An Ordination Story: TJ Ono
- Guest Post
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Note from Amy: We are excited to celebrate Deacon TJ Ono's ordination to the priesthood this Saturday, Dec 6, at 4pm — everyone's welcome! I've been so grateful for the ways TJ has served Incarnation this year as a deacon, and I invited him to share a bit about his journey to ordination. You can read his story below.
After undergrad, all I wanted to do was be a pastor. And graciously, God gave me what I wanted. God called me to serve as a student pastor. I loved this season of ministry. God moved. Teenagers fell in love with Jesus. People grew in their gifts and in their person. Community formed, and forever friends were made. And personally, parts of me came alive in ways I had never experienced before. But like all things in this life, not everything was sweet. Unresolved conflict, abuses of power, and sickness ate at the soul of our congregation. Tremendous pain pulsed through our community, and we were all participants in the dysfunction.
At the end, my soul was battered and burnt, and my mind was tossed in anxiety and disorientation. All I wanted was to hide from my pain, for it told a story of my weakness and shame. Little did I know that my pain would become the soil for new life in me.
I ran away to grad school with questions, unsure of what I believed. But there, God met me in my questions, not with answers, but with Himself. My curiosity became a pathway to friendship with God. And slowly, my wounds began to scar. Two steps forward and one step back, the scaring was slow, clunky, and inefficient. But something about the healing felt supernatural. Like all healing, I knew I had little control over becoming whole. I could do certain things and put myself in certain contexts, but I couldn't do the heavy lifting of restoration. Like scales falling off my eyes, I began to see that God was the agent of my healing. And little by little, God convinced me that He was committed to me, the Church, and the world. And I saw that God’s love stubbornly commits to others’ good. Afresh, I beheld God’s love, and I fell in love with Jesus all over again. And an old desire began to bud; I wanted to spend my life loving Jesus and what He loves.
My Church in Boston, Church of the Cross, introduced me to an old – but new to me – way of following Jesus: a way of both Word and Sacrament. They showed me how to hold together the Scripture, the Spirit, and the Sacrament. And about a year in, my rector, Dave, saw the Spirit doing something that I refused to see. It may have been his Spiritual Direction training, or he may have believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself, or maybe both; Dave asked, “Have you thought about pursuing ordination?” Pause and silence were my answers. I let the question lie fallow, not responding for months. But something kept pricking at my soul.
On a summer morning in 2022, I sat on top of a hill on Gordon-Conwell’s campus watching the sunrise. Restless, I could no longer ignore the Spirit’s pricking. So I opened a strange, 800-page, red book and began to read prayers entitled “The Form and Manner of Ordaining a Priest.” As the morning light illuminated the prayers, I read words from God, the Church, and an ordinand. I saw them entering into a three-way commitment, a stubborn love. This love says, “You’ll hurt me, and I’ll probably hurt you. But, I am deeply committed to you and your good.” This love echoes of covenant. And on that hill, the Spirit spoke to the silence of my heart, saying, “I want you to commit to loving my Church.”
This Saturday, we will gather to pray those prayers together. And together, with God, we will commit to a stubborn love. And I would love for you to join.
Incarnation, I’m profoundly grateful for you. With all sincerity, there is no other place or people I would rather pray these prayers with. You minister to me deeply. Your hospitality, creativity, levity, and friendship have been instruments of God’s healing in my life. I am humbled to call you my church family and home.
~ TJ Ono