Nebraska Synod ELCA

By Bishop Scott Johnson

In the summer of 1994, as a group of Carol Joy Holling campers and staff were walking back to our sleeping quarters after evening worship, Pastor Roger Sasse threw an arm around my shoulder and said, “Scott, have you ever considered that maybe God is calling you to a ministry career?”

Up to that point, I would have said “Me? A pastor? Not a chance.” I had plans. I was a music education major, with aspirations of a performance career as well. I’d walked away from church as a freshman, and while my faith never really wavered, I was still figuring out just how involved I wanted to be in Lutheran campus ministry. But that short conversation planted a seed that just kept not going away.

It wasn’t a surprise for me to learn, years later, that Roger had the same conversation with one of his own pastors at an even younger age. I’ve also had that conversation with a number of people over my own years in ministry. Some of those folks are now ministers of one kind or another. Others continue to serve God in other ways.

Discerning how God is calling us to serve isn’t an exact science. We’re unique individuals with gifts and talents in different areas of expertise and passion. But one thing holds true across all of our varying skills and interests: we are most likely to respond to personal invitations. Email, print publications, and social media are wonderful tools for the dissemination of information, but they will never outstrip the personal, one-to-one conversation when it comes to impact.

Sometimes having THE conversation means time over coffee, or a seat at a kitchen table, or a walk side by side down a path together. “Have you ever…” can change someone’s whole life. I’m living proof. Go and…have THE conversation, friends. God bless you.