by Jay Therrell, President pro tempore

JUNE 6, 2024

When I first began to feel called to being a pastor, I was the lay leader at Asbury United Methodist Church in Maitland, Florida – a suburb of Orlando. We had concluded a big night of Disciple Bible Study, and I was walking around the campus with the senior pastor, the Rev. Paul Dickinson, checking doorknobs to make sure the campus was locked up for the night. As we were talking, I let it slip to Pastor Paul that I thought God might be calling me to become a pastor. 

Pastor Paul is my spiritual dad and has been a great mentor to me over the years. He can also be a little intense. The moment he heard me say I thought God might be calling me to become a pastor, he dropped the key he was using to lock a door and spun around toward me. He grabbed both of my shoulders and shook me as he said, “Jay, only a fool reaches to be a king when he could stoop to be a servant.”

It was one of those moments when it seemed like everything around me slowed down, and I was hyper-focused on Paul’s face and words. I knew in that moment that everything in my life was about to change. 

I had known since I was five years old that I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to be a lawyer because I wanted to practice law for a few years and then run for elected office. I thought that’s how I could be most useful in society: serve in the legislature, Congress, or something similar. I had been to law school and had the student loans to prove it. I was practicing law with a large, prestigious law firm in downtown Orlando. We lived in a country club subdivision on the top of a small hill overlooking a lake. We were doing well and happy.

God had different plans.

The Wrestling Match

I ordered a copy of the academic catalog from Asbury Theological Seminary. When it arrived, I opened the mailbox, pulled it out, walked into the kitchen of our home, and promptly threw it in the garbage can. I didn’t even open the cover. There was no way I was going to give up our lives to become a pastor. My dad and grandfather had been Presbyterian pastors. I knew what that life was like. My childhood best friend’s dad was a United Methodist pastor. I knew what the itineracy was all about. I wanted nothing to do with it.

For the next few weeks, God beat me up. He did it in a lovingly, corrective way, but He beat the tar out of me! I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I was restless. I knew that I was being disobedient. 

The whole time I kept hearing Pastor Paul’s voice in my head, “Jay, only a fool reaches to be a king when he can stoop to be a servant.” I was living a modern-day wrestling match with God like Jacob did in Genesis 32:22-32, and I was wounded when it was all over.

Finally, I’d had enough disobedience and ordered another academic catalog from Asbury. This time I didn’t throw it away. I read it. I prayed about it, and I came to peace that God was calling me to do this.

But…I wasn’t done trying to get out of it. 

I had told my wife, Kendra, about what was going on. After I gave in that God was calling me, I told her, “I’m sure God isn’t calling me to become a pastor unless you also believe God is calling you to be a pastor’s wife. I know what Methodist itineracy means and you’ll be affected just as much as me. You have to be called, too.” Surely, that would get me out of it. About ten days later, Kendra told me she had been praying about it and was at peace that this was what God was calling us to do. God had me hook, line, and sinker.

Servant v. One Who Serves

As I look back now on that time in our life, I realize how many lessons God was teaching me. One of them was the difference between being a servant and one who serves.

One who serves loves Jesus and wants to serve Him, but one who serves also decides when s/he will serve, where, and how. Their service fits around their own schedule, not God’s. 

A servant simply echoes the prophet in Isaiah 6:8, “Here am I. Send me!” A servant offers themselves to God to go wherever, whenever, however, and to do whatever. 

When I was practicing law and acting as lay leader of my local church, I was one who served. I chose how I would serve God and how much time and other resources I would offer. When I finally gave in to God’s call to become a pastor, I surrendered and became a servant. I said, “Here I am, Lord – do with me what You will.”

The moment I surrendered and allowed the Holy Spirit to continue sanctifying me into a servant, our lives changed. They became an adventure that has taken all sorts of twists and turns. There have been highs and lows, and there have been major challenges, but through it all, God has taken care of us.

Serving is good…for a new Christian. As we mature in our faith, I truly believe that Jesus is working, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to transform us into servants. The longer we follow Jesus and the deeper we go in our faith, we’re called to surrender our lives totally to Him and say, “Here am I. Send me!” 

It means we no longer live for ourselves. We live for Jesus. We take whatever comes our way and face it knowing the Holy Spirit is beside us and we’ll seek God’s glory. John Wesley put it best in his covenant prayer:

I am no longer my own, but yours.

Put me to what you will, place me with whom you will.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be put to work for you or set aside for you,

Praised for you or criticized for you.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and fully surrender all things to your glory and service.

That’s a hard prayer to pray, but I’m convinced it’s what Jesus wants for all of us.

A Work in Progress

I’m still a work in progress. There are days when I fall back into being one who serves instead of being a servant. With God’s help and through the Holy Spirit’s power, I continue to move towards being a servant in every way possible – fully surrendered. Being surrendered, by the way, doesn’t mean God will necessarily call you to be a pastor. We need Christian school teachers, businesspeople, firefighters, politicians, and doctors who are sold out for Jesus just as much as we need clergy.

What about you? Are you a servant? Or are you one who serves? Do your choices about serving revolve around your own needs, or are you fully surrendered to following Jesus and saying, “Here am I. Send me!”

Yes, being one who serves is fine, but the Kingdom of God needs a whole lot more servants. Only a fool reaches to be a king when she could stoop to be a servant.

All God’s love,

Jay