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" Well,” I said, “right now I make a living as a freelance writer and part-time English teacher. I never wanted to teach school. I want to write, but my journalism career hasn’t gone anywhere. I can’t seem to get beyond writing puff restaurant reviews for what’s basically an advertising circular, and I’m desperate to do something more meaningful, and interesting, and challenging with my life.” “Ministry is certainly all that,” he said. “But why ministry in particular?” Hearing him preach, I said, had given me the idea. I was drawn to how he immersed himself deeply in a spiritual concept, then reported back to us what he’d learned. Also, I had developed an intense interest in the church—how it functioned and what it gave to its members. “And what does a church give to its members?” I hadn’t prepared an answer to this. “I can really only speak for myself,” I said. “Church is the one place I know that privileges the soul, that focuses on spiritual values and bases a community on them. "
― Michelle Huneven , Search
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" Ministry does involve a lot of writing,” said Sparlo. “And I love the sermon,” I blurted. I knew, I went on, that there was much more to church than preaching. The more involved I’d been over the past two years, the greater my interest in church administration, governance, and polity. I didn’t know if this interest constituted a call, I said, but I’d been having ministerial ideation for well over a year. "
― Michelle Huneven , Search
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" I’d loved the arcana of church history and the mental convolutions of theology, although to me Christianity was a melting ice floe that the very best minds had abandoned. I would look around me and think, How can so many seemingly intelligent, intellectual people still believe in the virgin birth, the miracles, or the resurrection? Some didn’t. My New Testament professor, a well-known scholar and author, announced that there were only three things known for certain about the historical Jesus, i.e., things corroborated by texts contemporary to Jesus’s time: he was born, he ate some meals with people, and he died, possibly by crucifixion. "
― Michelle Huneven , Search