|
 Welcome
to the Frequently Asked Questions page. I know you are probably a bit older
than the kids at right - but no matter what our age, we all have questions about
our future.
If you don't find your question answered below,
don't hesitate to use our Contact Us page
to send me your question. If I don't know the answer, I'll do my best to
find out for you. And your question just might appear on this page in the
near future!
Landa Harris Simmons
1. Will I
have to be poor?
 That
will depend upon your chosen path and your definition of poor. In most types
of ministry you will make a good, secure income and be able to provide a good
life for you and your family if you choose to have one. On the other hand, you
probably won't drive a Lexus. But then, how do you measure wealth?
Do you measure who you are by what you have or
what you do? A very wise person once said that in order to obtain wealth, one
must invest not only money but also oneself. The Pension Fund of the Christian
Church helps churches know how to provide adequate compensation and enables
clergy to build a safe and secure retirement. Your life's work as a minister
enables you to invest yourself.
To learn more about compensation and benefits
for ministers, check out the Life
in Ministry section on the Links Page.
2. Will
I have a better love life?
 ABSOLUTELY!
You'll have the opportunity to love and care for people who truly need you-
the lonely, depressed, elderly, hungry, and tired, or in other words: parents,
grandparents, children, singles, and yes, even teenagers. It has been rumored
that the ability to love others makes one singularly attractive and loveable.
3. Will
my golf game improve?
Only if you stay at a Holiday Inn Express.
4. Do
I have to be smart to be a minister?
 Take
a look at the ministers you know, and make your own call.
Seriously, though, we've provided the admission
requirements for a number of Disciples seminaries and related
institutions on our Links Page. You
won't need a 4.0 to go to seminary. On the other hand, you probably should
enjoy reading, studying, and writing, because good ministers spend a lifetime
seeking to know and offer God to others, primarily through the scriptures.
Most seminaries tell entering students that the school won't give them the
answers to life's questions but will teach them how to look and hopefully how
to learn.
5. What
if I'm not a good public speaker?
 First
of all, not all ministers preach every Sunday. Many become pastoral
counselors, hospital chaplains and enter other fields where they spend more
time one-on-one with others and less time in the pulpit. On the other hand,
you may find that you enjoy preaching once you give it a try, and the skills
necessary for public conversation can be learned. Dr. Fred Craddock, one of
the top 10 preachers in the English speaking world according to Newsweek
magazine, reportedly developed his speaking voice over time through many
methods, including reading aloud to the cows in the pasture when he was young.
A good preaching professor in seminary will work with you and tell you where
to find extra help.
6. What
if I get to seminary and I don't like it?
Leave. If you weren't truly called to ministry
you won't come back. If you can't NOT be a minister, then you'll come back. It
may take 1 year or 10, but if God really wants you to be a minister, you'll be
back.
7. Are
there any books I can read to help me with my decision?
 There
are always books to be read. Your pastor may have a good suggestion. One of
the most recent books about vocation is Parker J. Palmer's book, Let Your Life
Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc.,
Publishers (2000)
Here's an excerpt:
"What am I meant to do? Who am I meant
to be? When I was young, and hell-bent on seizing my vocational destiny by
any means necessary, I ran across the old Quaker saying, "Let your life
speak." I found those words bracing, and I thought I understood what
they meant: "Let the highest truths and values guide your life."
So I sought the highest values I could find and tried to conform my life to
them. The results were not always pretty!
"Now some thirty years later, "Let
your life speak" means something else to me, a meaning faithful both to
the ambiguity of those words and to the complexity of my own experience:
"Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for
what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and
values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths
you embody, what values you represent…
"But vocation is not a goal to be
achieved. It is a calling to be received. Before I can tell my life what I
want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must
listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the
standards by which I must live-but the standards by which I cannot help but
live if I am living my own life."
8. How
will I know what God wants me to do with my ministry?
 Barbara
Brown Taylor, an author and Episcopal priest, has written of her own struggle
to find what God wanted her to do: pastor, preach, write or teach. Finally,
one day in the midst of her angst, she heard a voice say: "Do what makes
you happy." And she knew that if she did for God what made her happy in
the doing of it, she would have answered God's call.
9. Can I marry?
Yes, many ministers have been known to marry
and some even have children, although most confess that the children were
conceived by immaculate conception.
10. Will I
have to change?
Let me put it this way: I remember walking
across a parking lot just after I entered the Navy, just four months after my
ordination. A chief stopped me and asked: "Are you o.k. Ma'am?"
Dumbfounded, I stammered, "Sure, I mean, I
think so. Why do you ask?"
"Well, I just noticed the Band-Aids on
your knees and thought maybe you'd been in an accident."
As my face turned three shades of red, I
confessed, "No, Chief, I wasn't in an accident. I'm just the only 24 year
old woman in America who can't shave her legs."
Sixteen years later I went to interview with a
search committee for a church position wearing Band-Aids on both knees.
Fortunately or unfortunately, some things about
you will never change. On the other hand, it's hard to spend a life devoted to
God and not feel the touch of God's hand molding and reshaping the most
important parts of your being.
11. What if
I want to quit?
Well, I'd say you're pretty normal. When I was
a Navy Chaplain I used to tell the kids in boot camp that the ones who came to
me complaining were the o.k. kids. It was the kid who said, "I like it
here" that I worried about!
One minister told me early in my ministry that
I'd probably want to quit every day for my entire ministry. He was wrong; it
wasn't EVERY day that I thought about quitting.
Quick: do an experiment. Ask any married couple
you know if either of them had ever wondered: why did I marry this person? If
they're honest, they'll both tell you that marriage takes a lot of energy and
is hard work, and there will be days, sometimes weeks, even years, when it's
not a lot of fun. However, they're not interested in just short-term
gratification; they're interested in building a life together.
Many of the most famous prophets, teachers, and
ministers in the scriptures and in our time have written of their own
struggles while serving God. You will be no exception. After all, you're
trying to build a life with God and help others do the same.
| 
