JackHammer

When it comes to The Call to full-time ministry, we get some seriously goofy ideas. Almost always, the silliness takes root in the notion that God calls through feelings. Slick evangelists aggressively recruit young people in Youth Conferences around the country, massaging the emotions until, bingo! The teen gets The Call. And we’re all amazed at how God works…

In my few years of Pastoral ministry, I have encountered more than a couple of young people, college-aged, who were obviously dedicated to work full-time in ministry from their youth. (for the sake of clarity, by full-time ministry, I mean a full-time job serving the church, perhaps as a school teacher, secretary, pastor, assistant, etc.) Not that these young people showed any kind of particular aptitude. Nope. They clearly didn’t show that. Nor that these particular young people were especially dedicated. Nope. They clearly weren’t that either. Nor that their local church considered them to be enormously dedicated either. Nope. Not at all, in fact. But they were dedicated, none the less.

Their parents dedicated them. From their earliest days, their parents reared them up to live off the church. These parents intended for the church to supply all the needs that their children would incur, and in exchange, these dedicated young people would offer their services in the classrooms, in the offices, in the ministries of the church. They were Called. They were Chosen. They were Committed. Or at least, they should have been.

I have been surprised on more than one occasion to chance upon young people who obviously had no aptitude for full-time Christian work, but were pursuing it, nevertheless. I interviewed (twice I think) one young man who had dedicated several years to pursuing a degree in Secondary Education, teaching PE. I looked at him. I looked him up and down. I looked again. Maybe it was his five foot ten inch frame encased by three hundred and twelve pounds of pure bulk that threw me. Maybe it was those super soft, callous-free hands - that handshake that reminded me of a very large sponge - that caused me such confusion. Or, maybe it was just me.

“So, what sports do you like to play?” I ask, innocently enough. He replies, “Football.” I nod my head approvingly. Seems right to me. “What position do you like to play?” I ask, guessing center if he can bend over that far. But I am wrong. So very wrong. “Oh no, I don’t play center. I play quarterback. Madden ’07. PlayStation 3. Top score in the house.” Well…

He wants to teach PE. In a Christian school. This should be good. His thumbs do seem to be, shall we say, toned… And I betcha he’ll get in your face after he scores a touchdown too. “Do you do pushups?” “Yea, buddy! But not too often. Most of the time, I just stay near the table.” I move on.

“How did you do in your PE class?” I ask. “Well, that’s something I needed to talk to you about. See, I haven’t actually passed my classes yet. I’m hoping that this next year I’ll get it done. But I really love sports. And I love the Lord, and want to work in a Christian school.” And I’m sure he does. Just not in mine.

I interviewed another young person, a Music Major. I asked this one what instruments he played. He didn’t. I asked him if he liked to sing. He giggled. “When I’m by myself in my room.” I giggled too. “So you don’t sing in special music or anything?” He didn’t. I asked him if he enjoyed composing. Never tried it. Never really looked into it. Knew people did that (those numbers we sing have to come from somewhere, don’t they?), but never thought about it for himself. I asked him if he had studied any composers or compositions, styles of composing or histories of music. Strike four. He thought he might like to. Maybe.

“So, what do you intend to do with this degree of yours?” I asked (politely). (Yes, it was politely, okay! Quit whining about the tone already). He answered me, seriously. “I want to teach!” he said. “Teach what?” I asked. “Music!” he replied. I’ve put him on my list.

I hate to make too much sense here, but I hope you won’t mind if I point out that he wasted four years of college. He and the PE major both did, in fact. And some poor, misguided principle would waste a lot of good parent’s money hiring either one. These young men were dedicated. Someone, no doubt, dedicated them. I’m questioning their dedication, but apparently, their parents dedicated them none the less. God calls for the best of the flock, but one man’s treasure is another man’s trash.

