Biography
Dr. Kent Millard is a passionate, visionary, religious leader. He served for 25 years as a pastor and District Superintendent in South Dakota before accepting the call in 1993 to be Senior Pastor of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. St. Luke’s is a vibrant, 4,500 member congregation which Kent has led into new and innovative ways of "doing church." They are a model to other congregations around the country and have been singled out as one of 300 "Excellent Protestant Churches in America." [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

  We encourage you to purchase Kent Millard's books through Amazon.Com 
  which will donate 15% of the purchase price back to the Chicago Sunday Evening Club 
          and 30 Good Minutes.

"whoami (Who Am I?)" 
If you were to type the words "whoami" in small letters without spaces into some computer programs, the computer would tell you who it is. It would tell you who created it, it would tell you about its capacity. It would tell you about what it can do. In other words, if you ask a computer, "Who are you?" it will answer the question. Now, if you asked yourself that question, what would you say? If you asked yourself, "Who am !?" how would you answer that? Do you know who created you and what you were created to be and to do?

Dr. Ron Delbane is an Episcopal priest who has written a lot of books on spiritual topics. Several years ago, his son wanted to study to become a circus clown. So his son went to Europe to study with the best clown trainer in the world. Ron went over to see his son and visited one of the clown training sessions. He was taken into a big room with a frame and a doorway in the center of it. Each clown in training would walk around the door, come through the door, and then do their routine. The clown trainer would tell the other clowns in training how they should respond. Sometimes they would boo and hiss no matter how good the routine was. Sometimes they would clap and cheer no matter how bad the routine was. And sometimes they would give the silent treatment. The clown trainer kept saying to the clowns in training, "You have to know who you are before you come through the door if you are going to succeed as a circus clown. You can’t wait until you get out there and let the congregation or the crowd tell you who you are. You have to know who you are first."

I think the same thing is true with all of us. We have to know who we are before we come through the door of life. We have to know who we are created to be or else the crowd will always tell us who we are. Sometimes they boo and hiss no matter how good we are, and they will cheer no matter how bad we are. The point is that you have to know who you are before you walk through the door.

Jesus was someone who knew who he was. In the Gospel of John, over and over, Jesus tells us who he is before he does what he does. Six different times he has these "I am" statements. For example, after he fed five thousand people with five loaves and two fish, Jesus said, "I am the bread of life." He not only provides bread, he is bread. Before he healed a man born blind, he said, "I am the light of the world." He not only healed a blind man bringing light to his eyes, he brings light to the world. And he says, "I am the good shepherd." To those who are hurting and outcast, he is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. You see, Jesus knew who he was before he did what he did. He found his identity in God and that gave him the strength and the power to do what he was called to do. But often times, we don’t know who we are. We don’t have a clear sense of who we were created to be and, therefore, we don’t know what we are supposed to do.

Several years ago, Julia Roberts made a popular film entitled, "Pretty Woman." In the film she plays the part of a high-classed hooker. Three times in that movie her clients ask her this question: "Who are you anyway?" And every time Julia Roberts gives the same answer, "Who do you want me to be?" That character doesn’t know who she is. She’ll be whatever they want her to be. The tragedy is the same thing is true with many of us. We will be whatever the crowd wants us to be. We don’t have a clear sense of who we are and who we were created to be.

Lily Tomlin, the comedienne, once put it this way. She said, "I always wanted to be somebody. Maybe I should have been a bit more specific." The truth is that God is specific. God created each one of us as a unique, unrepeatable person. And our challenge in life is to get to know who that person is and what we’re called to be and do in our lives. That’s the goal of our life, to know who we are and what it’s about.

One of the most important things to know in life is who God created us to be. Wayne Muller in his recent book, How Then Shall We Live?, says there are four questions that face every person in life.

The first question is: Who am I?

The second question is: What do I love?

The third question is: How then shall I live?

The fourth question is: What is my gift to the world?

But the first and most important question always is, who am I? It’s a question each one of us needs to wrestle with. Shakespeare put it this way in his play Hamlet, when he says: "This above all, to thine own self be true. And it follows as night the day that you cannot then be false to any other person." This above all, more important that anything else: know who you are and be true to that.

I once attended a workshop on identity. It was a workshop where we were gathered in small groups and people kept asking me who I am. So I kept giving answers: "I’m a pastor. I’m a father. I’m a Christian leader."

They kept saying, "Deeper than that. Deeper than that."

Finally, I just burst out saying, "I am a passionate, compassionate, visionary, loving Christian leader." I thought, "Where did that come from?" I had a sense it came from God as a way to articulate for myself who I am. So every morning when I get up, I look in the mirror and I remind myself who I am to be that day: a passionate, compassionate, visionary, loving Christian leader. No matter what happens, to try to be that; to ask myself, "How would a compassionate leader handle this problem? How would a visionary leader deal with this issue?" You see, all of us need to go deep inside and say, "Who has God called me to be?" and then live that out in the world.

A young mother once demonstrated for me how to know who you are in a crisis. Several years ago I was called to a hospital. A young baby had been born prematurely. The baby had lived for seventeen days, had been in an intensive care unit, and was struggling for life. The baby had gotten an infection and was on life-support systems. There was concern that the baby would not live. I was called by the parents and asked if I would come to the hospital because they had been told they needed to take the baby off of these life-support systems.

I went to the hospital and met with the family and their parents in a waiting room. We prayed, we cried, and then finally the young mother said, "It’s time." We walked towards the door of the intensive care unit. Just as we got to the door, the young mother stopped. She took a deep breath as if to get herself centered. She looked on the door and there on the door were the names of all the babies in the intensive care unit on a paper. She looked at the name of her son. She put her hand on that name and she said, "I am his mother." She took the name off the door in her hand and then we entered into the intensive care unit.

