Under Care

October 18-19, 2010.
I traveled with my pastor, one of our ruling elders, and another young man in our church to Augusta, Georgia for the fall meeting of the Savannah River Presbytery. On Monday evening I met with the Candidates and Credentials Committee at Westminster PCA to give them a testimony of my conversion and sense of call to the ministry. They had a few questions for me and another who was being brought under care as well and on Tuesday morning we stood before the presbytery at Lakemont PCA to be received (or denied, but thankfully we were received). This was the first and easiest step in the process of becoming a minister in the PCA. In the Baptist Church (where I was formerly ordained) the process was shorter and less strenuous. As an outsider I always admired the high requirements of the Presbyterians for their ministers, though I never thought I would be going through the process myself. I have been forced to eat my share of humble pie as of late. Going from a place where you are considered someone to be looked up to as a spiritual leader to having no reputation is difficult. The people in my church and the leaders around me are not impressed with me, and this is a good thing. It is as though I am a recent convert learning the faith all over again and in some ways I truly am. In a sense, I have been reduced to the status of a child - literally, I am learning the same catechism as my children! There are issues that I will have to work through; for one, the theological education I received doesn't exactly match up with the uniform curriculum of the PCA. I am just glad for now to have taken a step, though a small one, to what I believe God is calling me to.