Photo by daveynin

By Tina Teng-Henson

I never set out to be a pastor. It has simply been the next step of obedience in my following after Christ. My motherhood has felt similar. It was the general hope but the specific plan was not hashed out in great detail. Buying a house last month also happened with that same blend of hope, intentionality, openness yet epistemological uncertainty about how, when, if, why and whether it would actually occur.

I found out last week I didn’t get the pastoral role for which I’d been in the discernment and interview process for the past 6 months. After 5 interviews with transition team members and the 4-person elder board, I was put forward as the main candidate to be the next lead pastor. God carried me thru every step of the way, confirming he was really a part of this process and encouraging me to look to him for strength and support. At the end of it, there were two Sundays during which I would “candidate,” meaning I’d deliver a sermon, then field questions for an hour long Q&A, then have lunch with everyone interested in talking further. Finally, I would be put forward to the congregation for a vote.

At the end of all of that, we were simply one vote shy of the 75% needed to vote me in as their pastor.  I say “we” not “I” because it would have been a tremendous change for our family… for all of us to move to a new church, for me to take on a full-time job, for the baby to start daycare, for the kids to have inevitably less attention and care, for John and I to have less time for each other and our marriage. But it would have been the most incredible opportunity to shepherd this supersweet, very thoughtful, mostly Asian American congregation in my first scripture-facing pastoral call.

In all honesty, all things considered, it probably would not have been the wisest decision to accept the call if I had been voted in…it certainly would have been a very hard job in multiple aspects. But we had spent many months earnestly and prayerfully discerning this from every direction. And God very clearly used every step of the process to usher forth so much growth, greater maturation, significant healing and much renewal in both of us.  So we are now pressed to believe God must have his greater purposes in mind even in the outcome of the vote. Perhaps to give a clear affirmation of call and overall gifting, but a simultaneous “not right now” or “not with this community”. For what it’s worth, simply “no.”

My dad sent me a text in response to my news: “it takes courage to change.” It does. It did. Over the fall, I prayed like I never have before, wrestling with God about whether he really had this for me. I pored over the scriptures with an earnestness and a hunger I hadn’t had permission to feel since my last child was born, or perhaps since even further back, during my seminary years, or maybe earlier than that. I worshipped my heart out with tears as I asked God whether this really was the call, this really was the time, this really was the region.

I said often that it was a very cruciform season. I felt it in my neck and shoulders and back. I hadn’t given that much to him or to his world in a long, long time. I didn’t know whether I could sustain this way of being as I looked into the future, unless I literally lived every single day utterly dependent on God, constantly listening for what to do, who to attend to, minute by minute. I was starting to get used to that way of being, and simultaneously starting to question the health of this mode.

Now that the answer to most of those questions is “no,” it is requiring real courage to come down off the mountain and live into the challenge of my normal existence once again. There are 1, 2, 3 sweet children to patiently attend to, each requiring a different set of developmental scaffolding for their emotional, physical and social well-being. There is a beautiful new home to furnish…alongside daily completion of the usual tasks needed to keep everyone fed, clothed, and moderately happy. There are books and files to sift thru from previous chapters to open up new creative space for each of us.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Help me inhabit my present life and take up the challenge of this renewed call to focus on my family. Help me do so with faith, with prayer, and with your guidance. I loved the feeling of partnering with you once again in discernment this fall. I still want my life to glorify and honor you in this mode of life, which you know is not my favorite nor my preferred. You will still have to do the heavy lifting for that to happen! Help me see the continuity between what I was seeking to do for others and the opportunities that exist right now before me each day. Give me boldness, wisdom, and love.  Guide and direct all the small decisions I’m making each day that impact my husband and these children and our existing community so I can still be your person in this world.

God, I trust the outcome with that sweet church was part of your plan for whatever good reasons you must have all around. I do trust you have only the best in store for them and for us as well… and you will keep providing wonderfully all around. Help us all again practice patience. Thank you for this time to write and reflect and pray. Continue to glorify yourself in every aspect of these things. And over time, help us understand and give thanks…

Tina Teng-Henson has been blessed to learn + grow alongside so many different people, in so many places: Long Island, NY — Harvard College + the South End of Boston — Nairobi, Kenya and Lanzhou, China. Tina, her husband, and their three children live in northern California.