End of PoD

Well, I've been slack in the blogging department. Apologies!

I've just come to the end of my PoD (Period of Discernment).
So, I thought I'd share my report. It accompanies a much bigger quite detailed portfolio (2 ring binders full of stuff from the last 19 months).

Here is installment 1 of my report.....


Who am I?
My name is Linda Driver, I am married to Paul, and we have 2 sons, Matthew (18 years old) and Jeremy (15 years old). I am in my forties and have progressed through a few career changes from music performance and teaching, to stay-at-home Mum, to administration, to event coordination (in the church and in the charity sector) and now back to administration. I have also been significantly involved in volunteering, through producing major music festivals and a radio program on 5UV, involvement in kindergarten committees, running playgroups, stage managing and coordinating events, and training and mentoring others in this area.

I was brought up in the Catholic faith, and as a young adult found my way to forgiveness and a genuine living faith in God through church events and a small group linked to the Uniting Church. When my children were young, I became actively involved in ministry in my local congregation (Tea Tree Gully Uniting Church), when I could see a need for a program for pre-school children. I began a “Sunday school program” for 3 and 4 year olds, which was very meaningful for the children and their parents. After a few years my focus changed to worship ministry, starting with music, then leading worship. My passion for worship ministry grew and for 3 years (2007-2009) I was the Worship Elder. In the last year of this role, I became very unsettled for a number of reasons and felt it was time to hand the role onto someone else. I continue to be involved in worship ministry in other ways.

Who am I to ask such a question?
After a few people in my life asked if I had ever considered a call to ministry, and following a great deal of stalling and denial, I began a Period of Discernment (PoD) in February 2009. I chose to do this over a long time period (2 years) to give myself time to discern amongst the busy-ness of my life, which included fulltime employment in a stressful role, involvement in lay ministry as an Elder and family commitments.
I planned for this to be a time to take seriously the suggestions that I consider full time ministry. It was at a point when I was going through a change in employers and was re-evaluating my role in ministry within my local congregation and the wider church. I was flattered by suggestions from others that I had potential for ordained ministry but didn’t really believe it myself. Filled with self-doubt, I thought they were being nice, to encourage me, and found it hard to see myself in such a role. Like Moses (Exodus 3:11) and David (2 Samuel 7:18), I asked, “Who am I?” I did not see myself as ‘worthy’.
However, I was unsettled enough that I thought it was worth spending time discerning if there might be something in what they were saying. I wondered if my skills and passion for leadership and coordination and my passion for worship could be applied to ordained ministry or to a different ‘lay’ role in the church. By the end of my PoD, I hoped to have a clearer idea of which path of ministry God was calling me into as a Christian leader.

part 2 coming soon....