Telegraph Pole Exercise

There is a little reflection exercise that I do every so often that helps me to think about where God might be Calling me. it goes like this..

When putting up telegraph poles on long straight country roads working out where the next telegraph pole goes is as easy as lining up the previous telegraph poles and then putting the next one behind those.

Imagine if following God’s call in your life is like that. Take some time and think of four five events in you life where you felt like you were really doing what you love doing or what you are called to do.

Once you have thought of these give them each a name and right that on a pop stick. Put them in the sand in chronological order in a straight line, like you might put telegraph poles.

Now look to see what each of these have in common, what themes are running through them.

Imagine, where might God be calling you next?

Well, here are my five.

1. Leading Beach Mission for primary School Aged kids: (8 days of providing fun and introducing kids at a caravan park to Xy)
2. Manuscript Discovery small group leading (See the here for a full explanation of Manuscript Discovery) basically it’s reading a whole book of the Bible and working out what it means for your self
3. Exposure: This was an School presentation that me and a couple of friends did using music, various multimedia and group discussion to get people thinking about life, God and the universe.
4. Working as Children and Youth consultant for a mainline church. Basically I’d hang out with a church for 4-6 weeks and help them to work out a children and youth program that matched who they were as a church.
5. Studying Theology. Buried in books and theological thought. I loved it. I’d love to go back for another year and convert my Bachelor of Arts (major in Theology) to a Bachelor of Theology

The first thing that struck me about the list was how overtly Xn all of these things were. I have a passion for social justice but perhaps more of a passion to change the middle class than to be on the front line. I guess I can see that it’s not just that the poor don't have enough but that we have too much. Economies grow and economic growth can emancipate people but at any one moment in time one person has too much and someone else not enough and this is the real problem.

Every so often I feel like I'm being called to some kind of pastor / church leader type role but I have no idea what that might look like. I do know that being a pastor's wife would be my wife's worst nightmare, and with good reason. She has seen plenty of good people treated badly by congregations disappointed that they and their unpaid spouse were unable to give more than 100% to the ministry.