Ministry: 2020 Reflection

Following our honeymoon, Gabrielle embarked upon her final year as an M.Div. student (and graduated May 2020!), and I was promoted to the fulltime position of Associate Pastor of Worship and Operations at Ecclesia. As my first post describes, we took a step of faith into a new season of life in which we became entirely dependent on the provision of the Lord through the generosity of our friends and family. We have been overwhelmed by the favor with which God has blessed us along this fundraising journey. The transition into fulltime ministry required faith and courage; but in the end, the anxiety I experienced throughout weeks of discernment became equal-parts hope once I finally and fully took that step.

As a fulltime associate pastor, I was given more autonomy and accountability predominantly in the areas in which I was already serving: Community Group facilitation, spiritual formation, and worship leadership. I took the lead on the expansion of our Community Groups. One of the groups had grown too large for the living room in which we had been meeting, so we launched a third group that Gabrielle and I led together. We built a spread that equipped Ecclesians across central New Jersey to find a local small group gathering, from Kingston and Princeton to Titusville. This all took place in my first week as an associate pastor!

I also took the lead on worship nights, coordinating song orders, musicians, practice spaces, and so on. It was my responsibility that these events created a musical atmosphere that would encourage an honest expression of worship from all those gathered in the small upper room of the Paul Robeson Centre for the Arts. While event planning may not have been my forte, every worship night further instilled within me a profound sense of gratitude for the time and energy the whole team of volunteers put into making these nights a blessing. Unfortunately, we have had only two worship nights since my going fulltime: one in October and one in March.

The Sunday morning experience was developed through a more holistic approach. Alternating worship teams fought fatigue, and worship leaders were equipped with the freedom to accompany their singing with prayer and scripture readings throughout the set. Our list of volunteers was categorized by availability and interest to make for more enjoyable operations. And the sanctuary load-in and load-out were systematized to reduce the overall stress of Sunday mornings. See, I believe that good leadership equips others to lead well. If I saw this new opportunity as a chance to take the spotlight, then I’d altogether miss the purpose of the office, for I’m a staunch believer in what I like to call “background leadership.”

Background leadership is the willingness to be the least of these and, nevertheless, face the greatest of challenges. As an associate pastor, this meant that I was one of the first in and one of the last out. It meant that I was willing to fill whatever role the team needed—some weeks I had the glamourous role of singing, while other weeks I had the gritty role of running the sound board (most weeks, I had both). The office of an associate pastor with this methodology required a commitment to others, a tireless spirit, and a capacity for wearing many hats. But all this hard work and innovation did lead to delight; for after it was all said and done, I felt like I was doing ministry with Ecclesia and not work for Ecclesia.

After the initial rush of my transition to fulltime ministry, things at Ecclesia settled down; the last quarter of 2019 was surprisingly quiet. Much of the church is comprised of college and graduate students who travelled home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, so our last gathering of the year was a Christmas party at the end of finals week. The first two months of the new year were slow and steady, too. With winter recess spanning the whole month of January for both the seminary and the university, Ecclesia kept its gatherings mostly limited to smaller-than-usual Sunday morning services. Other than a vision night, a baptism, and the worship night mentioned above, nothing extraordinary happened.

Then the world went into lockdown. Just as things were beginning to pick back up—we had just started planning for our one-year anniversary service and celebration, which had been set for April 12th—life as we had known, and of which we had taken advantage, abruptly and indefinitely came to a jarring halt. We had held a regular service on March 8th without knowing that it would be our last in-person gathering due to the Covid-19 crisis. Ministry changed overnight. Our first digital service took place on March 15th via Facebook Live.

This new season has new responsibilities and rhythms. Mondays are my days off. Tuesdays are devoted to digital service content coordination, podcasting, and meetings. Wednesdays are spent creating music video compilations from our worship team. Thursdays are for website development and daily office uploads. And Fridays and Saturdays are reserved for the production of the digital service video, which includes color grading, audio normalization, music ducking, lyric and slide input, syncing, rendering, and publishing—all more of the type of background leadership I talked about above.

Ministry may look different now, but it is still ministry. The body of Christ need neither pew nor pulpit. As Paul writes in his letter to the Colossians, “For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit” (2:5). So, we still adhere to the Great Commission prototype we are called to embody; we still share the good news that we have been set free through Christ; we still seek to live in community (albeit virtually) through it all as we shelter-in-place. We want to stand with and sit alongside those who experience the anxiety, loneliness, depression, fear, confusion, and even death that this state of crisis causes. We want to mourn with those who mourn; but we also want to rejoice with those who rejoice. We want to speak truth in both lamentation and hope. I pray that we resemble this in the new-normal by which we live.

And yet, our time in Princeton comes to its close. Gabrielle has graduated, and our lease expires in a little over a month; we’re in the endgame now. But nevertheless, we look forward to whatever God has in store for us tomorrow. In my next and final post, I will reflect upon the whole of this fundraising journey and give you a glimpse into the next chapter of our lives. Thanks for reading!

If you would like to learn more about my work with Ecclesia Church, please visit our website.

Blessings, Tom Dearduff