What does it mean to be called?
Hosts Joe Iovino and Natalie Justice-Taylor talk with the Rev. Dr. Trip Lowery and the Rev. Amie Stewart about discernment, and about how pastors, mentors, and educators can help young adults see the gifts God has given them..
In this episode:
- Why “call” is less a fixed destination and more an openness to the Spirit’s leading toward the next step
- How calling reaches beyond the local church and pastoral ministry
- The role of community, from mentors who name a young person’s gifts to pastors who make room for questions
- Stories of discernment from our guests, and from Joe and Natalie
- Practical ways to accompany a young adult who’s still figuring it out
Description
When Joe was in high school, he decided God was calling him to pastoral ministry. It was the only kind of calling he knew about. Looking back, he sees that call as an invitation to take the next faithful step, not a single destination. In this episode of Get Your Spirit in Shape, Joe and co-host Natalie Justice-Taylor talk with Rev. Dr. Trip Lowery and Rev. Amie Stewart of the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry about discernment: how we hear God’s leading, how community helps us recognize it, and what pastors, mentors, and educators can do to walk alongside the young adults in their lives.
About the guests
- Rev. Dr. Trip Lowery, Director of Ministry, General Board of Higher Education and Ministry
- Rev. Amie Stewart, Sr. Manager, Conference Relations, General Board of Higher Education and Ministry
Helpful links
- EXPLORATION 2026 (GBHEM)
- Explore Your Call (GHBEM)
- General Board of Higher Education & Ministry
- Topic: Higher Education (ResourceUMC.org)
- Spirit empowered, church authorized: United Methodist ordination (UMC.org)
Help us spread the word
- Tell others: members of your church, coworkers, and anyone else might benefit from these conversations.
- Share us on Facebook, Instagram and other social media sites.
- Review us wherever you download the episode. Great reviews help others find us.
Email us about this episode, ideas for future topics, or any other thoughts you would like to share.
More Get Your Spirit in Shape episodes
- Get Your Spirit in Shape and other United Methodist podcasts
Thank you for listening, subscribing and sharing.
This episode posted on October 27, 2026.
Get Your Spirit in Shape and UMC.org are ministries of United Methodist Communications. For more than 80 years, we have been delivering messages of hope and leading the way in communications ministry. Join us in this vital work by making a tax-deductible donation at ResourceUMC.org/GiveUMCom.
Transcript
Guests: the Rev. Dr. Trip Lowery and Amie Stewart, General Board of Higher Education and Ministry (GBHEM)
Hosts: Joe Iovino and Natalie Justice-Taylor
Joe Iovino (00:05)
When I was in high school, I was pretty sure I knew exactly what God was calling me to do. But today I get to do things that are vastly different from what I ever envisioned as a teenager. So today we're going to talk a little bit about what it means to be called. Welcome back to Get Your Spirit in Shape. Before we dive into the topic, I want to acknowledge that it's been a minute since we've put out an episode. And by "a minute," I mean about six months.
But we've been regrouping, and I'm excited to share that as part of this renovation, let's call it, I'm not doing this alone anymore. I'm happy to introduce our new producer and co-host, Natalie Justice-Taylor. Welcome, Natalie.
Natalie Justice-Taylor (00:51)
Thank you so much, Joe. It's good to be a part of it.
Joe Iovino (00:54)
So thrilled to have you as part of these conversations. Tell us a little bit about you and your experience in the United Methodist Church.
Natalie Justice-Taylor (01:04)
Well, I've been a United Methodist minister for, gosh, I guess 13 years now? It sounds so crazy, but it just goes by so quickly, doesn't it? I've been a United Methodist minister in the Holston Conference for about 13 years, currently serving in Southwest Virginia, in Marion, Virginia, and absolutely loving it. I have served different-size churches over the course of my ministry and have been thankful for every single one of them.
I've also been involved in a podcast I started during the time of disaffiliation, which is in the past now. Yay! During the lead-up to General Conference, it was called Hope Springs Eternal. So I just love having conversations, having positive conversations, and lifting up what God is doing.
