day no. 15,030: narwhal

I feel two intense and often competing calls upon my life from God.

(1) The call to preach

I love preaching. I love laboring with God's Word to understand, craft, edit, execute, etc...  I feel it deep inside my bones. I resonate with the sentiments I see in Scripture of those who feel a fire in their chest and a compulsion to study, conform to and speak from the Bible.

(2) The call to lay ministry

I love serving the church for free, or as one has said, "being good for nothing." I love being able to provide the example of what it looks like to love the Lord and not get paid vocationally to do so. Too many have only the two categories of someone who does not take the Bible all that seriously and attends church at best and the one who takes God at His Word and thus enters into vocational ministry because of their commitment to it. Being a lay leader emphasizes the intense call upon all to be disciples that make disciples wherever you may go, including your work, your community, and your home.

But these two desires produce conflict.

To be able to preach more would require laying aside my laity and joining the rank and file of those in vocational ministry. To pursue laity is to set aside opportunities to preach.

I feel like I'm sometimes stuck in a "not double awesome" situation. 

Lay ministry? awesome!
Preaching? awesome!
Lay ministry and preaching? NOT double awesome.

I feel like a narwhal.

A unicorn is awesome. Obviously majestic and respected and no one wonders why little girls want them to be the theme of their birthday parties. They're awesome! Obviously.

Whales are awesome. Obviously majestic and respected and no one wonders why everyone wants to save them or sight one from the safety of a boat. They're awesome. Obviously.

A narwhal is essentially a whalicorn. It is not double awesome! It is pretty intriguing, but it hasn't caught on. I don't know why not. I mean, it's a whale with a unicorn horn. How has this not become a bigger deal. They aren't exactly secret at this point either. People know about narwhals. And yet, they haven't gained the traction that either unicorns or whales have. 

I think when people discover I am intensely drawn to lay ministry and preaching they respond they way they respond to narwhals... interesting? I'm intrigued. But the intrigue soon wears off. One or the other is a clear trajectory, but both is a confused mess... like a narwhal.

So pray for me as I navigate the tension of feeling pulled intensely by God to both and attempting to discover what it looks like to pursue preaching from a lay leader's seat.