I’m a big fan of roots. Deep ones; the kind you see snaking out from the river banks that you’re pretty sure belongs to the towering cottonwood tree twenty feet away. This has been my lifelong prayer for this pastoral vocation that God has called me, that I would be rooted and flourish like the gardens that Isaiah describes, “you shall be like a watered garden,” or like the mustard tree that Jesus describes, “when it is grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” I pray these images over my work and the rhythms of my life.
In response however, I feel as though God half-mumbles “noted” and then somewhere in the not-far-off distance I hear the put-put of a Rototiller coming to life.
Orientation. Dis-orientation. Re-orientation.
Orientation started about 30 years ago when I felt that belly burning call into ministry. It was at church camp. It was hot. And the missionary was giving his canned presentation about his family’s work in a far off land. I don’t remember anything of what he talked about. He didn’t even give an invitation. But my emotional self was compelled to walk the aisle anyway and tell him that I thought God was calling me to ministry. He was as unprepared for this as I was. I spend the rest of the week negotiating this calling. My only non-negotiable was that I didn’t want to go to Africa. (I’d be up for that now, btw)
Dis-Orientation happened slowly. That calling that I had wrestled with had taken shape and form as pastoral ministry in a local church. I’ve spend 20 years ministering and pastoring in all sizes of churches. The brand of Christianity that I found myself most at home in was Evangelical Charismatic tradition. I was tattooed by these churches in beautiful ways. However I found my formation in this tradition lacking in a few areas and had huge implications for my pastoral ministry: I was ill equipped to hold suffering and tragedy as Christian experience, I didn’t know how to embrace mystery, and some of my faith that I was so certain about—when honestly examined—didn’t hold up to basic scrutiny. So whatever the sound is of a pin being pulled from a grenade, insert that here.
Re-Orientation has been a process the last few years. Picking up the pieces and offering them up to God led to the founding of Table Church, a home for nomads, doubters, and the burned out. It is a beautiful place and I still believe deeply in her. God always has a way of knocking us off balance. We tried to get those roots down deep into the soil of Hannibal. We sweated with labor and we bled with passion. We’ve been through a lot of fire. Fire? I meant hell. These stories will write themselves in the coming years. But on the other side of this, I’m convinced of a few things: 1) That Jesus is worth it, 2) The Church is beautiful, and 3) I am a pastor. I’m hanging my hat here.
My prayers for rootedness keep getting prayed. And that Rototiller keeps rolling. And so the Moore family with joy and sorrow are saying yes to a new adventure. We have accepted an invitation to pursue my Masters at Virginia Theological Seminary. We will be moving onto campus a few miles south of Washington D.C. in July. We don’t know all the details. We have a list of questions a mile long. Katrina and kids are excited for a new beginning. A
But we have hope. A hope that where we are, Christ is with us. He has gone before us and he will be beside us. And we need friends like you by our sides, too. You know that moving a family across the country incurs numerous costs. We are budgeting for this, but if you feel led in any capacity to support us, we would be eternally grateful. In the coming weeks I’ll post more here at pastorjared.com to let you join us in our transition. Grace and Peace…