Joe Iovino (01:55)
And that's a lot of what we do here at Get Your Spirit in Shape: positive conversations about what God is doing in our lives and in the United Methodist Church. Today we're talking about call: what it means to be called, who's part of discerning your call, and how your call might develop or change over a lifetime. You talked about 13 years in ministry. I've got more than that. I was going to say how much more, but I think I'll stop.
Natalie Justice-Taylor (02:25)
Well, yeah.
Joe Iovino (02:26)
Yeah. So as part of this conversation, I talked with two people from the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry: the Reverend Dr. Trip Lowery, an elder who works in clergy and theological formation, and Amie Stewart, a deacon who serves as the senior manager of conference relations. In this conversation, you'll hear about my relationship with the word "call," which is a bit complicated, and how it's developed over the years. Natalie, unfortunately you couldn't be with us for that conversation, so as we get started, I'm curious about your relationship with being called.
Natalie Justice-Taylor (03:06)
You know, a lot of people have so many different ways they talk about call. When I think of call, I think it's truly being free to be who God wants you to be. Once you fully accept your call, which, boy, is hard and can be a challenge, it's a complete open door to who God is trying to grow you and call you to be, to help you continue to serve him in great ways. So to me, call is a freeing experience, to live out who God wants me to be.
Joe Iovino (03:47)
Yeah. As you'll hear in this conversation, it's definitely a journey and not a destination, as I may have thought of it all those years ago.
Natalie Justice-Taylor (03:58)
Yep, not a straight line.
Joe Iovino (04:00)
Mine certainly wasn't. I often describe it as circuitous for just that reason. So let's get started and listen to the conversation today.
Joe Iovino (04:11)
My guests today are two members of the United Methodist General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, the Reverend Trip Lowery and Amie Stewart. Trip, do you want to introduce yourself first? Let us know a little bit about your work and your ministry.
Trip Lowery (04:26)
Sure. I'm Trip Lowery with the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry. I'm an elder in the North Carolina Annual Conference. I served local churches for a number of years before being appointed to extension ministry at GBHEM. I started my service there around vocational discernment and clergy recruitment, and it morphed as the agency grew and restructured. Now I relate to several different pieces of clergy formation and theological formation in the ministry area of GBHEM. I've been doing this work for maybe 13 years.
Joe Iovino (05:09)
Wow, yeah. Thank you. And Amie, how about you? What's your role at GBHEM, and tell us a little bit about your ministry.
Amie Stewart (05:18)
Sure. I'm Amie Stewart. I'm a member of the North Carolina Annual Conference. I'm a deacon, and I was commissioned in 2012, so I've been in ministry for 14-ish years. I served in the local church for a couple of years, and I worked for the North Carolina Conference in the Office of Ministerial Relations, supporting candidates for ministry. Now I've been with the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry for about six years. I serve as senior manager of conference relations, so I do a lot of work connecting Boards of Ordained Ministry across the connection and supporting the orders of ministry in lots of different ways. I'm able to work remotely but travel quite a bit to meet different groups and see different things, so it's exciting.
Joe Iovino (06:11)
I'm really glad to have you here today. And I'm genuinely interested in this topic because, as I said, early in my life I had some preconceived notions about call that I don't think are accurate, or at least today I would think about it differently. So what is a good working definition of what it means to be called to ministry?
Trip Lowery (06:34)
Wow. Being called to ministry is a tricky question, especially when you understand ministry as any response you make to a call that God has placed on your life. It could be credentialed ministry inside the church or ministry outside the church. So a call to ministry could be anything. We're all called to ministry; it's just that some of that service is credentialed and some of it isn't. Call has always been central to our understanding of who we are and whose we are and how we engage the world we're in. Even if you look back at where the word comes from and how it's been used: the word "call," in Greek and Latin, has been part of how we understand the word "church" as a called-out people, and how we understand our vocation, what we do in response to call.
