wfn.org | Students hear challenge to use gifts for God

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Nov. 18, 1998	Contact: Linda Green*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
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NOTE: Photographs are available with this story.

By Kathy Gilbert*

LOS ANGELES (UMNS) - When God calls you into ministry, there is nothing
you cannot do, clergy members told nearly a thousand young people
gathered for Exploration '98.
 
"With your gifts in one hand and God in the other, the ordinary can
become extraordinary," said United Methodist Bishop Woodie W. White of
Indianapolis.

Exploration '98, held Nov. 13-15, drew more than 950 high school and
college students. The biennial event is sponsored by the United
Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry for youth and young
adults ages 16-24 who are considering ordained ministry as a deacon or
elder as their vocation. During the past eight years, hundreds of
participants have heard God's call to Christian ministry through the
events. 

"Ordained ministry is difficult and sometimes dangerous. If you can do
something else, do it! But if you can't, it is because you are called,
and if you are called, there is nothing you and God cannot do," said the
Rev. Kelly Bender, pastor of First United Methodist Church in Wichita,
Kan. 

During the opening worship service on Nov. 13, the Rev. Grant Hagiya,
pastor of the Centenary United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, told the
students that "each and every one of you here is an answer to a prayer."

The three-day event included worship services, musical celebrations,
workshops, and meetings with small group members. This year's theme was
"Light the Fire . . . God's Call to Ordained Ministry," and used the
story of how God called Moses through a burning bush to lead the
Israelites.

"Moses was just as unprepared for God's call as you are," Hagiya told
the students. "But God's call is no ordinary call. In the end, you are
the only one who can respond."

For C.C. Jackson, a student at United Methodist-related Bethune-Cookman
College in Daytona Beach, Fla., the weekend was disturbing. 

"God is (pulling) out the big ammunition," she said.  "I am trying to
discern what God is calling me to do with my life. ... I needed to hear
these stories of struggle from real people -- people who are struggling
with the same issues I am struggling with."

Ross Wilderman, a student at the University of Wyoming, said he attended
the event not knowing what God was calling him to do. 

"I know God is calling me to something. I am building a base of
resources and people to call for help," he said. "It is nice to see
other people who came not knowing and who have been running from God,
too."

Former Exploration participants were witnesses to the students and
described their journeys into ordained ministry. A clergy couple,
Catherine Fluck Price and Steven Price, used humor to tell the
participants about their journeys.

"Don't say, 'God, light a fire in my soul' if you don't really mean it,"
Catherine said. 

Steven told his story of attending Exploration '94 as a youth minister
with a youth group. Years before, he had heard God's call to ministry
but decided he could serve in other ways, he said. "God doesn't give up;
God will make a way," he said.

"God has taken two lives, two calls, two different paths, and found a
way to weave them together,"  Steven said. The couple co-pastors Harvest
Mission United Methodist Church in Sarasota, Fla.

Another witness and former Exploration participant, Esther Miyahara-Cho,
told the young people to look around for God's burning bushes.

"Burning bushes come in many different forms. God calls whom God will,"
she said.

Bishop Donald A. Ott of Detroit asked the students to think about all
the people who have looked out for them.

"Look back down the road, and see the way God has used others in your
life to call your name," he said.

Mary Elizabeth Moore, a deacon and professor of theology and Christian
education at Claremont (Calif.) School of Theology, told of the ways in
which God equips: through a rushing spirit, words of pastors and
spiritual leaders, wonders and signs, giving hands, worship in the
temple and the breaking of bread at home, and glad hearts and praising
lips.

The Rev. Kirk VanGilder, chaplain at Gallaudet University and pastor of
New Deaf Church Start in Washington, described through sign language his
call to ministry, which occurred when he attended Exploration '94.

"I had my life all planned out," he said. "I was going to be an
architect, but God pulled something else out of me."

All of the speakers encouraged the participants to listen to the voices
around them and hear God's call through their local communities.

"Go back to your church and ask the people there what your spiritual
gifts are. Use those gifts to  make an informed choice about your
ministry," Bender said.

Said Bishop White: "We need someone to say to the world that
circumstances and systems may be bad, but God is always good."

# # #

*Gilbert is a staff member in the Office of Interpretation at the United
Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry.

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