A long apprenticeship
This article first appeared in the Fall/Winter 2006 edition of In Touch Magazine. For reprint permission contact the Director of Public Relations at 1-800-251-6227.
by Cam Priebe
Cam Priebe didn’t know exactly where he was headed – he just knew where he didn’t want to go. His story highlights how a tap on the shoulder can provide direction.
My career journey began shortly after my wife Shauna and I were married, when we were invited to be youth sponsors at our church, Niverville (Manitoba) Mennonite Brethren Church. As we worked with youth pastor Cam Rowland over the next few years, he encouraged me to become involved in youth ministry and affirmed my relational and leadership gifts. He believed in me, and let me know that I had what it took to be involved in leadership.
When I left Niverville Church to complete my Bachelor of Arts degree, I believed that my specific vocational calling was to become a youth pastor. I’ve yet to be a youth pastor, but it was that initial sense of calling at Niverville that led me to where I am today.
After college I struggled with identity and value issues. I came to realize that much of what I did, much of what I thought of myself, was based on the office, position, role, and vocation that I had or was at that time working toward. I saw that I needed to discover my value away from job and vocational calling. I didn’t know it at the time, but I needed to discover my worth and value for what God thought of me, not what I perceived others might think of me.
In the summer of 1998 my wife and I took a summer job as directors at Madge Lake Bible Camp in Saskatchewan. The highlight of the experience was working with the high school and college-age staff.
That fall, I began a five-year term at Bethany College in Hepburn, Saskatchewan. I worked with student resident assistants and campus ministry leaders, coached sports teams, and helped establish a mentoring program. It was again in helping call out, develop, and learn alongside young leaders that I felt I had the most life.
Moving south
Many of my colleagues at Bethany were graduates of MB Biblical Seminary, so when I began looking at options for further training, I already felt somewhat familiar with the Seminary. One of the main reasons we decided to attend the Fresno campus was our readiness to experience life in a totally new setting, far from home.
Perhaps the most popular question asked of a seminarian is “What are you going to do after seminary?” When entering seminary, and increasingly along the way, the only thing I felt sure of was what I didn’t feel called to: the more traditional seminary-trained vocations such as pastor, missionary, teacher, etc. It often left me wondering if I was in the right place – except that I was enjoying the journey and learning immensely.
I remember thinking through some of my goals for my time of study. I hoped for an opportunity to be involved in leadership, to learn more about my gifts and understand myself better, and to be in a mentoring relationship with someone who was more experienced than I. Little did I realize that involvement in the Ministry Quest program would answer all of these desires, more than I could imagine.
Learning by doing
Early in my second year at Seminary, Ministry Quest director Rick Bartlett asked if I would help out on Ministry Quest retreats. The more I heard about the program and the way in which it was led, the more excited I was to be part of it.
Ministry Quest moves teens through a one-year experience of being mentored in their local congregations, interaction with their pastors, and leadership retreats. The process helps them discern and develop their gifts, and nudges them to consider what kind of leadership role they may take in the future.
Helping facilitate the Ministry Quest retreats gave me opportunities to observe and learn from more experienced people in leadership. I came to understand myself, my gifts, my passions better – and as I did that I had opportunity to take hold of some leadership responsibilities. In that process, other Ministry Quest leaders spoke words of truth, encouragement, challenge, teaching, and affirmation that helped me develop as a person and a leader. As I listened to other call stories, and shaped and told my own call story, I interacted with the fact that God is present, and real, and active in my life – and I began to put together some of the pieces in ways that hadn’t seemed to fit together in the past.
That learning, and development, and calling, turned into a vocation – something I could never have dreamed up on my own. In spring of 2006, Rick Bartlett took on a new role at the Seminary, and I was invited to become Ministry Quest’s director. Other Ministry Quest leaders tapped me on the shoulder and said “Cam, we think you should do this – we believe in you!”
The job of directing Ministry Quest excites me. It is relational, involving leadership development and youth ministry – all things that I have been part of in the past, and have a growing love for. And having the chance to be part of something that helps young people realize their potential as individuals and the contribution that they can have on the kingdom of God – well, that is an incredible privilege and honor.