You see, we’ve recently raised a generation of young people whose only hope is that they will get hired by a church. No one else would have them. They can’t imagine doing anything else. They don’t want to do anything else. In fact, they would rather do no work at all. But if they must work, they’ll work the church. Which is why they feel called to full-time ministry of some sort.

And we wonder why our Christian school graduates can be so very worthless.

Whoever God calls, He enables. That is clear. But does the enabling come before the call or after? Maybe we should say instead that whoever God enables, He calls.

“And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?”  God calls man for the first time in Genesis 3:9.  God very specifically told Abraham to go somewhere in Genesis 12:1:  “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee.”  Jeremiah certainly had the plan laid out for him in Jeremiah 1:5,  “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.”  David found out God’s will in a unique way:  “Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward” (1 Samuel 16:13).  God will let people know what He wants them to do.

The Call

“The call” technically does not relate with ministry occupation.  Men are called unto salvation.  “The called” is synonymous with those who God saves.  You can see that here:

Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ.  Romans 1:6. 

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.  Romans 8:28. 

But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.  1 Corinthians 1:24. 

Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called.  Jude 1:1.

A text like Romans 11:29 fits into this too:  “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.”  And 1 Corinthians 7:20:  “Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called.”  And 2 Timothy 1:9:  “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.”  Called people are converted people.

So if you say that the Lord called you, you really are saying that you have been saved from sin and Hell.  The New Testament call of God really is the salvation call.  However, everyone who is saved is saved to serve.  Therefore, every believer is called to serve the Lord.  That is absolutely what 1 Timothy 4:1 tells us:  “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.”  So every Christian is a full time servant of God.  Every believer has been called by God to serve Him.  Someone doesn’t have a secular career anymore once he’s been saved.  He has been called to a new vocation.  Every believer is a ”minister of Christ and steward of the mysteries of God” (1 Corinthians 4:1).

The Ministry 

The reason I have put “ministry” in quotes is because ministry is also a word that has been altered from its intended meaning.  Every believer is a minister of God.  “Ministry” comes from a Greek word which simply means “service.”  To be saved someone must turn ”to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:9).  God ordained the pastor to perfect (equip) the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12).  The pastor is a minister, but no more than any other Christian.  The pastor’s unique goal among all the ministers of a church is to prepare them to do the work of the ministry.

The Desire for the Office

How does someone know he is supposed to pastor?  1 Timothy 3:1 says he will have a “desire.”  “Desire” is the Greek word orge, which was used to describe the sap rising in a tree.  Pressure in a tree comes from the inside out, the orge resulting in sap running.  That desire will come out of a man, but where does it start in a man?  1 Timothy 4:14 provides the answer.  Paul writes to the young pastor Timothy:

Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.

Paul says that Timothy got the gift in him through prophecy (preaching).  That gift was validated by other men through the laying on of hands.  Timothy was saved under the Scriptural influence of grandmother Lois and mother Eunice (2 Timothy 1:5).  The Bible they taught him made him wise unto salvation (2 Timothy 3:15).  He continued to hear preaching of the Word of God from Paul and others.  The Word of God is the sap in the tree that rises.  It starts small inside a man and then works its way out.  This is exactly what Jeremiah described in Jeremiah 20:9 in the life of Jeremiah:

Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.

As God works in a man’s life through His Word and he cannot but speak the things which He has seen and heard (Acts 4:20), that desire will manifest itself through the discipline of fulfilling the qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 2.  The qualifications are a gauntlet through which someone must pass to prove himself worthy of the office he desires.  Someone may think he does fulfill them, but that is up to the church to decide (Acts 13:1-3).  The church is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15).  God has ordained judgment for the church (1 Corinthians 6).   The same Holy Spirit indwells each church member, so that agreement on a matter is the means by which God guides and directs (Matthew 18:15-20; Ephesians 4:1-6).  The Holy Spirit guides the church (John 16:13) and since each church member only possesses a measure of God’s grace (Ephesians 4:6), every church member is behooved to listen to the whole church as a means of determing the will of God.

