deeper friendships.”
He found a job as the operations manager for an up-and-coming
landscaping company. “Again, I loved my work, I felt useful, and I really
learned a lot from my boss whose main goal in business was to employ as
many people as he could at a livable wage. During my three years there we
grew from 30 employees to about 65.”
More importantly, he says, it was during these years that he met Susan,
his future wife. They had moved to Georgia from out of state for different
reasons and were neighbors in the same condo complex. “As our relationship
developed,” he says, “I felt more and more called to the ministry, and now felt
I had the support I needed for the process.”
He had always felt drawn to the ministry, which was strengthened by
friends at the Academy. But it was the Rt. Rev. Brian Keith, then Dean of the
Theological School, who talked to the Junior boys and “said something very
powerful to us.”
That was: “Don’t become a minister unless you have no other choice but to
become a minister.” This sounded like the worst pitch ever for the Theological
School. But, he had added, “Think of it like marriage. Don’t get married unless
you have no other choice but to be married to that one person, meaning that
your whole heart is engaged in it. The choice to be a minister needs to have
that kind of dedication. It is more than just a career; it is your life.”
So despite always feeling a tug toward the ministry, Alan says, “I used the
excuse for a while that I don’t have to do it! Eventually I got to the point where
I no longer had a choice, I felt like I had to do it, and the excuse was no longer
true.”
“I vividly remember the moment when this shifted in me. I was at the
dog park after work, part of my daily routine. Normally there were several
other people with their dogs, but today it was just
me, my dogs, and my thoughts. And while I was
there contemplating my life, I suddenly felt warm,
comfortable and peaceful – and in that peace I felt
the time had come: I have to become a minister. So
here I am now about six years later doing what I
have to do. Luckily I love to do it as well.”
He credits his wife, Susan, as one of the biggest
influences in making the choice. “I think she saw
that passion in me very early in our relationship and
gently moved me to pursue it. On the way home from
one of our first dates, I struck up a conversation with
a ‘street preacher’ who was warning people about
the end of the world, using prophesies from the
Alan with his wife Susan
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