It's kind of two parts. There's a shared, common call that God has placed on all of us to love God and love neighbor. Then there's the aspect of call about how we do that, which is unique to who we are: our unique passions, gifts, and purpose. Those help us embrace the common call to love God and love neighbor, but also figure out how that looks at this particular time, in this particular place, with these particular people, as we use our particular gifts and passions to live out this broader purpose of advancing the kingdom.
Amie Stewart (08:18)
Yeah, and I might add one of the party tricks they teach you in seminary: vocation comes from the Latin vocare, "to be called out." I have experienced and seen that those who are called to ministry as clergy, and those called as laity, are called to be set apart. They're not just doing the work of ministry but equipping others, using their gifts for leadership, discernment, and wisdom, and taking ownership of what goes wrong. All of that is being called out of what you're doing into a new way of serving people, serving the church, and serving the community.
Joe Iovino (09:04)
Trip, you mentioned that in some sense all of us are called to be the people God has created us to be. Can you say a little more about that? Then we can talk more about what it means to be called to ordained ministry.
Trip Lowery (09:22)
Yeah, sure. Well, it's part of our baptismal experience, our baptismal vows. It's part of understanding who we are as a baptized people, that we have been, as Amie said, set apart. We are part of creation that's called out, that's special, that's set apart to do God's will and advance the kingdom toward the common good, with everybody purposed in a unique way to function as the body of Christ. We're all members of the body of Christ, and we all serve as different parts of the body of Christ. So discerning your call is a process of figuring out what body part you are and how you function. At the same time, it's realizing what body part you're not. I can do these things, and this is what I'm here for, and I'm not here for all of the things. I'm here for this specific thing.
So that's the common call of a baptized people, that we're all called to be members of the body of Christ. And the discernment of call is sorting out what body part we are and how we function.
Joe Iovino (10:39)
I like that image a lot: discernment is figuring out what body part we are. That biblical image, that we're all part of the body of Christ, is a great analogy for all of this. Let's talk about the discernment process. Who is part of it? Early on in my ministry, and I'm going to confess a lot here about all the things I was wrong about, early in my discernment journey, I thought of call as a me-and-God thing. I hear this, and I go and do it. But I know there's a process of discernment within the United Methodist Church, and that should be part of it. What are some of the ways we discern, we understand or find out what body part we are or how we fit into the work of the church? Either of you can answer that.
Amie Stewart (11:39)
Yeah, I think discernment is often understood as both an inward, spiritual journey and something that is affirmed externally, from the outside looking in. Sometimes it starts with one or the other. If someone expresses an inclination, others will say, "Yeah, I could see that in you." Or the reverse: someone asks, "Have you ever thought about using your gifts in this way?" or "You have a gift for preaching," or "You clearly have a heart for serving the least of these."
Having a community around you is why we talk a lot about developing a culture of call within local churches and campus ministries, to really foster that environment. Not everybody is called to be a clergy person in the United Methodist Church, but all of us are called to ministry. And I think we can help others discern their call just by offering observations, affirmations, curious questions, and active listening.
Trip Lowery (12:44)
You just mentioned our discernment process. The process we have, that structure in the United Methodist Church, is for credentialing, and it's set up to do all the things Amie was unpacking. It's designed to be that affirmation and discernment experience to help someone sort out how they fit into the life of the church and where their service could be most effective. Sometimes it's affirmed further and deeper into vocational ministry in the church, and sometimes it's affirmed in a direction that's not credentialed within the United Methodist Church, and the process is designed to help move those people into spaces where they can be most effective. But it's set up to encourage that personal reflection, that personal discernment, within a community that's there to help them process what they're experiencing. So it's affirmations of personal experience as well as communal affirmations. I love the way our process is set up to do all of the things Amie unpacked. There was some intentionality around it.
