'I see in you ...'

By Tyler Tankersley

This morning at First Baptist Church, we will engage in an ancient Christian ritual: ordination. As a community of faith, we will be ordaining Matthew Porter to the gospel ministry. Matt has been a member and served our church for the past four years in various roles. This summer, he has been serving as a short-term missionary working with inner-city populations in Canada. This fall he will begin classes at Truett Theological Seminary in Waco, Texas.

Matt and I have shared a few conversations about what it means to be called into ministry, and we realized we had things in common with one another. Some people have a "road to Damascus" moment (see Acts 9) and have a black-and-white feeling of what they are supposed to do with their lives. But that's not how it worked in Matt's life or in my own.

I cannot tell you a clear moment in which I felt called to ministry. It unfolded throughout my life with a series of conversations with trusted friends, beloved mentors and loving family members. Barbara Popp, my fourth-grade Sunday school teacher, asked me to read our scripture passage in class one morning, and that meant the world to me. Bob Clubbs, my speech teacher in high school, told me I have a gift for speaking in public. Countless others encouraged and prayed for me. The point is, my calling did not rise up from within my own chest. Rather, I believe God used a community of people to inform me of my purpose in life.

One of my seminary professors once told us one of the most loving things we can do for somebody else is to have an "I see in you" conversation. This is an intentional time to sit across from a person you love and tell them the God-given gifts, abilities, talents and skills you see in their life. I have cherished each one of those conversations and moments in my own life, and I hope I am always able to pay it forward by affirming what I see in others.

I recently was doing some sermon-writing at a local coffee shop. At a table near me, a couple of women were sitting across from one another. I could not help but eavesdrop and I ascertained that the woman on the right recently had lost her husband, and her children lived far away. As a creative outlet, she had decided to write a short story and was sharing it with her friend. Her friend finished reading the story. The woman on the right said, "Well, how was it?" Her friend grabbed both her hands and said, "You have such a beautiful gift as a writer." The woman on the right's eyes began to fill with tears and she said, "Nobody has ever told me that before. I've always wanted to be a writer."

I promise you there is somebody in your life who needs to hear you say: "I see in you..."