Sarasota-Bradenton Church | Rev. Catherine Fluck Price

14305 Covenant Way
Lakewood Ranch, FL 34202
(941) 907-7333


Harvest Team Rev. Catherine Fluck Price Rev. Steve Price Music Coordinator Choral Director Office Administrator Youth Minister Children's Minister Harvest Ministry Council Florida UMC Conference UMC		Rev. Catherine Fluck Price
		My Call to Ministry The summer after my sophomore year in college I was invited to be a bridesmaid in my roommate’s wedding in New Hope, North Carolina. After the rehearsal dinner, I slipped out of the fellowship hall into the darkness of what I soon determined was the narthex of their very tiny sanctuary. Not knowing anyone else in the bridal party and finding sanctuary, I slipped into the back pew to spend some time in prayer. Prayer time in the back row of my home church was usually a place of comfort and solace for me, but there I felt uncomfortable and restless and urged to get up. I moved to the middle pew and began again to pray. But again I felt restless, uncomfortable and pulled to move forward. I moved to the front row. Perhaps closer to the altar was where God was pulling me. But again, I was just agitated and uncomfortable. I thought that God must want me on my knees, so I moved to the altar rail and knelt down to pray. But yet again, after a few moments I felt restless and pulled to get up. As I followed this nudging, I tiptoed to stand behind the pulpit. It was not a place where I had ever stood before or could imagine desiring to be, yet as I stepped behind the pulpit and placed by arms on its edges, I felt this tremendous sense of peace come over me. Without a doubt, I was sure that that was where God wanted me to be. I stood there for just a moment trying to take it all in. And then with a feeling of terror, I ran out of that small sanctuary. I went to a Sunday school classroom to look for a Bible. Surely, God would lead me to passages about women not having authority over men or women being silent in church…anything to get me off the hook because I had no desire to be a preacher. Although I couldn’t find a Bible, I did find a Gospel Parallel and was led to a passage that said, “The harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few, ask therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into that Harvest.” I felt that God was clearly calling to me to preach and calling me to be one of those laborers.