He was an excellent student. He had grown up in a Christian home. He wanted to become a preacher, but….he had doubts. “What if I can’t make it as a preacher?”
He sat in my office during the scheduled advisor-advisee conference. He shared some of his story. He had watched a parade of preachers who were devoured by church politics and unhealthy dynamics in his home congregation. He was having second thoughts about his decision to pursue a Bible and ministry degree. He thought it would limit his options. I tried to tell him that the undergraduate level was an excellent place to follow his heart, to explore other areas of interest by earning minors in those fields, and that he would be well-positioned for graduate studies in a number of areas.
He was immovable. He had decided to pursue a degree in another discipline and take a few Bible courses along the way. He still wanted to preach, but he wanted to have a fallback position. To my knowledge, he is not in ministry today.
I continued to be his advisor, helping him with course selection and a degree plan. He again sat in my office as I signed off on his final semester. My last conversation with him about his plans after graduation was brief. I asked him just one question, “Are you called to preach?” He wasn’t certain. I told him that unless he was aware of God’s calling to ministry in his life, I was pretty certain he wouldn’t last as a preacher, or that if he did last, he wouldn’t be a very effective servant.
There is not enough discussion today about calling. Every Christian is called by God (2 Pet. 1:1-12; 1 Cor. 1:1-3; Eph. 4:1-3). The KJV uses the word ordained in Acts 13:48 to communicate that God appoints believers to eternal life. But in my conversations with the student, I was asking about something more. I was asking about the process whereby God chooses and equips servants of various kinds (Eph. 4:11-13) to build up the body to maturity.
I have two suggestions. First, let’s be more diligent to make certain that those who serve in various capacities in the church are “called”. I vote for called ministers, called missionaries, called elders, called Bible School teachers…..I trust that you get the idea. Second, I suggest that a healthier, more biblical sense of calling would help us all persevere in difficult times–the knowledge that God has called us to Christianity, to preach, to pastor-shepherd, to serve. That knowledge can keep us going when the problems seem insurmountable and everything around us is saying “STOP!”