The last couple of Sundays I’ve been answering questions that folk have asked me throughout my ministry. How I came to faith. How I felt a call to ministry. My accent has a habit of evoking a response, “You are not from round here, are you?” When people find out I came from Great Britain usually it isn’t long before somebody asks, “Well what made you decide to come to America?”
Two weeks ago, I was sharing how it was as a teenager that I became involved in a church and how in my early twenties I felt God called me to offer myself as a candidate for the ministry of the Presbyterian Church of Wales.
I shared last week, this call to be part of the established church was not something that I had ever seriously contemplated. Having been brought up near the City of Liverpool, whose only famous sons I knew about were the Beatles, I had a rebellious streak within me that had a profound distrust of authority and institutions. I can identify with the prophet Jonah whose first thoughts when God called Him to go one way was the desire to head as quickly as possible in the opposite direction.
Even when I departed from my hometown to study at Aberystwyth Theological College I was still nursing a real hope that... well... God had only called me to be a candidate for the ministry, God hadn’t actually said I had to become a minister. People who went to theological colleges ended up in all sorts of occupations. I could still play music. I could teach in a college. Offering myself as a candidate did not mean that my destiny was to be a minister of Word and Sacrament within an established denominational church.
One year went by, then the next and then the third year. All the time I’m saying to God, “C’mon now, times getting short here. “Time for You to show me what You really want me to do!” During my final pastoral studies year, my name appeared on the list of prospective students open to receive a call to serve a church .
For Jonah it took sitting inside the belly of a stinky fish before he realized that, ‘Yes’, maybe doing what God asked could result in a favorable outcome for his life. In chapter 2 Jonah concludes a prayer about his plight with the phrase, “Deliverance belongs to the Lord.” Shortly afterward he is deposited on the shores of Nineveh to begin his task. I’m just glad that it didn’t take being thrown off a ship into the raging waves by a group of angry sailors, only to be swallowed up by a whale that convinced me to accept the preacher’s role. It was quite a challenge having to go to Wales to study, without being swallowed by a whale!
Accept ‘A Call’ I did. To two wonderful churches in the beautiful Welsh Vale of Clwyd, in two market towns called Denbigh and Ruthin. What I didn’t realize about the town of Denbigh back then, was that it housed a large mental hospital. “Going to Denbigh’ was a polite way to explain someone was being admitted to the insane asylum. After many years of being part of this institution we call the church, I am of the opinion that being a little bit crazy might be helpful for pastoral ministry.
After being in Wales, I moved to inner city ministry in Liverpool, which included chaplaincy work at a large Children’s hospital, before accepting a call to minister in the churches of Beaumaris, Menai Bridge and Caernarfon in North Wales. Caernarfon boasted a castle, making it a Mecca for tourists from all over the world. The Presbyterian Church in Caernarfon was situated right on the square, in view of the castle’s walls.
Now all of this is by way of a lengthy introduction to explain how it was that I came to America. Did I hear a voice from the heavens saying, “Go to the U.S.A?” Was it something that I had secretly been planning and hoping for all along. Did some scripture verse jump out of the bible to direct my path? No.
Over the years I’ve learned something about the guidance of God. It can be most irregular. That as we place our trust in God and commit our way to doing the things God wants us to, both God’s methods and the outcome can be wildly unpredictable.
This was a message that Jonah found hard to understand. When he reluctantly marched into Nineveh declaring God’s judgment on its God forsaken inhabitants the last thing, he was expecting was that they would listen, and set about amending their lives to live the way God wanted them to.
He wants to see the Ninevites get blasted by the judgment of God. The story ends with Jonah in an angry sulk, sitting in the shade of a tree which dies. God suggests that Jonah is acting foolishly and that as God, He had every right to forgive whomsoever He wished to and to show mercy wherever mercy was needed. And it was certainly needed in Nineveh. So, Jonah, “Get over yourself.”
Again, the message that “We know best” is challenged by the thought that whatever we think should happen is not necessarily the way God sees things. So, there I am, in this beautiful area of Wales, enjoying the mountains and the beaches and the castles and blessed with two children who were blossoming at 8 and 10 years old, and my wife in this wonderful job working in the offices of the Oceanography department. “Settled’ would be a good word to describe things.
One of the ministries that Castle Square, Caernarfon Church still operates on a Saturday morning is that they open up the church and invite visitors in for a coffee and a chat. One Saturday, a pastor and his son from the Chicago area walked in. The son was an organist and Alan Jones the organist at Castle Square was just finishing up his practice for Sunday. They got chatting and the son got to play the organ. A few months later I received a letter from the pastor in Chicago asking if I would be interested in doing an exchange trip.