We've been having these conversations recently, so here's an overview of the process. You start by reflecting personally on what you should do next and where you fit into this big world, and you have conversations with people who are close to you. Those conversations broaden as you move through the process, from your local church pastor to your local church to a district and a conference body. It gets broader and broader and deeper and deeper. The questions you're asked, the materials you submit, and the requirements placed on you as you progress help put you in conversations where folks can help you reflect on what you're experiencing and what might be good for you next, and ask really difficult questions about your service and your call. Maybe you've missed an affirmation, or you're not seeing a sign that someone else is seeing. The discernment process, the credentialing process, is set up to help that be effective, meaningful, positive, and affirming, because that's what we're here for.
That's what the process is designed for: to help people move in ways and directions that are faithful to that call, whether it's to the right or to the left or up and down, or just helping them figure out where that next place and that next step is.
Amie Stewart (15:38)
And I would add that you have candidates who are at the beginning of the journey. They come to a candidacy summit, which is the beginning step of that process. They've been in initial conversations, but this is their chance to start talking about their own call with people they don't know, in a more official way. One thing I've observed in individuals at that stage is that it's the time in the process when they need to be most sure of what they're saying yes to. As candidates lean into the process and learn more about what they're saying yes to, they become more comfortable with ambiguity.
I was just talking with someone this past Monday about my own call, because when I said yes, I assumed it was to being the pastor of a local church. I didn't know there were other types. I thought, okay, I guess that's what I'll do. When I heard other people talking about their call, it was like a light turned on, and I thought, that's what I would like to do with my life. So there's a kind of cognitive dissonance: at the very beginning you need to know exactly what you're saying yes to, and the more you learn, the less sure you need to be to continue leaning into that call. It's encouraging to see folks both deepen and broaden the ways they understand their call in relation to what God is leading them to do.
Joe Iovino (17:11)
That completely resonates with me. I understand what those people have gone through. Especially if you're a high school student, you have a limited experience of what ministry looks like. For the most part, it's the pastor leading the congregation, and that's the extent of what we know. So we just assume that's where we're going. I liked your thought about ambiguity, and about being called to a journey, not so much a destination.
Trip Lowery (17:47)
Amen. Exactly. I love that you use the word "journey" and that sense of ambiguity. It is a journey. You don't start discerning your call to discover the one thing, and then that's the thing you do for the rest of your natural life. Call is something you do throughout your life, because the way your gifts and passions interact with the world is constantly changing, and the world itself is constantly changing. How you engage the world needs to change, and the needs of the world change. So discernment is something that happens all the time, and being comfortable with ambiguity is vital. I think I know what I should be doing today, but in a month, maybe it's not this. Being comfortable with "we'll figure it out as we go" is a skill we all need to develop.
Joe Iovino (19:04)
Amie, I think you talked about the culture of call in a local church. A lot of our listeners may not feel they're called to ministry in the ways we have been, but how can they be supportive of those in the congregation who are discerning or feeling that sense of call? What does that culture of call look like, and how does it help someone beginning a journey?
Amie Stewart (19:35)
That's a good question. I think it starts with recognizing that discernment happens throughout our lives. As Trip shared, it's a lifelong journey. The thing I've personally been exploring is how, even in the later stages of your ministry, you're still discerning what God is calling you to do. But it can go the other way, too. I've had experiences with children and children's church, with the questions they have and the earnestness with which they try to understand the resurrection every year after Easter. Their heads explode: "What is this?" So I think it's about being sensitive to the Spirit, inviting the Spirit in, and naming that God is calling.
It's also about clergy who serve in local churches talking about their own call on a regular basis, making it accessible. Within the United Methodist Church, it's talking about the different kinds of call we have, but also the general call to pastoral ministry and going to seminary, and how that's an accessible pathway, just like medical school or law school or business school. It's not being shy about asking questions about how God may be leading people to use their gifts for the church, whether that's on a pathway that ultimately leads to ministerial leadership or as an incredibly active layperson. And it's including young people on committees, giving them a chance to be in leadership in the church, to let them live into it with their bodies and not just as a thought. I think those are some ways you can cultivate that culture.
