Ordination

It is so hard to put the call of God on my life into words. Let me try a brief explanation of it in short phrases (or I will type too long).

• Set apart by God for a purpose even before birth. (Jer. 1:5)
• "Called" into Christian Ministry at 12 years old at an altar in Lanham, MD.
• Call was confirmed by many people throughout the next 6 years! God was afraid I would forget that I had to go into ministry.
  
• Never gave 10 seconds thought to any other option. I was to give my life to God for his purposes.
• Looked at Christian Colleges.
  
• Went to Valley Forge Christian College.
• Worked at Valley Forge Christian College.
• Served as Associate Pastor at CCF.
• Serving now as Lead Pastor at CCF.
• The story is still being written.

I consider the call of God on my life as something he dictated, the highest honor, a treasure to be invested for return, the only thing that I can do, a blessing of favor, a weight of responsibility and more humbling than anything I can imagine.

This Sunday, April 26th, I will be ordained. Two popular questions have been:

1. What is ordination?
2. I thought you were already ordained?
   

I was credentialed and licensed to pastor, marry and bury, I was not ordained.

Ordination in the Mennonite Church is is an event announcing the confirmation of a lifetime call to ministry (no ring, no robe, no throne chair). It is done after the leader has served faithfully for a period of time, not fresh out of graduation. It takes place once people have observed the leader leading and can affirm that the call of God is truly on them and at work! It is happening at the invitation of my Bishop, Glenn Kauffman and with the blessing and enthusiastic affirmation of CCF and our Conference. The first week of June marks 5 years of ministry at Capital Christian Fellowship.

Sunday will be a meaningful day for me, Tricia, my parents, the church and some of you who are friends that have walked with me. I consider this experience Sunday to be a high honor and I would love to have you there. If you can come, come!

David Eshleman will be preaching. He is my Pastor as a teenager, my predecessor, my former bishop, the man who allowed me to preach for the first time in 1996 and he is my friend!

Thanks to each of you for the role you have played in this whole thing!

--Noah