Deacon's Call
My call to ministry is much like my conversion experience – a journey full of God’s presence and God’s words spoken through people God placed in my life. I know there are those who question the validity of a conversion that can’t be pinpointed just as there are those who find a specific call to ministry easiest to understand but my story doesn’t include either of those.
I was blessed to grow up in the Girard United Methodist Church, where for some unknown reason my parents chose to drop me off at Sunday school and worship even though the church was not a part of their lives.
During my youth and young adult years many people spoke God’s call on my life into a variety of roles – all of which I was seriously unprepared to fulfill. God’s call came through the voice of Don Walton and John McLachlan calling me into district leadership and CCYM. It came through Jim Colapietro and Dave Rader calling me to lead youth group and teach Sunday school. It came through Jim Longsworth having the gift of discernment and a wide enough vision of ministry to understand that God was calling me to something that was not ordination as an elder before there was even a vision of what that could be.
My call journey took me through local church leadership, CCYM, the East Ohio Conference camping staff, Harrison County Youth Service Project (a work project sponsored by East Ohio Conference) to a place where I understood that God called me to a place of deep worship and a response to worship that led me into the heart of the world. God used people and the church as the body to speak his purpose into my life. Sometimes these voices resonated with God’s quiet speaking to my own heart and sometimes they would drown out the static created by my own inner voice.
My call journey took me through seminary and consecration as a diaconal minister, and local church appointments. On my journey God spoke to me through the voice of Kenda Creasy Dean who struggled with me through defining and clarifying a ministry that was virtually nonexistent at the time. My call journey led to the place where my call, ordination as a deacon, and serving at Northampton United Methodist Church brought God’s will for my life into perfect harmony. A place where love of God and worship are given hands and feet to serve the least of these in settings like Royal Family Kids Camp, with children who are surviving lives of abuse and neglect, or hurricane relief trips or community work projects – a place where God’s heart moves through everyday life.
Throughout the years God has blessed me by speaking through a multitude of people who have given voice to his call and will for my life in ways that stretched the boundaries of ministry beyond a single order and beyond the walls of a building, and far beyond my own vision and understanding.
Rev. Cindy Patterson, Northampton UMC, Canal District
