“Because He Lives”

TERRY SHANAHAN, NE REGIONAL PASTOR

Whether you are the pastor or the person in the pew, life happens to you and life can be a challenge. Ministry is a hard calling. A professor once told me that a person shouldn’t go into the ministry unless he couldn’t do anything else. He didn’t mean that the person wasn’t capable of doing anything else, but rather that he could not escape the call of God on his life and felt compelled to serve Him knowing of the challenges involved.

I was at a community pastors group this past week and we were sharing our lives together, offering encouragement and helpful advice. We talked about how important that time together was for us and how it helped us in our ministries so much to know that we had others who knew what we were experiencing and who were praying for us and who would answer the phone if we needed them and who, as one pastor put it, had our “6.” But each one emphasized that without Jesus and having our full identity in Him, we could not survive in ministry or in life. We also talked about how we could help others get into a fellowship like this and how to develop more community pastor groups. We agreed that all pastors need this kind of support, and at time need Jesus with “some skin on.”

The CCCC Community Pastors initiative is being established to live out our guiding value of healthy pastors who are called to Jesus’ ministry here on earth. The Conference has recognized this need and is working to provide opportunities for all our ministers to be a part of a Community Pastors group. It is just one way that we see Jesus and know him to be with us as we till this rocky soil for His purpose and Kingdom. As we share with others toiling in the same field we see Jesus walking beside us. Because he lives, He lives within us, and we are Christ to our brother. “And because He lives, we can face tomorrow.”