A Call To Ministry

It's always been interesting how some of us feel or even recognize a "calling to ministry." I've always wondered what the truth of that might really be. My observation so far in life is that most people do not experience such a call --- an overwhelming sense of purpose associated with ministering to others, leading in ministry, serving in ministry, etc. And the most select few find it to be so overwhelming that they can do little else ... it has to be their profession.

The conundrum really gets interesting if those people who have this most elevated sense of calling to ministry don't meet the traditional ministry mold. Put another way, they don't look very holy! For obvious reasons, this last group of people seem to be the ones that the churches in general have the most disdain for. That's always been a little curious to me, particularly because one of the most impactful men in the Bible --- the one who seems to have had the most impactful ministry --- met this same criteria. His name was Paul.

You might know him as the Apostle Paul. He was called to ministry by God Himself. It was an overwhelming sense of purpose associated with ministering to others, leading in ministry, etc. And it was so overwhelming that Paul could do little else. It was his profession. In his case, that profession cost him dearly. Even more remarkable is that Paul was not very holy. He had a checkered past, to say the least. I think it's safe to say that few of our churches today would ever hire the Apostle Paul. Can you imagine? The guy shows up at the First Baptist Church, whose Senior Pastor has his seminary degrees on the wall and is surrounded by a staff of like-minded seminarians. He says to them, "Hi, hey listen, I'm a murderer, and I wrote Romans 7 because I can't do what I know is right and can't stop doing what I know is wrong. But anyway, Jesus got hold of me and transformed me and now I want to spend the rest of my life leading others to wholeness in Christ!" I don't think they would not be likely to put him on staff and empower him to lead!

Most of our churches today are populated with leaders on staff who display the most impressive of credentials. Degrees, doctorates, a lifetime of ministry experience; these seem to be the credentials that most churches value the most. To be sure, there's nothing wrong with someone who has had extensive, formal training for ministry. But it's also curious to me how so few churches seem to value transformed lives, and a sense of calling that can only come from God. It seems as if they don't have a high regard for the supernatural work of God in the lives of His people. Perhaps they're afraid to trust that supernatural, for fear of being deceived. So they default to what they know cannot be deceptive ... formal training and experience.

There are lots of church job boards on the Internet. http://www.MinistrySearch.com, http://www.ChurchJobs.com, http://www.PastorSearch.net, and http://www.ChurchStaffing.com are all notable places for search for ministry personnel or ministry jobs. But browse these boards and notice how many of the jobs require seminary degrees, even advanced degrees in seminary. And yet notice how few of them require transformed lives, or an affirmed, supernatural calling from God Himself. Wouldn't it seem that God's calling and Christ's work in someone's life might be important qualifications for ministry leadership? And yet, such criteria hardly ever shows up. How odd!

I've done a lot of reading on the subject of being called to ministry. For sure, I have sensed that calling. In fact, it has become such an overwhelming obsession I often wonder if I'm going to be capable of doing anything secular ever again. I've wrestled with that myself and tried to understand the truth of the matter. By now you've probably figured out that I look more like the Apostle Paul or an Old Testament Jeremiah than I do a modern day seminary alumnus. The world seems to say I don't belong in ministry. But God doesn't allow me to live with the world's definitions. He requires that I live with His definitions!

So as I try to understand --- and cope with the dilemma I find myself in, A. W. Tozier is an author whom I am frequently drawn to. He offers the most encouraging words for a man like me. Listen to one of his writings on being qualified for ministry:

"The true minister is one not by his own choice but by the sovereign commission of God. From a study of the Scriptures one might conclude that the man God calls seldom or never surrenders to the call without considerable reluctance. The young man who rushes too eagerly into the pulpit at first glance seems to be unusually spiritual, but he may in fact only be revealing his lack of understanding of the sacred nature of the ministry.

The old rule, 'Don't preach if you can get out of it,' if correctly understood, is still a good one. The call of God comes with an insistence that will not be denied and can scarcely by resisted.
Moses fought his call strenuously and lost to the compulsion of the Spirit within him; and the same may be said of many others in the Bible and since Bible times. Christian biography shows that many who later became great Christian leaders at first tried earnestly to avoid the burden of the ministry; but I cannot offhand recall one single instance of a prophet's having applied for the job.

The true minister simply surrenders to the inward pressure and cries, "Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!" (Quoted from the book "God Tells the Man Who Cares")

My prayer in this matter is simply this, "Lord, I'm engaged in ministry not because I chose to be, but because I've sensed your call on my life. Help me always to be faithful to that call, in the power of Your Holy Spirit and in the face of the adversity that Christians and the world put before me. Amen."