Trip Lowery (21:17)
And start early, early, early, early. You can have those conversations with elementary school kids. You don't have to use Greek and Latin when you do it; we'd probably advise you not to. But you can introduce those concepts of purpose and uniqueness: you are created special. Of all God's creation, you're the only you, and that has significant meaning. You figure out who you are as you move along in age, but have those conversations early and often in the local church, so that the first time they're introduced to vocation and ministry isn't in college, when they're sorting this out. They've been sorting it out their whole lives, paying attention to all those affirmations and looking for God's movement from five years on and beyond.
Joe Iovino (22:19)
I like the way you're expanding this understanding of call. For a lot of us, I think we assume the calls are very specific: it's to clergy, or, scripturally, it's to the priesthood or that special work. But you're broadening it to say we're all called to discern what our role is. I love that idea of it being a broader concept than just for some of us. How can we foster that more? Other than talking about it here today, what are some ways we can help churches understand that piece of it?
Amie Stewart (23:09)
I think the United Methodist Church does a good job of making it seem accessible. It's so sensitive to and aware of the call of all believers, the priesthood of all believers. We at the agency level are very mindful that all of us have a call, and it's not reserved just for clergy or even just a certain type of clergy person. So I think it's about talking about the call we have to build up the body of Christ. The ultimate goal isn't to become a clergy person in itself; to become a clergy person is to equip others for ministry, to help them identify their gifts. As Trip mentioned, he's an elder, and a key element of that call is to order the life of the church: to find people who want to serve on committees, identify their gifts, and find something they're gifted in and interested in. So it's about finding ways to narrate that God is at work in all of us. Some of us may be called to ministerial leadership, but the United Methodist Church in particular has done a really great job of making it clear that we all have a call and that we're all called to discern that call.
Trip Lowery (24:30)
That idea of connection and connectedness is key to who we are as United Methodists. We're not just connected through our giving and gifts and the way we structure our agencies and local churches; we are a connected people. We're not meant to do this in isolation. That idea transfers and translates to all aspects of who we are as Christians: we're informed by the people around us, the churches we're in, and friends and family.
I totally agree with Amie. One of the things we could do is talk about this in the local church, for those in the local church to tell those stories of call and purpose and connectedness. When they talk about your finances, the giving that goes in the plate goes to all these places because we're all connected. But we're also connected in different ways around gifts and graces and support and pastoral care, and we all contribute in different ways. What does that mean for how we change the world? We all impact different areas.
What sticks out to me is the Genesis creation story about God creating all things, and all things come from the same source. But when God created humanity, he breathed life into us. So there's this idea that we are created unique, and there's a unique purpose to humanity, to each of us, a unique call. We're designed to do something different from anything else in creation. We can tell that story and emphasize, this is who we are because of whose we are, and part of who we're supposed to be is discovering that and how it evolves over time.
Joe Iovino (26:48)
That's a great reminder of what we can be called to, and that it's for all of us to discern our place in all of this. I know you have an event coming up soon called EXPLORATION. Do you want to talk a little bit about that, like who it's for and how it helps?
Trip Lowery (27:11)
Yeah, sure. We've both been active participants in the event and have helped design and develop it in the past, so we've seen it from both sides, inside and out. EXPLORATION, at its heart, is about helping someone who feels called into leadership in the United Methodist Church sort out what their next step might be and what their leadership might look like. So often someone will fall in love with Jesus in the church and think the only expression of that is a robe and a stole in a pulpit on Sunday at 11 o'clock. So helping them see the variety of ways you can serve, like Amie said about discovering the ministry of a deacon, is part of what EXPLORATION does. It introduces them to what it looks like to be a layperson in ministry, an endorsed chaplain, a collegiate minister, an elder, a deacon, a missionary, a deaconess, or a home missionary. There are so many ways you can respond and serve in the church. What does that look like, and what should your next step be? What resources are available? Who's here to support you? Where are you formed?
