On Becoming Pastor Dan

I'm not quite sure exactly how it happens, but sometime after getting a degree and sometime before you step into the pulpit, you get a name.

In my case, I get a title in front of my name, and the name I've been going by for my whole life gets shortened. I have, somehow, someway, become Pastor Dan.

As some of my readers know, the last couple months have been a whirlwind. I, like so many other people, lost my job due to financial cutbacks. After a less than faithful response to said news, I really got to work, or more aptly, other people got to work on my behalf. A former professor offered me a job as a teaching assistant. People I barely knew pitched in. The biggest change is that I'm now officially a pastor-in-charge - for the next five months I am the pastor at Underwood United Methodist Church (1671 Howell Mill Road NW, Atlanta, GA if anyone would like to come and see the show!)

Tomorrow will be my second Sunday at Underwood, and its going to be quite the learning experience. I'm starting to learn what it means to preach every Sunday, to grapple with texts on behalf of a congregation, even a congregation of 15. This week I'm going to tackle organizing the office, which looks like a tornado hit it. I file Conference reports. I change the Church sign every week. I organize and plan worship (BDM would be proud I think).

I will return to Tennessee in June, but for the next few months I will be proclaiming the Gospel, serving communion and maybe doing a baptism, and hopefully not doing too many funerals. I'll be figuring out what worship means, I'll be trying to guide us to the valley of Lent and to the triumphant victory of Easter.

It's weird, really. This is what I have spent the last four years of my life planning for, how to lead a congregation of folks trying to hang on to faith in the midst of a community that doesn't seem to think much of it. I'm the preacher. I'm the leader. I'm the one they're going to harass when they're feeling anxious. I'm the one whose sermons they're going to listen to. And ultimately when life becomes rough, I'm going to be the one they come to unload their souls and try to figure out just what difference Jesus makes in all this.

Just call me Pastor Dan.