About four years ago, my tenure as pastor of a remarkable and challenging congregation ended. It was time.
For a year, I’d undergone extensive treatment for cancer, and there were more drugs, pain, and fatigue to come. I couldn’t do the work of pastoral ministry in the ways I thought it should be done.
It was time, also, because stark confrontations with my mortality made it unwise for me to continue to lower the volume on persistent questions about the Spirit’s calling and my vocational response.
