Faithcation

When I go on vacation, I usually journal each day so I can remember details of the trip that the exhausting plane ride home will certainly wipe from my memory. I also found journaling helpful to remember the details of the early days of my son's life during my staycation after his birth. So as I embark on this faithcation, I thought I should keep a similar journal. I think this is going to be a trip worth sharing someday and if I wait to write it all when I can actually make sense of it, I will surely forget the details of the journey.

Over the next 12 weeks I am taking a class to become a lay pastor. Since I have never attended church regularly this is somewhat...remarkable. I, like many others of my generation, belong to what many including myself refer to as the "unchurched". First, let me make it clear that "unchurched" does not in anyway equate with unchristian or unfaithful or agnostic. It simply means you don't worship in a church. For me it reflects a long held belief that God doesn't just hang out in church steeples like bats in the belfry. God is everywhere. Church and religion have always challenged me...too much of a filter between me and God, someone else's interpretation of God's word, someone else's perception. Somehow I got lost in the translation or actually I think we lost God in the translation.

So from the unchurced to a lay pastor is quiet a leap of faith you might say. I could give you the timeline of that progression but I simply can not explain it. I have tried to explain it, tried to rationalize it, tried to make sense of it. All I can tell you is I didn't choose this, God chose it for me. That is all I know for sure.

So off I go on this faithcation. It feels like the eve before departing on a big vacation. Excited and anxious, I wonder if I am prepared for this? Do I have everything that I need? Am I forgetting anything? I can't wait to get there...