by Rev. Linda Shaw, M.Div., M.Ed.
On Good Friday 1994 I was fasting and meditating while reading Matthew 6:33 wherein Jesus says, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God...” and I suddenly saw a pattern in my life. I felt God was leading me in a new direction and I began searching to find the way God wanted me to go. This was an awakening and the beginning of my call to ministry, in this simple call to seek the Kingdom of God.
After being laid up by surgery for a long time, I saw an appeal for hospital volunteers in the church bulletin. I was a deaconess at the time and I had some limited experience in pastoral care so I applied. I don’t think I knew the significance of responding to God’s call in such a familiar setting again at this time, but through the encouragement and inspiration of my pastor, it became clear that it was a very important step. It seems God had taken away my queasy stomach and made it possible for me to be fully present with people who were suffering physically. This volunteer position at the hospital involved my time and my heart more and more until the Chaplain Manager suggested that I take a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education.
In 1997 I recognized the call to ministry in the context of the CPE experience as real. It was as familiar, as if it were a call to become a Missionary Doctor to Paraguay, but this time I felt it was a clear call into Interfaith Chaplaincy. Our pastor gave me a new title at the church: Pastoral Care Assistant and I began to try to share what I had learned by implementing a Lay Care Program in the church. I visited many beloved church members in hospitals, nursing homes and in their own homes. These were the places where I found the Holy Spirit to be most present for me.
I began to be disinterested in the box business when I compared it to the meaning and fulfillment I was finding in my part time jobs as Hospital/Hospice Chaplain and in my classes at Hartford Seminary. Jack encouraged me to follow God’s leading and to continue seeking the Kingdom of God in this way, so I did. I found myself at a crossroad where I needed to let go of material security and reach out for the richness of meaning, purpose and joy in serving the Living God. This turned out to be the next step in my faith journey and in recognizing my call to ministry. I quit the box company in 1999 without knowing what was to be next in my life, but I had an inner peace and understanding that God was still working all things together for good in my life. God had given me the gifts I needed to serve God’s people in chaplaincy, but I never suspected the journey would be even more exciting than that!
Just as I transferred to Andover Newton Theological School in Boston to finish my M. Div., I was called to parish ministry. No one was more surprised than I, but I felt as if I had come home the very first time I stepped over the threshold of Morningside Baptist Church. It was only after a great deal of prayer and discernment that I recognized and answered God’s call through the call from that church. But wait! My call was not to one church, but to two struggling American Baptist Churches in the beautiful Berkshires!
I fell head over heels in love with a new church family who shared my theology and vision for a healed world in God’s Kingdom. Sharing joy and sadness with them was more meaningful than anything I could have imagined. We had an opportunity to process the horrors of 9/11 as a family, and we knew we truly were family then. It was during this time that I studied Theraputic Touch and Reike in an effort to integrate my theology and my practice of ministry. I came to another place of reflection and turning toward God as I finished my academic course and sought ordination.
The day of my ordination was the best day of my life when family and friends became one in the celebration. The two churches I served in the Berkshires rented a bus for everyone to go to my home church, Church in the Acres, for my ordination service and celebration.
Several years later I became aware that God was leading me to serve one church rather than two and I was called to the Central Baptist Church in Westfield, Massachusetts, in the foothills of the Berkshires. At this writing, I have found it a rich opportunity to explore God and deepen my ministry while still seeking God’s Kingdom. The relationships and processes of faith continue to delight me in my faith journey. I see that the whole concept of the Christian church is also in process and I want to be with God’s people as they change and adapt in a constructive way.
My own personal ministry seeks to perpetuate these traditional values of spirituality and service while promoting spiritual wholeness, church unity and regular interfaith gatherings. Mission continues to be my greatest hope in pleasing the Lord and I am gratified that the church I now serve, Central Baptist Church is in solidarity with that concept. I look for ways to share Christian service, spiritual practice and faith journeys in services and in Bible studies and in personal relationships. I believe in a team ministry and I trust this church family to make good decisions based on their own understanding of what God wants for us all as inspired by the Holy Spirit. Where ever we find ourselves is then in the process of God’s creation where we might find healing and peace in “The Way” that is Jesus Christ.
I realize that my confidence and strength are of the Lord and I trust the process that brought me from Miracle Camp to this place of every day miracles. Today God continues to work all things together for good in my life and ministry and I know that I would not have been able to achieve anything without His guidance and power.
Both Jack and I have faced very serious health issues and at this writing, we are hoping for him to find a place on a heart transplant list. We have also committed our personal lives to the Lord who has seen us through so much and who continues to encourage us to seek the Kingdom of God.
There are certain milestones that I look back upon for renewed direction, and many mentors whom I cherish, but no words inspire me more than the words of Jesus saying, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13-14). This is the process that develops the kingdom of God within and among us even now.
Again at Hartford Seminary, I have now matriculated in the Doctor of Ministry Program where I feel led to investigate the process of churches that are experiencing intense change in our post-modern environment. I am hoping to find that one of my God-given passions leads me toward understanding some of the new things that God has planned for his Church and his faithful servants. I would like to be part of the transformation that is coming in our faith tradition. I belong in that same revitalizing Spirit that lives and moves and has its being in a multifaceted God. May the God of perpetual rebirth guide us all toward the New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God, the Community of the Faithful regardless of the form in which She appears today.