Does God Call People into the Ministry?
The question of God’s call to ministry is something that has very much been on my mind. The reason for this is that I truly believed that God called me into the ministry and yet today I am not a pastor of a congregation. Am I disobeying God’s call on my life?
The deciding factor in all this is not how I feel but what the Bible says.
When we say that one is called into the ministry, what we really mean is someone is called to be a pastor. After all, every Christian is called by God into ministry (this is why the question of women in ministry is so strange). The complicated part of all this is that the modern idea of a paid, professional clergy is not found in the New Testament. This makes the idea of being called as a pastor problematic.
The other problem is the lack of examples in the New Testament of people called to (pastoral) ministry. The Twelve were called to ministry by Jesus. Paul was called to ministry when Ananias visited Paul after the Damascus road experience. However, it is difficult to see these as normative in any way.
The truth is that there is nothing like what we call “God’s call to ministry” in the New Testament.
This made me think about my own “call.” What did I really mean when I said that I was feeling called to ministry? To be completely honest, what happened was that Christians from different areas of my life recognized ministry gifts in me and strongly encouraged me pursue congregational ministry. Instead of saying that God called me into ministry, it would be more accurate to say that the Church (including but not limited to my local church) called me into ministry.
That does not make it any less important to respond to the call, it just means that we need to be more careful with our words. We should probably avoid saying that God calls to ministry.
This still leaves the question of my own exit from congregational ministry. But that is a post for another day…
