P.S. Clark

P.S. Clark, that's me. I have a new title, a new job, a new path I am following. The P.S. stands for Pastor Sherry. I'm having a hard time accepting that title. If you knew how long it took for me to accept the call to ministry you might understand why I am struggling with the title. I was barely a teenager when I felt God calling me to ministry. I was able to ignore, hide & run from this calling for about 35 years! Last year I realized that ignoring God's calling was blatant disobedience. I took a leap of faith & accepted God's calling. I now have my local minister's license & I am a children's pastor at a new church plant in the Northland. I am researching my options for schooling: seminary or school of ministry or something online. However, I feel like I'm not a pastor yet. Maybe it's because we live in a world that labels us by what we do. I am a wife, you know that by looking at the wedding ring on my left hand & finding out that I have been married for 16 years. I am a mother, you know becuase I will tell you how proud I am to be their mother or when they yell "mom" to me from across the room. When I was a preschool director people knew that's what I was becuase they saw me doing that job. But how do you know that I am a pastor? The people at my church know because they see me functioning in that role every Sunday. But am I only a pastor on Sunday? I don't think so. Does being a pastor mean that I have to give up listening to my 80's music? Does it mean that everyone should address me as Pastor Sherry? Will people now hold me to a higher standard? Will people be afraid to talk openly to me, afraid that I may judge them? These are questions I am processing on all the time in my new role as pastor. This is why I am having a hard time accepting my new title. Maybe I will be able to accept it when I have a theology degree & become ordained. Maybe it will become real when I am asked to pray with someone that is very ill or dying. Maybe I will accept it when I perform a wedding or a baptism. I know I am not the same person I was a year ago, I'm not even the same person I was a month ago. My relationship with Christ is growing & I am maturing as a christian. I am changing in ways that I can't find the words to describe. But that doesn't mean I am becoming a completely new person. There will always be parts of the "old Sherry" still there & God will use those parts. And I am starting to understand that being a pastor is not about what I do but who I am, how I live my life. I am spending a lot of time meditating on this verse, "I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received", Ephesians 4:1 (NIV). This doesn't mean that I have to do certain things to be worthy of the calling, I have to live worthy. It is my prayer each morning that God will fill me with His Spirit & that everyone I meet that day will see His Spirit in me, that I will be Jesus to the people that I come in contact with & that I will be able to share my faith with somone. I believe that is what it means to be a pastor. That is how I live a life worthy of the calling to be a pastor. And somedays that will mean praying with the sick or dying, or performing religious ceremonies, or preaching from a pulpit, or teaching in a small group, or spending time in prayer, or studying the Bible, the list goes on & on. Being a pastor is more than what I do, it's who I am, everyday! I urge you not to get caught up on titles & what people do, instead focus on who they are & who you are to them & live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Pastor Sherry Clark, that's me, that's who I am.