JourneyOnline
I REALISED that I was being called into ministry when I was 21. It was a funny thing to realise because other people got the memo before I did. After I graduated and was looking for a career my minister, Lu, sat me down encouraged me to take the journey of discernment.
My congregation supported me through prayer and gave me the opportunity to be able to spread my wings in the area of leadership.
You may laugh but at the moment I don’t feel so young. I turned 25 this year and it was absolutely crushing! I felt like I should’ve achieved something by now, have a career, be married. I see my friends and family chugging towards life, having a career or starting a family and I wish sometimes I could be a normal young person. But training to be a minister does not fit into ‘normal’, it’s not just a career path, it’s your passion, part of who you are.
Not a lot of people I meet know what theology is so it takes a bit of explaining. After the explanation there might be a bit of an awkward silence or they tell me that they used to go to church or tell me about family members who still go to church. So it can either be a good conversation starter or a bit of a dead end depending on the crowd.
As for the people I minister to, I believe that being young and single can prohibit ministering to people who are married and have families, but I know it does not stop me because there are situations that I have faced that any people young, old, married or single can relate to.
Training to be a minister in the Uniting Church I have learnt a lot about its history and values, which has made me more eager to serve within the Uniting Church. But I think the main reason why I have stuck with the Uniting Church is because it is a church that values my culture and how that interacts with my faith, values who I am as a woman and values who I am as a young person.
Photo : Fa Ngaluafe
