My life as a full-time fisher(wo)man
I have been in full-time ministry for a little over two years now; time has certainly flown by!
It seems like just the other day I was in the Great Hall of Ashburnham Place, listening to one of our senior leaders as she shared the story of how her family decided to follow God’s call to plant a church in Central London.
That call led to moving the family from Birmingham to London - uprooting the children from school, leaving loved ones behind and battling with a season of financial uncertainty in the months ahead.
After her talk, that same leader began to prophesy that there were others in the room who were being called to a similar life, one of personal sacrifice and a less than conventional family paradigm. It wouldn’t just be the spouse, the house, and the 2.5 children, but a life where Jesus’ call to mission would be the driving force throughout.
Kneeling on the floor in that Great Hall, the Holy Spirit convicted me that I was one of those people. Not only that, but that my current single state would play a role in my future ministry too.
Fast forward to today, and I’m beginning to see my journey unfold. Of course, it’s only been a minute and I am both excited and terrified to see what God has in store next! However, I would like to share some of the lessons I am learning at this stage of the adventure, which I hope can be insightful and encouraging to you all irrespective of what industry or sphere you currently inhabit:
Impostor syndrome is a real thing
As a single, black, female in full-time ministry, I’m sure you can imagine that there aren’t many of us around (someone should seriously consider starting a support group). There are therefore a number of characteristics that can often leave me feeling like I don’t quite have a seat at the table, and being single in church is one of them. The majority of leaders that I know are married men, followed by married women, and it can be so easy to think that there is a glass ceiling for single people in leadership roles.
However, how can we forget that Jesus - the Messiah himself - was a single man in ministry? Or what about Paul, the apostle who wrote the majority of the New Testament? The fact is single people are essential to the life and ministry of the church in ways that are unique and advantageous. We should encourage them more to know that nothing is out of their reach.
You can’t run the race for everyone
I have been blessed with so much support from many single people in my church, which reminds me that in many ways I am a representative and an advocate for them. In a sense, I have some responsibility to make their voices heard in a predominantly marriage-led space, and I do not take this lightly at all. However, I am learning more and more that the specific calling God has placed on my life might not always fulfil the needs and desires of every single person I come across, any more than a married leader can fulfil the same for every other married couple in their congregation. To try and do so, I believe, would be to carry a burden that ultimately is too weighty for one person to bear.
Instead, one of the joys of representing single people in this space is that I get to identify and raise new leaders with their own gifts, talents, and passions, and encourage them to step into the calling that God has designed specifically for them. If God is using me to plant the seed, then I pray that he might use them to nurture it, and even more after that to bring in the harvest.
You’re allowed to feel things too!
I cannot take the credit for this point; a wise friend shared this with me this evening and I had to include it. As a single person in ministry, you tend to become an example of joy, purpose, and contentment in that setting. However, in the midst of this, I sometimes find myself believing that that meant I wasn’t allowed to be attracted to someone and to see where that could lead. God forbid if I developed feelings for someone in my congregation!
Of course, when I read this back it sounds absurd; of course I’m allowed to have feelings and desires, provided they are channelled in the right ways. Just because I’m single and in church ministry doesn’t mean that I can’t date or get to know someone to see if we like each other. I don’t have to ‘fall on my own sword’ as it were, to prove a point about how living a fulfilled single life is possible. Even if I feel led to remain single for a period of time, it doesn’t mean that I become the tin man from the Wizard of Oz with no heart to feel things. Instead, I acknowledge my feelings and desires and place them with God who knows how to manage them best.
I want to end this post with the story of Ruth from the Bible. To be clear, I am not the biggest fan of using Ruth and Boaz as any kind of analogy for Christian dating relationships - don’t leave me! However, one observation I can roll with is that Ruth came to the barley fields to work and provide for her mother-in-law and, in the midst of her work, became acquainted with her kinsman redeemer.
Although I’ve met some red herrings along the way, I am still holding on to the belief that as I work in ministry and give God the best of me, that will be the foundation upon which I will meet the right person in God’s timing. Frankly, I wouldn’t want it any other way.
