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by Lisa McIntosh
When Tom Krahling was about 12 or 13, he began to wonder whether God wanted him to become a pastor. So, he spoke to his parish pastor about it and received some surprising advice.
‘He told me to be like Jonah, to run away and that if God wanted me to do it, he’d send a big fish to swallow me up and spit me out’, Tom says. ‘I went and asked some other pastors and other mentors and they thought that advice wasn’t bad, and so throughout high school, I spent my academics preparing to be an engineer and I spent my Sundays growing in the faith and preparing in that way.
‘At the end of the day, it comes down to the theology of vocation. What has God given me to do? How can I use those gifts to serve others?
‘I thought I would pursue engineering, and I worked at it as if working for the Lord. But when the opportunity came up at church to grow or to get experience, I would go for that as well.’
The sense he was meant to be a pastor didn’t leave Tom, despite putting his energies into engineering studies. And so, with COVID ramping up in 2020, he decided to take leave from university and ‘test the waters’ by enrolling in the Discover program at Australian Lutheran College (ALC) from the second semester. Now 21, he has since completed three semesters of Discover and has applied to enter pastoral ministry study.
In his second semester at ALC, Tom moved onto campus at North Adelaide – a move that helped crystalise his decision to pursue pastoral ministry.
The two-part Discover program features academic study and personal formation, including a ministry placement. Tom’s placement was at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Adelaide, helping out with the youth group and livestreaming services there.
His own experience shows that the so-called ‘aha’ moment of discernment is ‘often a lot more mundane than people expect’. ‘Over the years I’d had an interest, I’d had encouragement from people, but the final moment was just that last person who said, “You know Tom, I think you should become a pastor”’, he says. ‘And she was not the first person to say this. She was maybe the 100th person – pastors and mentors and friends confirming the inner call, and that’s really what made me sure.
‘There is more than one good thing that you can do in life, and I felt like God was saying, “Tom, you can be an engineer and do good and I will work through you in that; you can be a pastor and do good and I’ll work through that. I’m giving this choice to you”. I chose to study to be an engineer, and he said, “Good choice, but try again”.’
Contact Australian Lutheran College at enquiries@alc.edu.au to learn more about Discover.
by Craig Heidenreich
If someone accused me of being racist, I think I would feel quite defensive because of all the negative connotations around that term.
I would probably defend myself with the thought that I am more tolerant and open-minded than that other bigoted person I know – that person who says what the rest of us only think (from time to time).
Let’s be honest, humans experience this strange tension along racial lines that is almost as old as history itself.
What is this driving force in our nature that will justify ourselves by putting someone else down?
Sadly, this is as old as sin itself, as old as Adam justifying himself by putting Eve down – ‘this woman you gave me caused me to eat the fruit’. It wasn’t Adam’s finest moment to focus on gender that day and about as silly as our focus on genetics.
Racism is part of the air we breathe in this fallen world and is fed by our insecurities.
We squirm when family members or certain politicians overtly appeal to the worst in our tribal natures, but we also contend with it in many subtle ways.
We need to fight this instinct if we choose to follow Jesus and be anything like our Heavenly Father.
In heaven, when ‘every tribe and tongue’ are worshipping, there is simply no racial hierarchy.
Jesus left his followers with a final request – that we should go out among all the nations to invite them back into a relationship with him.
The Father loves the whole world. Probably the most quoted verse of the New Testament would be John 3:16, ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave …’.
Our Heavenly Father invites us to love like he loves and enter into his joy as each lost sheep is found.
Let me offer a stark challenge: Racism is one of Satan’s primary attacks against God’s plan to gather all people back to himself!
Satan tempts us to judge the very people that Jesus died to save, the people we are called to love.
We need to see this attack for what it is and not tolerate it – it is as deadly as the self-righteousness that stops me associating with a sinner when I should be ‘the beggar showing another where to find bread’.
As we adjust our thinking to value what the Lord wants, let’s take in something of his sheer delight in the diversity of the humans he has made.
This is not about tolerating each other. This is about celebrating each other. This is about a church that is enriched and completed when we all come together.
So, what does this all mean in practice?
If we as individuals are to be free of this subtle racist pull, we probably need to ask the Lord to wash our minds of attitudes that we have taken in from our parents, our schooling, the impact of media, and even our church life. He may bring attitudes to mind that we should repent of.
Just think of the strong confirmation bias that happens when we access the internet and get our news from limited or similar sources. We think that we are sophisticated enough to spot the prejudice, but our minds can be shaped by what we see and hear.
I am aware of a dislike of certain nations or ethnicities that have lodged in me after watching some movie (maybe 30 years ago). The movie was probably quite biased, but at the time it suited my fallen nature to dislike those people. All these years later I find myself reacting to certain accents when I hear them.
How easily we start to judge other nations or ethnic groups for systemic injustices while self-righteously thinking, ‘I am not like that’. This is very thin ice!
We need to go through the Lord’s washing machine as much as Peter did in Acts 10. A voice from heaven said to him that day, ‘You must stop calling unclean, what God has made clean’.
When we meet together in church, our human instinct is to gather with others like ourselves and to seek leaders who look like us.
Is it possible that our church experience should be less about our comfort and more about our growth in love?
Humans contend with all sorts of tensions that play out along generational, gender, social and intellectual lines. These are the contexts for us to ‘prefer one another in love’ (Rom 12:10). Our racial differences are also a great context to act maturely and, in a world riven by racism, our mutual respect (across racial lines) is a clear witness to the work of our Lord.
Recently I was in a church service watching people line up to take communion and the line that day was a veritable ‘united nations’. It made my heart feel glad to see the transforming work of Christ in action among our Lutheran family.
Let’s lift our gaze to focus on what the Lord has in mind.
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