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Just about every single day since being ordained as a pastor, I have felt like Admiral James Stockdale at the 1992 Vice-Presidential debate, when he said: Who am I? What am I doing here?
Being a pastor was never on my radar. I grew up, or at least was born and raised, in Findlay, Ohio, and my family attended a wonderful congregation there: First Presbyterian Church. It was in this congregation, and literally in their beautiful sanctuary, that I was baptized, confirmed, and, eventually, ordained. It is the only congregation that I have ever officially been a member of, and I will always consider it home. The two pastors during my entire childhood and teen years were Terry Bard and Dean Carzoo. Theirs were the only sermons I heard for the first 18 years of my life, and they set the bar high for me.
I graduated from Denison University with degrees in Philosophy and Cinema, and then wandered for a few years through Yale University (trying my hand at Philosophy) and Hollywood, California (trying my hand at Cinema) before returning to Ohio, to Bowling Green State University, where I obtained a M.A. in American History. I fully intended to go on and earn a Ph.D., but God had other plans. While in Bowling Green, I reconnected with First Presbyterian Church of Findlay and with Terry Bard, who one day suggested I consider going to seminary. It was, and remains, one of the most outlandish suggestions I’ve ever heard. Yet I was unable to shake it, and when I finally realized, with some help from Saint Augustine, that this might be more than a mere suggestion and the true source might be from higher up than my childhood pastor, I returned to Terry Bard’s office to ask: Now what? Another question I have been asking ever since.
I graduated from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, and was ordained by the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 1997.
