shirley Braithwaite, a retired grade school teacher who was my Sunday school teacher when I was in high school. (Like me, the pastor was on vacation.) As I listened to Shirley I was over come with emotion (read Holy Spirit), the same Spirit that grabbed hold of a simple farm boy 36 years ago and has never let me go.
Roy Nelson is an active lay person at St Matthew's Lutheran Church next door to the United Methodist Church I serve in the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa. A little over two years ago he shared a powerful vision story which was in the Advent 3 edition of StoryShare (see http://csspub.com/ss/samples/021215.shtml), and which appears on pages 20-21 of Vision Storiespresence calling him to pastoral ministry. This story will be included in our next book of "Vision Stories," which will be released by CSS in June.
Roy's Call To Ministry
I had been struggling with the call to the ordained ministry for several years. I knew God was calling, but I didn't really want to go. After all, I had a wife and two young children to support, I had a great job that I really enjoyed, and I was active in men's ministry at my church. Why couldn't God be happy with what I was doing in ministry as a lay person? Why couldn't He just leave me where I was? It was nice. It was good. It was, well, comfortable.
I felt as though God was really on my back. The weight of knowing he wanted me to enter the ministry, and me not wanting to leave my comfort zone, had become a heavy burden. In the privacy of my car early one morning, as I was making a one-and-a-half hour commute to a nearby city, I had a conversation with God about all the reasons why it was just too difficult (read inconvenient) for me to go to seminary and was proposing other ways I could serve from where I was. But God wasn't buying my excuses. Throughout this discussion, in response to every excuse I made, God just kept saying, "Be a pastor. Go to seminary."
I began to weep uncontrollably as I drove, crying out, "But why me? What's so special about me? Why can't you call someone else who's more available?" (I even suggested the names of some people who I think would be great pastors.) I really didn't know why I was crying and was hoping other drivers wouldn't notice, but I couldn't stop. Suddenly, through my tears, I heard myself saying, "Thank you for calling me. I will go to seminary. I will trust in You and your plan for me. Show me where to go and I will." It seemed that all of the sudden, somehow, in the midst of my tears, my will was conformed to God's will for me.
A feeling of peace washed over me, which I understood to be God assuring me that all was well, that my fears were unwarranted, and that he would provide for my family. I was able to pull myself together as I arrived at my destination and put in a full day's work.
Several days later, I was reading a devotional which explained that sometimes, in the presence of the Holy Spirit, a person weeps uncontrollably. I then understood that during that early morning commute, the weeping that I couldn't stop or explain was because I had experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit in a very real and personal way.
Roy Nelson is an attorney, mediator, and arbitrator. He will enter seminary in 2003 in preparation for the ordained ministry.
We would love to hear about your call to ministry. Write to us this week at jsumwalt@naspa.net.
StoryShare, January 19, 2003, issue.
Copyright 2003 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
