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Chaplain Paul Slater
Contemplating Continuing Professional Development While Thinking About My Changing Concepts Of Ministry Career Choices
by Chaplain Paul L. Slater
Meandering Thoughts On Continuing Professional Education And Changing Ministry Career Options
Recently I was working on an article focusing upon continuing professional education.
As most writers do, focusing upon one potential concept for an article launched another concept and somehow I went from thinking about concepts dealing with continuing professional development to my changing concepts regarding ministry career choices.
Now just what sparked this whole thought process, moving from continuing professional education to changing concepts of a ministry career, was this. I had just attended a national hospice conference. As a hospice chaplain needing continuing chaplain education credits, I joined other healthcare professionals seeking continuing education units.
How, As A Professional Hospice Chaplain, Did I Get To This Place In My Ministry Career
As I reflected on the wide range of topics offered at that conference for hospice healthcare professionals, seeing classes for continuing medical education and continuing education for social workers, I couldn't help but ask how, as a professional hospice chaplain, did I get to this place in my ministry career.
My Changing Concept Of The Will Of God
Making a choice is a spiritual action whereby I make a selection, attempting to be in alignment with God's will and purpose for my life.
For me, I see my purpose as helping people (myself included) to be all we can be by God's grace. That purpose statement is wide open, very general, not dependent upon geography or a specific method, and beyond a specified relationship (such as husband or father).
That said, it is just my opinion but people of faith are far more subjective in determining God's will and purpose than we realize. We want to have the authority of God behind what we do, to be able to say "God led me" or "God told me".
After nearly 60 years of living, I think God's workings in our lives is much more non-directive than we were taught. For me, God's will unfolds in the flow of life.
I firmly believe God can work through my choices, my desires, and even my blunders. Recently I was reminded that many of the people Jesus ministered to were during interruptions to his determined schedule for the day.
What may surprise you is that, even with interruptions, unexpected happenings, even with our subjective biases and personal desires, God's will and purpose can still be discovered.
How so? My concept of the will of God is that it is much wider than many of us realize. While we contemplate geographical specific service, God's focus is relational.
While we focus on a specific location of service, God is telling us "Go into all the world and make disciples."
And while we use methods for ministry from the past, the internet world is exploding with usable tools and methods that have worldwide impact.
A Changing Concept Of A Call To Minister
In my early days in my particular faith group, we were told you had to have a "call to preach" if you were to serve God as in ministry. The focus of ministry was (and still is in my faith group) upon pastoring a local church.
And so, somehow we all had a "call to preach", even though I haven't found that particular sequence of words in scripture from the Bible study I have done.
For many church groups, pastoring a local church is considered the ultimate arena for providing pastoral care. Yet as a healthcare chaplain I have discovered that I provide more pastoral care in a month than I did as a pastor in a entire year.
Yes, I suppose it may have been because I was a lousy pastor. But from my perspective it was because, like most pastors of small local churches, I was asked to be church carpenter, church custodian, church secretary, and church handyman. And, by the way, could you preach a sermon on Sunday?
My Changing Ministry Career As An Internet Chaplain
Now, through what I is a ministry career as an Internet Chaplain, I can reach thousands in a day, sharing Biblical principles guiding everything from personal relationships to personal finance.
I do have a "call to proclaim", whereby I share the Gospel, the good news of God's love, through email, websites, articles, and ultimately self published ebooks. But it is what every Christian is called to do, finding how to share the good news of God's love in new and creative ways.
My goal is to allow the internet to become the focus of ministry. I look forward to the day when I quit my day job to focus on ministry opportunities that are internet based or are funded by my internet based endeavors.
Who knows, maybe I will come full circle whereby my internet ministry career will focus upon offering continuing professional education and continuing medical education for health care chaplains and my medical profession counterparts.
Published by Chaplain Paul Slater on May 5, 2006 11:45 AM
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