We gathered around this tiny baby’s bassinet; a baby struggling for life, being kept alive actually by artificial machines and other means. We had a time of prayer. I reminded the family that this is a child of God. Whether he lives for seventeen days or one hundred years, he is a precious child of God. That even though his body will not carry him far, his soul, his spirit is alive and well, and will live on in God’s care; and they will see him eventually when they enter eternity themselves. Then one of the nurses asked this young mother, "Would you like to hold him?"

She said, "Yes."

They brought a rocking chair up. Then they unplugged the baby from all of these machines, wrapped him in a blanket and placed him in her arms. She sat there rocking back and forth, holding her baby as he breathed his last. What amazed me is she was so composed. Tears were running down her cheeks, but she started to sing to her baby as he died. Now the rest of us were coming unglued. The physician was weeping, she could hardly contain her grief. The nurses were hardly able to stay in that area. The parents and myself were almost unable to stay there because it was difficult. But this young mother was composed as she sang to her baby and rocked him into eternity.

After it was over I began to ask myself, "How could she do that? How could she be so composed at the time she lost her baby?" And then I remembered. I remembered what she had done on the way into the room. Remember, she stopped and she said, "I am his mother." She defined who she was and she knew what she needed to do. She knew that she needed to be with her son as a mother as he entered eternity.

That young mother taught me a lot about how it is you need to know who you are before you face any challenge in life and especially to know who you are before you face difficult times. Today I would like to have you think about that question: Who am I? Who has God created me to be? And then to be that, fully and completely, in every situation of life that we face. - Amen.

Interview with Kent Millard
Interviewed by Lydia Talbot

Lydia Talbot: Kent, a powerful story that you concluded your message with. The young mother losing her baby, but identity was clear: I am his mother. For you, you blurted out in a workshop once: "I’m a passionate, compassionate, visionary Christian leader." But for most people the discovery of their identity, to distill it in one sentence, doesn’t come so easily. What was the process for you?

Kent Millard: I think it was being put in the challenging situation of people just keeping on asking the question, who are you? It’s the hardest question to answer in life, I think, but the most important when you keep going to a deeper and deeper level. First of all, we start talking about roles we play: pastor, parent, and so forth. And then finally, I think you get down to a base level of the essence of our being: compassion, love. What is our life really about? When we keep focused on that and we simply live out of that, then we are clear about what we are to do and we are to make a transforming difference in the world.

Talbot: Identity has everything to do with integrity. That’s the hook between the two.

Millard: Exactly. Well, when people are clear about who they are, then they can also engender that in other people because they see in every person a spark of God. Everyone of us is simply a human being encapsulating a divine spark. And when you see that in yourself, then you recognize it in other people.

Talbot: I think about great leaders, the cost of discipleship, and the agony of it. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Oscar Romero, Bishop Tutu, who suffered greatly, but whose identity was clear. Isn’t there a liberating freedom that comes when one’s identity is clear?

Millard: I think when that happens it’s like the power of God comes in. It’s the soul within us that is then empowered and connected to God, which provides the spiritual energy for the task ahead. Martin Luther King was clear about who he was. You may know of his experience of having fear at the beginning of the bus boycott and having bombs thrown into his home. He was thinking about quitting. He had an experience at his kitchen table one night when he felt the presence of God saying, "I will be with you. You are to be a leader of freedom." And he began to articulate his role as a freedom leader for not only African Americans, but for all people. His identity helped him lead.

Talbot: Your identity as a leader, Kent, in the faith community in Indianapolis. Tell us about St. Luke’s Church, a beautiful example of inclusiveness.

Millard: One of the missions of our church is to be an open community of Christians gathering to seek, celebrate, live and share the love of God with all Creation. So we’ve tried to decide what it really means to be "open." And so we are open to all persons, whatever their theological position might be. In our congregation, for example, we have an active group of gay and lesbian Christians worshiping with us and an active group of Promise Keepers. Now those folks don’t always agree on many issues, but our point is that we are open to experiencing God’s presence in each of them and valuing them as children of God.

Talbot:  Affirmation, trust, and faith centeredness are important components there. How did you manage, though, to bring people who differ with one other together under the tent?

Millard: It seems to me as I work with various people, I just see so much good in everybody. I just see the spark of God in each person I work with. Now we may not always think alike, but I see God active in their lives. John Wesley once said, "We are not called to think alike, but to love alike." When I find something to love in every person, I don’t want them excluded from the tent. I want them all included. And so in our staff we’ve modeled that by having one pastor in his heart of hearts who would say homosexuality is a sin, but he would say, "I am a sinner also. So how can I be judgmental of someone else." Another pastor who would say, "I don’t believe it is a sin because it is not chosen." Those two pastors work well together because they appreciate each other.

Talbot: Your church’s worship services take on many forms. One is even in the form of a dinner theater. Tell us about that.

Millard: Several years ago we were overcrowded in our sanctuary and so we thought, since we are creative people, we don’t have to have all the worship services here. So a member of our church made a dinner theater about four miles from our congregation available to us. One of our pastors had a vision for starting a satellite ministry that would reach unchurched people. So now today, six years later, there are over eight hundred people worshiping in the dinner theater in three different worship services. Seventy percent never had any church connection before. They come in casual clothes, they sit around at the dinner theater tables, they have coffee and doughnuts, and are inspired by God.

Talbot: You are an inspiration to us all, Dr. Kent Millard. Thank you for this message.

Millard: Thank you, Lydia.