Willing to Respond

I will celebrate my five-year anniversary with the Albion Fire Department in April. It is hard to believe it has been five years of learning and responding. I enjoy the brotherhood with the other men on the department and I have gained some great relationships through these five years.

I was recently reflecting on the past five years and realized I have learned a lot about fire fighting, rescue, and teamwork. I also recognized I have learned a lot about faith and calling.

1. Chosen to Serve—in April 2013, I submitted an application to serve on the Albion Fire Department. There were several openings and I hoped I would be chosen to serve my community. After I submitted my application, I received a call a few days later telling me my application had been approved and the firefighters were inviting me to be part of the department. I was chosen to serve.
2. Trained to Serve—I knew there was more to serving as a firefighter than spraying water on a fire, but when I started with the department that was about all I knew. They fitted me for my Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) and they gave me a pager. Soon after I started, there were classes I was encouraged to attend. These classes would train me on all the aspects of serving as a firefighter. I spent several Friday nights, Saturdays, and Sunday afternoons sitting in lectures and doing practical exercises. I was trained to serve. I earned my Basic Firefighter Certification in February 2017.
3. Willing to Respond—Each day when I get ready to walk out the door for the day, I put the pager on my belt. When I get home each night, I put the pager in its designated space at the top of the stairs. When the pager goes off, I jump into action, listening to the directions from the dispatcher as to the location and the crisis/need. I rush to the firehouse to get into my PPE and load up with other firefighters into the trucks we will be using to respond. As the large garage doors open, we know we are going to meet someone in a crisis and where other people may be running away, we are going to run into the crisis.

In a similar way, I realized these three experiences are as true for my spiritual life as they are for my service as a firefighter.

1. Chosen to Serve- In 1 Peter 2:9-11 we read, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” We believe that our salvation is an act of God’s grace and mercy active in our lives. God’s prevenient grace woos us and invites us into a relationship with God. Now, as followers of Jesus Christ, we are chosen of God to be God’s hands and feet in this world. We are a royal priesthood; we have been chosen to serve.
2. Trained to Serve—when we come to Christ, we are not immediately Bible scholars nor do we understand all the intricacies of following Jesus. Jesus called for us to, “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20). This is discipleship, our being trained to serve.
3. Willing to Respond—we live in a world that is in crisis. The pager for the Church is sounding loudly and we are being called to enter the mass chaos of our world to offer peace and hope. This will come through meeting the physical, emotional, mental and relational needs of people. It will also come through our meeting people’s spiritual needs as we point them to Jesus.

The key question in both of these scenarios is whether we are willing to be trained and willing to respond. In the firefighting image, my fellow firefighters and I are of no good if we get to the firehouse, get in the fire truck, but never leave the station. We can have all the equipment and all the training, but if we do not put it into action to meet people in the midst of their crisis, we are useless. It is the same in the spiritual image. If I come to church every week and attend small group each week to be trained, but do not respond to the pager when it sounds, I am not effective in living out the Christ-like life. The pager is going off to alert us (the Church) to a world in crisis; will we leave the Church to step into the chaos and crisis to point people to salvation—to Jesus?