Living Lent: Jes Williams

Living Lent: Answering the Call to Love and Serve the City
Throughout the 2012 Lenten season, we will be highlighting a few of CSM's wonderful staff team members and asking the question "Why do you work for CSM?" This week, we introduce Jes Williams, CSM Nashville Staff.

As I reflect on the question, “why do I work for CSM”, it is challenging for me to pinpoint one specific answer. There have been seasons when I work for CSM because I love the impact it has on the groups and group leaders who come to serve. In other seasons, I am moved by the opportunity we have through CSM to support and encourage the many amazing ministries and non-profits doing long-term work here in Nashville. And still, in other seasons, I am energized by the opportunity to supervise and mentor our seasonal staff and apprentices as they wrestle with what it means to be servant leaders and to live just and merciful lives.

Because it is challenging for me to hone in on one specific reason for why I work for CSM, I instead would like to explain how the title of this series, “Living Lent: Answering the Call to Love and Serve the City”, has manifested through my time with CSM. The Lenten season offers us an opportunity to deepen our relationship with God through reflection, repentance, and response. It is a time when we become aware of our own brokenness, ask for forgiveness, and seek out ways to minister to others the way God ministers to us.

During my time with CSM, I have had to wrestle with my own brokenness; my own prejudices, selfishness, and mercilessness. I have begun to understand how some of the choices I make can negatively impact others and contribute to the injustices in my community. But I cannot just sit in my brokenness and guilt. God calls us to repent and move forward. To seek Him out and respond to the ways we are asked to “answer the call to Love and Serve the city”. And for me, I believe one of the ways God calls me to love and serve is through CSM.

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