Stepping into Calling: Alana Wagner

The past two years have looked everything and nothing like I imagined. I had suspected since 2017 and felt confident since December 2018 that God was calling me to full-time ministry; but I hadn’t even begun to really imagine what this would look like until I was asked last April, “Are you interested in the associate director position?” When that question challenged me to take a concrete step into the life to which I felt myself called, my immediate answer was, “No”; I was too comfortable in the life I was then living to risk losing that life, my life, so soon for Christ’s sake.

I had the rare fortune of an overwhelmingly positive experience entering “life after Wesley.” Of course, I had lost things in my transition out of the community: the richness of the worship and Bible study and communal life, the events and dance parties, the likemindedness about the life to which we Christians are called and the things we should sacrifice to live that life faithfully. My husband and I bought a house in Dubach, 15 minutes north of town, the last month of my second-year internship, seeming to solidify my departure from Wesley. But God had been faithful to prepare me for this transition in several ways, the most significant of which was providing an incredible group of young adult couples at my church who were also looking for authentic community and friendship. On top of this, I had found jobs--none full-time, but that didn’t bother me--in areas that had always interested me and seemed like places I could faithfully serve, and I knew that this was the best time (young, still freshly married, no kids, used to living off of a microscopic budget, and having the least bills we’d ever have) to take advantage of the opportunity to explore those interests and further flesh out what was at that time still just an inkling of my calling. I began working part-time at two non-profit ministries and--after a decade of waiting and hoping--finally got the coffee shop job of my dreams at a shop that not only strove to make excellent coffee but also saw itself as a Christian missionary outpost for customers and employees. I’d gained just about everything I could hope to gain in life after Wesley. I was content.

“Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.” Romans 12:11

My contentment started to be revealed for the complacency it was becoming when Ryan asked me about the associate director position. I told myself that I could immediately say no because I already knew I wasn’t interested--just as I had known I didn’t want to do the internship that I ended up doing for two years. However, I couldn’t shake the conviction of the Spirit telling me to take honest stock of the reasons I wouldn’t even stop to think about it. After all, this wasn’t the first time I’d been asked if I were interested in applying; in fact, several friends, including the previous associate herself, Kaiti, had encouraged me to apply if I were invited. It was reminiscent of a conversation I’d had with Nick years earlier, when he’d asked me if I’d prayed about doing the internship. “No,” I’d told him, “because I know God will tell me to do it,” and I knew I would obey if so; avoiding the idea altogether got me out of both in one fell swoop. And here I was, four years later, doing the same thing. So, I asked God a very simple question: Do you want me to do this? Like the last time, He gave a very simple answer: Yes. I knew I would be obedient again. And I already knew the reasons I dodged and ran from this next step God was calling me to take. Sure, I loved and deeply enjoyed and took pride in my current job; but I also knew I was safe there. The demands of my job were largely performance-based, and I could always measure whether or not I was doing well. I could be not just content but comfortable in this job. The associate director job would be the opposite. Certainly, I would have expectations and know roughly what a “good” or “bad” job looked like; but it would involve a fair share of trial and error and unknowns to carry out my duties and serve at Wesley, and there was no one-size-fits-all standard for any of it. I would be out in front of people, vulnerable, not secure behind a counter. I would be pushed, pruned, and refined. I could not be comfortable in this job.

Yet even as I considered all of this, a new thought emerged: I wanted to do this. No, I didn’t fully know what it would look like, and I didn’t even fully believe I deserved to be considered; I didn’t think my gifts were enough, and I felt myself to be an inadequate successor. But suddenly, I wanted to quit playing it safe, quit running from the thing that both God and I wanted. I wanted to be joyfully, not reluctantly, obedient this time. I promptly texted Ryan all of this and stated that I was interested, should I be invited to interview.

“For every matter has its time and way, although the troubles of mortals lie heavy upon them.
Indeed, they do not know what is to be, for who can tell them how it will be?”

Ecclesiastes 8:6-7

You know when God takes things out of your hands because you won’t put them down? I don’t know if I would say 100% that’s what happened, but an intervention, divine or otherwise, took place. I soon began working full-time at the coffee shop and found myself again resisting the idea of leaving, glad for every delay that allowed me to stay through spring, through summer, into fall. However, in September, the management unexpectedly changed, and I watched the shop slowly turn from one founded on Christian mission and quality to one driven by profits and riddled with dishonesty and poor practices. I put in my two weeks’ notice in December and was immediately laid off in response. Yet just as He always does, God had a time and a way when I didn’t know what was to be: I was interviewed, hired, and beginning my first day at Wesley by the end of that week.

“Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.” 1 Peter 4:10

Serving as the associate director has been all of the things I’d hoped and feared and needed that day in April. I struggled deeply with belief in my own inadequacy in the first months--and had enough difficult interactions to fuel that belief--but also felt (and still feel) a clear sense of being in step with God for the first time in several years. I often take solace in the timeline and trajectory of Moses: God gave me that time in the wilderness, patiently attended my wrestling and denial in that initial encounter, and offered the goodness of His guidance and intervention, destructive though it seemed at the time, and I have found an incredible freedom in serving as He would have me serve. It has been a joy and blessing to return to the community that tended my first steps into true discipleship, to issue to others an invitation into this formative and transformative way of Life that made all of this even imaginable, let alone possible, for me.

Alana Crump Wagner is the Associate DIrector of the La Tech Wesley Foundation. Before assuming this position, Alana was already a deeply established and beloved member of our community. Her wisdom and faithfulness within our body, as well as her ability to bring joy and laughter to whatever room she enters, has been a gift to many.