being a pastor guaranteed family pride. Therefore, dogmatic assertions of my “calling” would, on occasion, bring my family and friends to express pride and affirmation toward me. I liked it. Moreover, a young man who desired to pastor a church would certainly become part of the socially respectable branch of his family tree, right? As I entered my adult years, I began to wonder what I was actually aspiring to. Pastoral ministry? Something else? Thankfully, during my late teens and early twenties,