everything I need to know about ministry I learned at MVP

One question I've had to answer many times since I started seminary comes in a form somewhere along the lines of "So, how did you decide to study to be a minister?" I always start the narrative by saying, "Well there is this place called Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church". You know how many characters in the Bible have their location or item that is significant with their call story? Moses and the burning bush. Jesus and Bethlehem. David and Jerusalem. It seems that every person in the Bible who was called by God in one or another fashion have a starting point; either a place or a significant moment. In regards to my call, it is a place. It is a white marble church that sits in the heart of downtown Washington, D.C. A location where for myself time appeared to stand still because my four and half months within its doors feel like a lifetime. Time in that place was irrelevant. Whenever I am struggling with my call, I close my eyes and picture MVP. I picture the people within its doors who I got know. I picture the sanctuary, and can still hear the music from the Sundays I worshiped there. I can picture the glass classroom in the middle of the third floor where I attended the numerous small group/bible studies. I take a deep breathe and fill the Holy Spirit come within my soul as I remember. It is like recharging for me.

Everything I need to know about ministry, I learned at MVP.

It has been two years since I've been there. Yet, I still feel it's presence within my heart, within  my soul. That connection has become deeper as I completed my first semester of seminary. I found my mind retreating frequently to my days during that Fall of 2014 that were spent at that place on Massachusetts Ave. Maybe that's why I've been missing my Mecca a little extra these past few months; because I've had to return to my memory vault time and again to the lessons I learned there. I'll think of specific lessons or moments during a class lecture. Or when I'm studying. Or when I'm walking around campus. Or when I'm in a pastoral moment with a woman at Arrendale State Prison, or when I pass a homeless person on the streets of Atlanta. MVP helped me be my best self - spiritually, physically (from all the weight lost walking to its doors from the metro stop), and mentally.

I'm not sure what this post is exactly about. A wave of nostalgia I suppose that I want to put to the computer. Next week I return to my second semester of seminary. It has me longing even more for MVP. For that spiritual fulfillment it gave me. For how God was present there.

All people need to find their MVP. The place where they meet God most. I am beyond grateful for mine.

MVP I'm coming for you in 2017.