A noted change

I know this is a little late at night, but its time to think this through. Today I had two people remark that there was "something different" about the way I have been leading in worship, and in a good way.

Today's worship in particular had a few changes: I did not wear a tie, instead I wore a wooden cross that has a story of its own, instead of a cardigan or a suit jacket I wore a more contemporary type of jacket and in the end I had a sizable proportion of my aging congregation participating in singing and dancing "Father Abraham" with the four children of the congregation. Just a few changes, and it seemed totally out of step with a challenging message asking the congregation what we have to let go of to follow Christ more fully.

But was it? If I am going to proclaim the challenging message of Christ, how can this be done from a life of half-measures? If the lack of a tie makes the gospel unable to be heard through me, how deaf will we be to the word of God coming through anyone who doesn't fit our narrow definitions? This is not to say that I do not treat my calling with respect, or am unwilling to give the congregation a chance to participate in the shaping of my ministry (and indeed, thus large segments of my identity.) However the leap of faith has to be made, I do this through the call of Christ. If Christ found me worthy to proclaim the gospel to the youth I was comfortable with and to the congregations I used to call home, why did I convince myself that changing my status and receiving training to enhance my ministry would need to make me go back to relearning everything from the beginning again?

Perhaps instead of learning how to be the minister that I envision when I think of the word, I need to start learning how to be the minister that my Lord envisions when he thinks of me.