WHY I AM A MINISTER

I wasn't intending to go to church when I got big. I dabbled in it as a kid; you know the VBS's and after school for kiddies type of thing. Over all, church was over my head and the ball yard was much more entertaining.

Mary and I were married in her Catholic church and that was odd. I attended with her faithfully for a couple of years. To me it was the same ol' same ol' but with fancier churches, gaudier robes, and a lot of ups and downs that I couldn't figure. I couldn't wait for it to end, but noticed I felt better for going.

Later we began seriously studying the Bible with a church group down the street. Neither of us knew much about the Bible. I thought its main purpose was to be given as a gift at Eighth grade graduation. When I began to read it and understand it had a message for living today, I have never looked back.

But Jesus is why I am in ministry. It's not that he prodded and goaded me into it. It is the opposite. His tenderness toward the down-and-out drew me into it. How much...how very much...our world needs ones as Jesus to simply notice plain people exist. The homeless folk say the number one thing they need from the homed ones is to be looked in the eyes.

Jesus looked every harlot, every leper, every thief in the eyes. He saw beauty. He saw glory. He saw what people could become; not what they were. He made apostles out of book-cookers and still makes preachers out of fraidy cats.

I am a minister because Jesus showed me something I'd yet to see; a hope for every beaten and battered person to believe they, too, are worthy of endless love and grace. Never a cafe nor a store do I enter but what I see what Jesus was talking about....neighbors deperate for love in the form of acknowleding they wonderfully exist and are important.

I am a minister because I like people....Jesus loved me into it.