So every Christian is called to the ministry.  That ministry is done in and through a church.  Through the preaching, some men will have the desire for the office.  That desire will qualify them for the office when they fulfill the qualifications based upon the testimony of God’s church.  Any and every task or office in a church will be determined by means of the guidance of the Holy Spirit through the church, using the God-ordained officers to equip the saints to know and do God’s will for their lives.

Ring!

Ring!

Ring!

Are you going to answer the phone?

I can’t. Can you get it?

Ring!

OK, who is it?

I don’t know. I can’t see the caller ID.

Ring!

Oh great! It’s ______. This won’t be pretty.

Ring!

Hello.

Getting a call from someone can be quite an experience. It is always interesting when my seven-year-old niece calls. Of course, it’s different when her mom or dad gets on the line. How do you feel when you see the boss’ number in the caller ID? What is he going to say? Is he going to tell you to do something? Or, is he checking on whether you’ve done your job correctly? How do you respond when your nephew calls and asks for something? What about the neighbor boy? What if that friend you had in high school found your number and called asking for somethig? What do you do when the pastor calls and wants something done? How do you go about doing what the boss told you he needed done? Our authority, responsibility, liberty and demeanor all change depending on who’s on the line.

So who was on the line when you were called into the ministry? Was it a dying missionary in an emotional sermon? Was it a persuasive evangelist with thousands called under his preaching? Was it a godly mother who prayed daily that you would be a precher? Was it a girl who said she was “called” to be a preacher’s wife? Was it an ego that saw limelight whenever the preacher was in the pulpit? Some of those are not as “bad” as others. God could actually use situations like them to call a man, but the point that I’m attempting to make is this: If God is “on the line,” it produces something totally different than any of those other callers.

Of course, there are plenty of men who claim to be “God-called” men, but I believe we should try the spirits (1 John 4:10). I also believe the spirits are subject to the prophets (1 Corinthians 14:32). If God was the one on the line when the preacher was called, he will be humble, bold, qualified, and recognized by God’s ordained ordaining institution.

Of all the spooky kookiness floating around in Fundamentalia, perhaps none could equal the goofiness associated with the call to the ministry. One fine specimen of such an extrasensory calling claimed to have opened his Bible, and saw the word “preacher.” He immediately shut his Bible and turned on his radio. And, wouldn’t you know it, the first word he heard, as the station tuned in on the Atwater Kent, was “preacher.” Shutting off his radio, he picked up the remote and switched on the Television, conveniently tuned to TBN where (predictably) he saw a… “Preacher.” Still not believing his psychic good luck, our telepathic friend hopped in his car, drove to Preacher Avenue, turned left onto Minister Way, followed that for three quarters of a mile to Parson Avenue, turned left onto Rector Road, and finally, one more left into the church parking lot. And, would you believe, the first person he saw there was the Preacher!

God’s calling, for sure.

When it comes to the call to the ministry, modern Fundamentalia relies heavily on clairvoyant methods for getting The Call. The preeminent extrasensory method for getting called? Feelings. I feel that God is calling me to pastor. Never mind my reputation. Never mind that I can’t preach and hate to study. Never mind that I have never discipled a new Christian. Never mind that I don’t disciple my wife or my family even now. Never mind that I’m not what you would call a “faithful” disciple myself. Never mind my past. Never mind your feelings. I feel called.

Everyone stand back.

There is no doubt that many who “feel” called actually do. But this alone does not indicate a calling. Callings come from God, and they come with certain marks. One of those marks will be desire. But desire alone does not indicate a call. Some friends related the story of one young man, a particularly worthless young man, who told his classmates that he was going to become a preacher so that he wouldn’t have to work. Ironically, that young man has a church, a congregation, and a Baptist Mission Agency now enabling him to fulfill that dream.

But hey! He had desire!

No problem here with feelings. No problem with desire. In fact, they are Biblical.

