Deciphering My Life

It’s no secret that I am in the process of discerning my calling and understanding my core passions. I’ve said in the past that I am passionate about working with students or leading worship, but these are only resultant activities stemming from my core passions. I’ve thought at times that they might the calling that God has placed on my life, but really they are just things that I enjoy doing. A core passion plays into calling more than the activities we really love being a part of.

Take the passion of discipleship for example. You could be a student ministry pastor for a while, coordinate small groups as a part of your next job position, then move on to putting together bands and developing worship leaders as a worship pastor, finally becoming a lead pastor of a congregation at some point. The common theme through all of these jobs is discipleship. There might be threads of student ministry or leading worship throughout all of them, but they are only activities stemming from that core passion. Taking a broad look at it, you might even say that your calling is to make disciples, or train up the next generation to make more disciples. A vocational calling could be Campus Pastor at a multi-site church or Director of an inner-city mentoring program.

With everything that I have going on, it’s hard to navigate through what I’m passionate about to find my core passions. It’s even harder to understand what my calling might be because I enjoy doing a lot of different things. The time might be coming soon that cut the cord on some of the things that I enjoy doing that are not a part of my calling. If I want to get closer to understanding my core passions and calling, I’m going to have to say no to some things. That’s the part of this journey that I am least looking forward to. When I take a good look at everything I am a part of, I see clearly that I can’t do it all forever if I want to find and grow in my core passions and calling.

An Assessment of the Aspects of My Life

• Leading worship
  • Staff Devotionals at NWCC
  • Student Ministry
  • Thursday Worship at CUPC
  • www.interactive on CTVN
  • The occasional camp or retreat
• Production Tech
  • My current job at NWCC
    • Overseeing equipment
    • Training volunteers
    • Troubleshooting any tech issues
    • Staging/Lighting Design
    • Keeping current with needed upgrades
  • Helping young tech guys learn how to run things with Student Ministries
  • The occasional freelance consulting and/or sales opportunity
  • The occasional cam or retreat
• Student Ministry
  • Lead small group of students
  • Lead worship from time to time
  • Help out with production aspects when needed
  • Go on the occasional retreat as a leader
• Online Ventures
  • Blogging 5 days per week on tlamarca.com
  • Recording and editing the Journeymen Podcast
  • Possible church tech podcast?
  • Web design and content management for tlamarca.com and journeymenpodcast.com
  • The occasional sale through Amazon or iTunes
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
• Other Activities
  • Volunteering with Eden Christian Academy
  • Part of an Ironmen group (Men’s group)
  • Possibly leading an Ironmen group in the future?
  • Possibly taking a higher leadership role in Ironmen in the future?
  • Possible tech seminars?