>> Hi, I'm Kent Rice.
I'm the pastor for Special Ministries here
at the Hempfield Church of the Brethren.
>> Kent, can you describe what that means,
what exactly do you do on a regular basis?
>> Special Ministries was a position that
was actually created before I took this job
and it tries to encompass many things out, so we
have a senior pastor who was the senior pastor,
the associate for Special Ministries.
Their areas would include youth,
young adults, intergenerational,
basically the congregation got together
and decided what is really important to us
at this phase of our congregational life
and what do we want this person to work on.
So they drew up sort of redrew the job and then
sought the person they thought would fit that.
So it's youth, young adults,
intergenerational ministry, outreach,
witness, evangelism, that kind of thing.
>> So what does a typical day for you look like?
>> Come in and I'm interviewed by
CandidCareer.com and the days are not unlike,
you know, secular job and some sales jobs I've
had in the past where you're sort of filling
around key appointments throughout the day.
After this I leave.
One of our youth is having a lunch
at their Christian school they go to,
so I want to make an appearance there.
And then in the afternoon I'll be preparing
for a class I'm teaching to 5th and 6th graders
in the evening with our pioneer club outreach.
My job, I have a lot of flexibility and
that might be unusual in this line of work
because the congregation does trust me
that I'm working on things to benefit them.
Some days I come in, I write
a devotional right away.
Other days I'm doing visits.
But you always have to be
prepared in this line of work
for what someone called the
ministry of interruptions.
You're not, your schedule exists
but it does not drive your day.
When someone needs something,
then 9 times out 10,
you drop what you're doing
and address that need.
>> Great. Can you tell us a
little bit about your story?
How did you get into this career field?
>> That-- how much-- how
big your hard drive there.
After getting on a college in 1985, I was always
good at putting words together and I worked
as a technical writer and editor in DC for
several years and it was just very sort
of unfulfilled, took a year off
to do volunteer work full time.
And when I got out of that, we spent
maybe 20 years or so, sort of pretending
to do different forms of sales and
different-- trying to pay the bills basically.
And it was difficult in a lot of ways to excel
and work with it for which you have no passion.
And last February, I actually experienced
what they call job separation now
where they take the job category
that I was in as a sales manager,
was eliminated nationally from
this company I worked for.
So I've got to go with our senior pastor.
I've been doing a lot of paraministry things
here at church and we talked about, you know,
what I wanted to do which was some form
of ministry has been for some time.
And the circumstances kind of created the
opportunity and then we started that process.
And several weeks later, our second staff
person here said, "I'm leaving in the summer
to go plant the church somewhere."
And the congregation basically
called me from within.
So it's a story of the process that probably
will never be repeated quite this way.
But what has been very, very interesting to me
is that a lot of the job and careers I've had
that I thought were a total waste of time
prepared me for a lot of the nuances of this job
from things like manager's work styles to
years of learning how to accept disappointment
and rejection sometimes in sales and
how to balance your highs and lows.
I mean I could go on for hours about how
jobs prepared me to do well in ministry
and I never would have expected
it in a million years.
>> What do you love about your job?
>> I love helping someone
connect who feels unconnected.
I have a-- part of that is a spiritual
gift, spiritual gift of mercy but I really--
it's a great day for me when I can interact
with someone who feels lost and disenfranchised
and is not a part of things, and find some way
to make them feel a part of something bigger.
>> What are some of the challenges
that you face?
>> The challenges are, well, that's
an easy one for me, meetings.
I don't really enjoy the collaborative
process of charting where you want to go.
To me that's always been more of a kind
of an individual process and, you know,
from elementary school, you know,
sometimes I don't play well with others.
And that kind of holds true
sometime with meetings.
I tend to like to-- I'm not shy
on dreams and vision and ideas
but those are usually typically mine.
And chewing through the smaller details
related to things that we're doing,
just don't really hold my interest.
>> What would you say it takes
to be successful in your job?
>> Successful, just read a
great quote about that a couple
of days ago from Bryan [inaudible].
He said that to be a-- something
that to be a success
in ministry is to be virtually transparent.
When you can get to the point
where it is not about you
at all, then you're an effective pastor.
>> Great advice.
Anything someone could do to prepare
themselves for this type of career?
>> I would-- you don't really learn
about anything until you've done it.
And to me, the biggest part of the
ministry, everybody is different
but the biggest part is putting
others before yourself,
so you need to do that and see how it works.
And in the same way, if you're a soldier and
if you don't know anything about your abilities
until you've been in a foxhole until
someone is, you know, until you're in--
until you're in the thick of things.
So I think you need to put
yourself in situations
where you were consciously putting other people
ahead of yourself and see how that feels to you
and see how-- if you're passionate about that
and how that motivates you to see how it feels
to do work where you don't see an immediate
thank you or payback but you'd do it anyway
because it's right and it's how you're wired.
So I would say, yeah, look at situations
where you can do that because that kind
of knowledge doesn't exist in a vacuum.
You can't really read about
that or decide about that.
>> What are your hours like?
>> They are pretty flexible.
I try to avoid the kind of the 9 to 5
mentality but we have a lot of evening meetings.
Tomorrow I leave for 7 or 8-- for 4 days, so
this afternoon I'll probably take a few hours
and this sort of hang out with
family and that kind of thing.
It's very flexible and again, our senior
pastor sort of modelled that with the fact
that you know that any given time that
he's doing what he is supposed to do
and that he is caring for the
congregation and that has sort of--
I haven't really earned that yet but it exists.
So people assume that I'm doing things
of value to help the congregation.
And the hours can be quite different but I tend
to take my daughter to school and drop her off
at 8:30 and come in to work
and some days are 9 to 5,
some days are 9 to 8, you
know, some days are 12 to 9.
You have weekend retreats.
You have events.
We're going to a few week
long things this summer
with the youth, that will be an entire week.
So we'll squeeze in a day or two
before or after to stay connected
with the family 'cause that's important.
>> Right. Any final advice or so on
who's interested in this career field?
>> Pray about it, again, my path, I don't
particularly recommend but I don't recommend
that someone makes an intellectual decision to
do something like ministry and then forms a 5
or 10-year plan and makes check marks
on a list toward achieving that goal.
Some jobs I guess are like that.
I'm not wired that way myself.
But I would say for something like ministry,
you know, you start everything with prayer.
And if it's something that you're looking at
down the road, even if it's 20 years from now,
even when I was at my farthest from Christ,
I always prayed and I like to believe that--
that that sort of helped
keep me in the ball game.
So that when it's time for something to do, when
it's time for you to step up, that you're ready.