This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. I Timothy 3:1

But we should question where that desire came from, and what motivated it. Because of the current push (in some circles of Fundamentalia) for “full-time Christian servants,” we can get ourselves into a lot of trouble in this area. Growing up, most if not all of the teens in our youth group were “called.” While some are fulfilling that call, many reveal that the call was a “preacher call,” or a “peer-pressure” call. The calling came, not from the Spirit of God, but from spirited preaching. But of course, when the peer pressure wore off, well, so did the call. At least, in some cases. But in some cases it didn’t, or it doesn’t.

Woe unto us, for we are undone.

The danger here, where preachers are elevated and admired and even the calling itself is considered to be so important, is that young men will convince themselves that they are called, and then continue to convince themselves that they are called.

Just a second!

Before we go any further in this, we must distinguish between the universal call to preach, which applies to every believer, and a particular calling to preach the gospel as a Pastor and Bishop. First, both calls come from God.

And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. Mark 16:15

But a particular call to spend one’s life serving the church and God’s people in the office of the bishop must come from God. Christ is the head of the church, and Christ gives gifts to men… And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers.

The sacred desk does not belong to usurpers, no matter how carefully they try to re-invent themselves (“I’m not a usurper, I’m a volunteer…”)

I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.

…yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the LORD. Jeremiah 23:21, 32

If we aren’t careful, we will manipulate and massage our own feelings until we have convinced ourselves of a calling. Certainly, God can use men that He did not send (see Jeremiah 23:22, for instance), but God can also cause men to survive shipwrecks. That should not encourage us to drill holes in the bottom of the ship when we take our next cruise.

That being said, we should understand that we can have clairvoyant calls that really are and clairvoyant calls that certainly aren’t. Without further ado, allow me to distinguish.

By a clairvoyant call, I mean a call that comes to the mind through some supernatural means. And of course, the reader should recognize that this is one way that God makes his calling known. If God calls a man to the Pastorate, that man will “feel” called. But be careful here, because many today will argue that, based on the last assertion, “I feel called, and therefore God is calling me.” This is called asserting the consequent, and it is a fallacious way to argue. You might as well say that if God wanted me to be a father, he would have made me a man. I’m a man, and therefore God wants me to be a father. If God calls a man to Pastor, that man will feel the call. But the feeling is not the call. The call manifests itself in other ways.

One particular way the call will manifest itself will be in the life of the one called. His calling will not merely be evident to himself. Others, particularly his church, will recognize the calling as well. And this is important. The local church plays an important role in recognizing and approving men for the ministry. We’ve endured enough sentimentalist nonsense in this area. The church has a right, rather an obligation, to reject unqualified candidates. Unfortunately, most ordination counsels today serve as rubber stamps for the candidate. He uses the KJV, his doctrinal statement mimics ours… where do I sign?

When a young man demonstrates the qualities required by Scripture, along with an aptitude to preach and lead, a heart for people, and actual fruit, then the local church should recognize the calling of God in his life. In this case, the “clairvoyance” really isn’t. God has laid a burden on that man, and he must carry it.

But all the qualifications in Scripture won’t keep some men from feeling called. Any more than the Biblical prohibition against women pastors keeps women from pastoring. People will do their own thing, will follow their own longings, will place their own feelings on a higher plane than the will of God. But their clairvoyance is really just spookiness masquerading as a divine call.

The callings of God are not found in crystal balls. God reveals these things in very real ways. Put away thy tarot cards. God works through his church.

Our friend, Mr. Clairvoyant, walked up to the Preacher immediately. “Preacher!” he said (Mr. Clairvoyant always called his Preacher ‘Preacher’). “I think God is calling me to be a preacher!” “Well, AMEN! Brutha Clair! I’ve been praying that God would do that for a long time now, especially since you just told me!”

And that very next Sunday, Brother Clair made his way down the aisle to the altar, where the good Pastor told the flock Brother Clair’s story. You can believe me when I say that there wasn’t a dry eye in the congregation… the people knew Brother Clair, it seems, a little too well.