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Called: Dean Inserra

by Dean Inserra July 26, 2021


I believe one’s personal calling in life is more about direction than it is about anything else. I’m not really someone that’s going to look for some kind of mystic feeling about what I’m supposed to do or not supposed to do with my life. Not that other people can’t do that; I believe the most common thread of calling is one of direction. The sort of life events that point you somewhere, kind of like a Rubik’s cube. When you line it all together and it’s the same colors like the things that happen in your life that arrange and work through certain seasons to line you up for the opportunity to do something. Maybe something that you’re meant to do or designed to do, or that you’re passionate about. Whatever it may be.

So, I became a believer when I was 13 years old. I was raised mainline Protestant. There are some remnant mainline Protestant churches out there, but the one I grew up in was not one of them. It was full of nice people, it was a nice place, but no gospel whatsoever. My Sunday school teacher did not believe that Adam and Eve were real people. My youth minister believe that Noah’s ark and that Jonah in the big fish were allegories. That’s what I grew up in. At the time, I just thought that being a Christian meant that you went to church on Sunday and tried to be a good person and just sort of believed in God. That was really about the extent of it.

I heard the gospel for the first time at the FCA retreat when I was in middle school. From there, very early, almost too early, I was given opportunities to speak at a very young age. Some 14 years old, nine months removed from becoming a believer and already I was being asked to share my testimony and talk about Jesus in front of groups. I was preaching on Sunday mornings when I was in high school at certain churches, through FCA, and other ministries. It was really those unique sorts of things from my life that the Lord allowed me to do. However, since I was raised in mainline Protestantism and came out of a cultural Christianity, my friends that I grew up with were also raised in the same context.

So my life is now, I’m a believer at a young age 14-15 years old, starting to come and grow into terms of being a believer in Christ, getting a chance to speak and be seen as a Christian leader earlier than it should have been. However, at that time, I started to understand, maybe there’s something here. Maybe the Lord has me in my town where I grew up, now as a pastor, because when I was 13 years old, he had me developing relationships with people and having deep roots in the city. It’s almost as if the trajectory of my life from a young age, having opportunities out of the gate to minister, to preach the gospel, to share my testimony, to share God’s story, by doing those so early allowed me to be established locally as someone who took those things seriously. For many, I was already seen as “the pastor.” So to this day, people that don’t attend the church that I pastor; call me their pastor. I know that sounds ridiculous and it actually is. But, the reason they believe that is because I’m the only Christian and the pastor they know because I’ve always been there and around in their life. We played Little League Baseball together and high school football together, and we stayed in our lives together. So calling for me was this direction, a trajectory from a young age into adult life where there really never was another thing for me and my story.

I went to college and seminary to prepare for what I already knew, which was based on that direction, a kind of upward line momentum in my life from the very beginning. In that sense, I think I’m kind of a fortunate case, I guess you could say. And I count myself as fortunate there, and I’m grateful for that. I didn’t have to sweat at night. What do I do? What do I want to do when I grow up or I need to change my major five times or anything like that. I knew from a young age that this is what I was supposed to do. I didn’t have a moment or some kind of voice; it was just opportunity and direction. Those two things happened. The obvious things like my convictions and my passions were there but it was opportunity and direction that allowed me to see that these were realities that God had for me and that I needed to pursue. I’m a pastor in my hometown, where I was saved and where I was a part of a church that didn’t preach the gospel, then became part of churches that did preach the gospel. Now I get the chance to try and impact my own friends. For example, I had the opportunity to baptize my Little League Baseball coach in our own sanctuary at our church. It is neat things like that that all call back to that direction; those early days of opportunity and moving forward in that trajectory by God’s grace, to be the Pastor of City Church in Tallahassee, Florida, where I grew up. So for me, calling is about opportunity and direction, and that’s been the reality in my life, for which I am thankful. 

My name is Dean Inserra, and this is my calling story.