Every pastor’s letter of call could read BYOB: bring your own baggage. All of us lug into our calls the stuff of life we have collected along the way which informs our practiced theology and our self-talk and the expectations we place on ourselves, often unrealistic, unattainable and unsustainable. We imagine what a pastor SHOULD be based on projections rather than what a pastor COULD be based on reflection. So, we keep carrying that baggage around with us, setting it in the corner of our office, behind the altar and in the pulpit. It gets so heavy. Sometimes we trip over it. Too often it keeps our hands full, so they aren’t free to reach out into the world in new ways. I’m learning to leave my baggage unclaimed at the carousel of call. I don’t look or serve or act like any pastor who has come before me in these congregations but, seven years in, I’ve come to believe and trust that I have been called to these places and people for a time such as this. You have too. You are uniquely called and qualified for where you are right now. No doubt there are some people in your congregation for whom you’re not the right flavor of pastoral presence. That’s okay. None of us can be everyone’s pastor. It is most certainly true though that there are people in your congregations who need you to be YOU as their pastor right now. So, give yourself permission to lay down your baggage at Jesus’ feet. That burden was never yours to carry anyway. — Pastor Bethany Walker
