It’s that season again

It’s that season again.

For the third year in a row, two important things are happening at the same time in my life.

The first is vacation Bible school.

Next week, the hallways of our church will be covered in butcher paper miracles. Volunteers will transform ordinary classrooms and hallways into rainforests and waterfalls and places where imagination can come alive. Hundreds of children will walk through our doors and be welcomed in the name of Jesus. They will sing in all kinds of joyful noises, laugh and giggle, ask good questions, and hear the story of God who loves them and redeems them.

For those of us who serve in children’s ministry, it is one of the busiest and most joyful weeks of the year.

The second thing happening next week is the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting.

Once again, messengers will gather. Once again, there will be debates about women serving as pastors. Once again, amendments and bylaw changes will be proposed. Once again, articles will be written, tweets will be posted, contentious statements made.

And once again, women like me will find ourselves at the center of a conversation we aren’t really even invited into.

I grew up at a church with Daniel Vestal as my pastor, and my theologian father’s conservative and careful reading of the Scriptures led him to support women as ministers.  These people and places raised me as a GA and an Acteen; they told me the stories of Lottie and Annie, and I took them all seriously.  I studied at Truett Seminary and was ordained at a beautiful expression of the local church at my first place of full-time service. These people and places almost made it seem like this issue of women in ministry already was settled.

A few years ago, some Southern Baptist pastors compiled and circulated a list of women who had the word “pastor” in their title. My name was on it. My church was on it. My location was on it. The issue is not settled.

“While strangers on the internet are debating whether my calling is legitimate, I am actively living it.”

That year, in between VBS responsibilities, I would sneak into my office to check the news out of the convention. What had passed? What had failed? Who said what? I would masochistically scroll through comment sections full of people who claimed to follow Jesus but sounded nothing like him. They were full of certainty of their own opinions, accusations and outright hate.

Then I would close my computer and walk back out into the world God had called me to.

One year, I stepped back into a hallway decorated with sea creatures.

This year, it will be a rainforest.

I will hear children going to their next station. Volunteers using their gifts to serve, teach and welcome. Cheers for teammates from games in the gym. Praise to God in song echoing down the hallway.

And I will be reminded that while strangers on the internet are debating whether my calling is legitimate, I am actively living it.

I am a pastor. I am a children’s pastor.

I preach. I teach. I disciple children and families. I walk with parents through crises. I visit hospitals. I help lead people to faith in Christ. I perform baptisms. I sit with those who are grieving. I was ordained by a church that recognized God’s calling on my life. I serve now at a church that is beautifully supportive of my work and calling as a woman and pastor.

And every June, as I am pouring myself out to create opportunities for children to hear the gospel, there are those who seem determined to remind me they do not believe God could have called me to do the very work I am doing.

“Women have been gospel tellers since Easter morning.”

Here is my conviction: Women have been gospel tellers since Easter morning. I will leave it to others to explicate fully, but we see women as active participants in the missions of both Jesus and Paul. Co-laborers. We have no reason to believe an all inclusive prohibition of women from pastoral service is what either of them had in mind.

So at VBS this year, I will tell children God calls ordinary people to join in God’s work. I will tell them God has dreams for the world, and they are a part of them. I will them God loves them and redeems them.

The Southern Baptist Convention will vote. Headlines will be written. Arguments will continue.

But long after the convention center empties, there still will be children who need the life-changing love of God. There still will be families who need shepherding. There still will be ministry to do.

And by God’s grace, that is where you will find me: not in the comment section, but in the butcher-paper rainforest.  Not debating my calling but living it.

 

Amy Sims serves as associate pastor of preschool and children at Sugarland Baptist Church in Sugarland, Texas