So, we thought about it, and prayed about it, and decided that a twelve-week exchange trip to Chicago might be kind of fun. My churches in Wales agreed that they would carry on paying my salary, so we only had to find the airfares. We would live in each other’s houses, drive each other’s cars, minister through the summer in each other’s churches.
The phone rang. It was the pastor from Chicago. “I’ve accepted a call to serve a United Reformed Church in Cornwall, England. I’m guessing you wouldn’t really be interested in doing an exchange trip to England? However, there’s a guy from our church who is about your age, who went into the ministry and is in a place called Red Wing, in Minnesota, I’ve spoken with him. What do you think?”
I thought, “Whatever. Red Wing, MN, Chicago.IL, I’m sure they are very much the same.” In the summer of 1994, we exchanged pulpits and locations with Rev Elg and family from Red Wing Presbyterian Church and had a great time. I went back home with the thought that I could put all the things I’d learnt to good use in my churches in Wales.
Out of the blue I started to get invitations to consider moving to other positions in Wales and in England. Some of them weren’t even to do with me being a traditional minister. That ship to Tarshish stays in port for a long time! Maybe that ‘Get out of the established church” clause that I’d expected to come along during my seminary days had finally come to pass. I investigated some of them, but they just didn’t feel right.
Following my Minnesota experience, I had received a subscription to a PC(USA) magazine that contained descriptions of pastoral vacancies. I should explain that the calling process in Wales is very different to that over here. Wales is a small place. As a pastor you didn’t call the church, they called you.
So, the notion of applying to a church for a position was completely alien to me. And I knew nothing of the Presbyterian USA’s process of filling in forms and matching candidates to churches and going through committees and presbyteries, and still less about the whole complicated process of obtaining Visas and permits to actually live in the United States.
But I did entertain the thought ‘I wonder what would happen if I responded to one of those churches in the magazine?’ So, I did. A very gracious church in Monroe, Louisiana replied to me, explaining the process and how they’d need a little more information than “Hello. My name is Adrian. I’m a pastor. Believe you might be looking for one?” We corresponded; they flew me over for an interview. The interview went really well. Looking back though, I guess it wasn’t a good sign that the day I set foot in Louisiana … it snowed. Turned out that I wasn’t the best match for that position. So back to Wales.
Weeks later, in the middle of dinner, the phone rings. A guy called Mike from a place called Fayetteville, West Virginia, is on the line. He wants more information. I suggest calling the nominating Committee I’d met with in Louisiana and sent him a video of me preaching in Minnesota . A few weeks later he calls again. ‘Would I come over for an interview?’ ‘Sure’ I said. I hung up the phone and went look for an atlas. Never mind “Where was Fayetteville?” where on earth was West Virginia? The only point of reference I had was a John Denver song about ‘Country Roads.’
In ways reminiscent of twisting, turning roads, one thing led to another. It really took a while for God to convince me that leaving the denomination that had nurtured my faith for a foreign land thousands of miles from my extended family was the right thing to do. I’d always thought that those bits in the Bible about “Going into all the world” only applied to other people.
And it has not been all plain sailing. There were hassles with immigration that nearly had us being sent back to the UK the day we arrived. Were it not for a fax we had received, literally the morning we departed for Manchester airport to board the plane, that was a high probability!
Then we had the challenge of living in the USA for 40 days without a Social Security number or any form of identification because our passports had been confiscated… and waiting for our furniture (which had been delayed because of immigration problems) to get here and then finding out we were moving to a different house across the road than the one we were in! I could write a book… and maybe one day I will.
My ministry here in the USA has led me to different places. West Virginia, Maryland, Nassau County and now here in Bridgehampton. It’s been quite a journey and I’ve learnt so much about the crazy ways that God directs our lives. God has been so faithful. In difficult times, crazy times, times of uncertainty, times of doubt, God’s grace has just kept holding on tight, even though things hardly ever seem to work out as planned! Again, the story of Jonah and his reluctance, and the way things never turn out as he expects, often comes to mind!
I remain excited that the journey has led me here, to this beautiful corner of creation. Belonging to a historic church like Bridgehampton reminds me that the story never started, nor will end with me.
And I share my story, because truly, it’s not about me, it’s about the love of God, found in Jesus Christ, through the action of the Holy Spirit. And that love is so real and, as I said at the very, very start, if God can guide the life of someone like me, I am totally convinced God can do amazing, wonderful, exciting things in each of your lives.
As a youngster I searched for freedom, and was surprised that freedom, in Jesus Christ, found me! I’m just one stumbling pilgrim hoping to help other wanderers find their way home. But I am delighted to be able to share parts of my personal journey and say, “This is my story, This is my song!” I pray that you will find your story and song within the all-encompassing love of God.
And to God’s name be the Glory! Amen.
The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
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