It also puts students who are in that season of discernment in the same space with other students in that same season, and to me that's one of the most powerful pieces of it. A lot of the time, students may feel isolated and not see this broader connection because of where they are. They come to an event like this and see other people from North Carolina and Wisconsin and New York and New Jersey, as well as New Mexico, and they're all struggling with the same things. They commiserate together, but also celebrate together and discern together. There are people there who help them sort out what they're experiencing, help them process questions, and make connections. The goal of the event is to help them experience discernment and then have some clarity when they leave about what their next step might be, what this call might become, or the next conversation they need to have.
Amie Stewart (29:47)
I think one of the neat things Trip has done this year, in a new design, is recruit young adults to be the design team of the event. He created an application form, and we solicited nominations from campus ministers and other leaders across the connection. We have several young adults, some of them already in ministry in the local church, others serving in professional ways with deacon credentials. They've taken their perspective and looked at some of the traditions of the event and reimagined them. It's exciting to know that the people who are coming will look like those who designed the event, because it's a lot of work to put on this large event. These people who have been closer to those early stages of discernment are the ones helping to shape what it will look like next month. I think it will be exciting to see what new traditions start and how that can launch some fresh discernment for the church itself.
Joe Iovino (30:56)
It sounds like it would be a great experience for those who get to go and be a part of it. I love the idea of connecting, because sometimes you have this sense of where you're going or what you're doing, and wondering who else is having the same experience can have really great benefits. For me, those conversations you get to have from time to time are some of the most helpful in the discernment process, even now, as we age and get on in ministry and are still trying to discern what those next steps are.
Trip Lowery (31:35)
Don't call yourself old, Joe. I can see you.
Amie Stewart (31:38)
He's young at heart.
Trip Lowery (31:41)
You mentioned connections and being connected. Beyond just helping the students and attendees connect with each other or with resources, EXPLORATION has historically been a place where folks outside of this particular event, who want to offer this kind of experience contextualized for their space and their people, come to experience what we do and how it's been done. We have conversations and remember that this is a connectional denomination, and we share how we made the decisions we made and why, and we talk about their context and where they are. We're having conversations this year with Native American groups and a group in Alaska. There are groups thinking about regional expressions of EXPLORATION and what that might look like. So it's not just about the event that happens November 6 through 8, but also how this experience can echo in other spaces, look completely different, and help their people accomplish the same goals.
Joe Iovino (33:03)
It sounds very exciting to see it popping up in different places, around the country and around the globe.
Trip Lowery (33:07)
Yeah. A few years ago a group from Brazil came in and then offered an EXPLORATION event there. Groups from Germany have come several times, and there have been European expressions of EXPLORATION. It's been fascinating to watch things like that happen and look completely different from what we plan and put together. They make completely different choices based on who they're serving and where they're serving, and at the end of it their folks have clarity of call, know their next step, and feel the church is there to support them. It's like, yeah, mission accomplished, and it looked completely different from what we're doing. It's so much fun. That big connection is an exciting piece of being United Methodist. I love that.
Amie Stewart (34:02)
Speaking of connection, one of the gifts we get to offer is bringing in the United Methodist seminaries to offer their resources to people who may be considering theological education. They also bring along current students who can speak into the discernment happening at that time. We have such a privilege to serve in the agency and help create, as Trip shared, resources and tools for annual conference leaders as well as local church pastors who are trying to have a common language to use, with books and journals and other tools that can equip them to plant those seeds of discernment that may take root in one way or another. We try to partner with other agencies that have different perspectives and different calls themselves, so it really is a beautiful opportunity to create a unifying experience where everyone is coming alongside these young people to help them feel at home, feel safe, and be seen, and to have strong conversations with one another.
Joe Iovino (35:21)
Because ambiguity can be an uncomfortable place to be, right? Knowing there are others in that same space, that shared connection, is so helpful. I'm grateful for the work you're doing for the United Methodist Church and for these people who will be part of this and are trying to figure out their next steps. I really appreciate it. As we get ready to wrap up, I'd like to ask a lightning-round question. If you had to give a quick 30-second elevator pitch of what it means to be called, what would you say to someone who came to you and said, "I think I'm being called to ministry"? What does that look like? What does that mean?
