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second-guessing myself.
    But it’s hard not to. I’ve been waiting for a church of my own for so long. And I don’t just mean the months since I finished seminary, months spent living at my parents’ house while meeting with and being rejected by various pastoral search committees. I’ve been waiting for this moment, or rather been drawn to it, for most of my adult life.
    The calling to ministry is exactly that, a calling, a thing you respond to not because you want to but because you have to. That’s how it was for me. When I was little, people always used to pat me on the head and say, “So, are you going to be a minister like your dad when you grow up? Are you going into the family business?”
    I never came right out and said, “No way!”—pastors’ kids tend to learn the art of diplomacy at an early age—but that’s what I was thinking. I knew exactly what responding to the call to ministry entailed. As a child, I wanted nothing to do with it.
    What I did want was money in the bank, a nice car, bright red with a convertible top with an enormous dog who would sit in the backseat, marriage and a family, at least two kids and preferably three, a big home with one bathroom for every bedroom plus one more for show, and my name on the deed. No more parsonages for me.
    Everything started off according to plan. I received a scholarship to James Madison University, beginning in the business school because I figured that was the surest path to getting a balanced checkbook and the deed to a house, hating it, transferring to marketing, then communications before making peace with my inclination to the helping professions and landing in the department of social work.
    So I wouldn’t have a big bankbook or a big house, but at least I’d have a paycheck, chart my own course, and be doing something meaningful. At least I’d avoided the religion department. That had to count for something, right?
    Wrong.
    I liked social work, but something was missing. I tried changing jobs. If working with seniors wasn’t filling my cup, then maybe helping hospital patients would, or working with kids. Each job was satisfying in its own way, but it wasn’t enough. The thing that kept me up at nights was the fact that, according to various rules and policies, I was not supposed to talk to my clients about the one thing many of them needed most—God. Sometimes I did it anyway and it got me in trouble. Once it got me fired.
    In my heart, I knew it was coming but, even so, when the principal, Janice DeCarlo, called me into her office and told me she had to let me go, it was a shock.
    â€œYou know I hate doing it, Phil.” Janice always called me Phil. “You’re the best social worker we’ve ever had, but I can’t keep pretending to look the other way ….”
    â€œI know. You’re right. I’ll be more careful.”
    Janice smiled and shook her head. “No, you won’t. You were praying with Brent Ragozine right outside the library. Don’t say anything. Or make promises we both know you can’t keep. Your instincts are good,” she said, handing me a letter of dismissal, “but you’re in the wrong place. Go do what you’re meant to do. Be a minister.”
    I took the letter, folded it in half, and laid it on my lap. “I suppose you’re right.”
    â€œI am,” she said, rising from her chair and coming around to my side of the desk. “You may not realize it, Phil, but you’re actually having the best day of your life.”
    Janice was right. The calling to ministry had always been in me. Finally admitting it came as a relief.
    But why did the call to my first church have to come right before Christmas? And why to Bob Tucker’s church? I’ve heard him speak. He and Dad go way back. The man can preach the paint off the wall. He’ll be a hard act to follow. As the only child of