Amie Stewart (36:07)
Well, a lot of times people will use the phrase "if you can't imagine doing anything else," which has a very negative connotation. So I would say: if it's something that really stirs deep within you, if it's something you have such a unique passion for that you want to be used in a way that brings others alongside to address the needs of the world, then that sounds like a good use of your discernment, to try it out and see and take that first step, even if you're not sure.
Trip Lowery (36:45)
Yeah, that discovery of where your gifts and passions align with or intersect the needs of the world and the needs of the church, where the church is trying to engage the world. If that happens to look like credentialed ministry, which fits in with how that is structured, then that may be a good next step for you. Something Amie mentioned, this getting out and trying, this "taste and see" kind of experience, is something we've tried to encourage annual conferences to do: to offer easy-in, easy-out experiences in church leadership where folks can see, does this feel right? If I get in and do these things I think I'm good at, what does the church think about that? How is it landing? Does it bring me joy? Does it feel right? Am I being affirmed, not just by the Spirit and these inner stirrings, but also by the people I'm serving? So that would be my answer. It was a little longer than 30 seconds, but it would be a long elevator ride.
Joe Iovino (38:07)
No, that's great. That's really helpful. For me, and this was a few years ago when I was going through this process, the call to ministry felt very heavy. It was very much, once you start this journey, there was a place to go. I feel like with you there's a lightness, the easy-in, easy-out piece. I really like this idea of being able to discern along the way and get a sense of what your unique ministry is, rather than trying to match up with this big, heavy thing that somehow feels outside of me. Does that resonate at all?
Trip Lowery (38:47)
Yeah, it does. It's something we've tried to do over the past several years with boards of ordained ministry: encourage that lightness, that affirming, positive, hopeful-facing process, so it doesn't feel as heavy and doesn't feel like a filter. It's not about discovering who's allowed in and who should be cut. It's about helping someone who loves Jesus just as much as you do figure out, is this where I need to serve? Or maybe it's some other place, and if it is, how do we transition over there? Because the last thing you need is a body part that doesn't work right, or isn't doing what it's supposed to do, or keeps functioning out of turn. That never ends well.
Amie Stewart (39:45)
I think one of the things you named is creating opportunities for people to just step in, that lightness, so they can experiment. Michael Beck talks about throwing spaghetti at the wall, right? It's the Fresh Expressions notion that this may not last more than a year or three, but for now it works. That experimentation allows someone to try something and realize they don't like it, or that it really does resonate with them. I think that's important.
As you were talking, I was also thinking about so many folks in older generations who come to the end of a career they've had for many years and say, "I'm not done yet." The Methodist church has places for them as well. So recognizing that this call can evolve over time, and that the church can be nimble in the ways it continues to make new expressions of ministry, matters. Having an invitational spirit is where I think we are: inviting people to consider something and not putting a lot of pressure on it.
We should also recognize that the United Methodist Church, because of its connectional nature, has a lot of financial resources. If you look hard enough, it's possible to find someone or an institution that can support you in trying that thing and not feel so boxed in, as though now that you've decided this, that's it forever. That's what I would say.
Joe Iovino (41:15)
You have helped me a great deal to understand anew what it means to be called, and it's been an important part of my journey. I really appreciate the time you've given us today. Thank you so much.
Trip Lowery (41:28)
Absolutely. It's an honor. We appreciate it, Joe.
Amie Stewart (41:31)
Yeah, thank you.
Joe Iovino (41:33)
I can't tell you what a fun conversation that was to have with them. I really appreciated the ways they helped me understand call anew. And I understand, Natalie, that you have some great guests lined up for another great conversation in November.
Natalie Justice-Taylor (41:50)
Yes! We're so excited to have Reverend Rachel Billups and Reverend Matt Rawle, who are going to join us for a conversation about courageous leadership. So be looking for that in November. I think you'll enjoy the conversation. I know we will.
Joe Iovino (42:05)
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for listening to Get Your Spirit in Shape. We look forward to the next time we get to be together.
