What Call?

by

John D. McArthur, Jr.

The first time I heard that someone was called to ministry, I was confused. People from the independent Churches of Christ/Christian Churches of the Restoration Movement are people of the Book. When we hear the voice of God we can give you the exact chapter and verse. Anything more is usually viewed as suspect and probably of the dreaded denominationalism we all feared or of a "charismatic" orientation which we all run from.

I certainly don't remember a specific call to the ministry. I enrolled at one of our Bible colleges after a disastrous freshman year at a state university. I had grown up in church and most of my high school days had been spent doing church related activity. At the university, I discovered a whole new, scary world I could not control or even fit in to. I had spent eighteen years in church and did not have a clue as to what the Bible said or have even a poor defense for my faith. So, I went to the Bible college to learn more about scripture and to be near many of my friends from high school who were already there.

But as every Bible college student knows, you don't learn much about the Bible in Bible college. You learn history, and apologetics, and hermeneutics, and preaching, and administration but the actual number of Bible book classes are small. This is not a complaint as much as it is reality.

Sometime during my years on campus, the idea of entering the ministry became my goal. Maybe it was the constant exposure to the ministry, the emphasis on being a "preacher-boy" that was so prevalent in those days at school, or maybe it was God's guidance but after I graduated, I went into the preaching ministry and was ordained by my home congregation.

I remember in those days, churches were not interested in any call I might have received but if I had any experience and if I had been trained at the right seminary. Lacking experience, the first church that hired me did so because I had the right childhood (growing up in the Church of Christ) and went to the right college. However, I quickly discovered that my years of schooling were worthless on the field. The church could care less if I could parse a greek verb or if I understood our plea. I still refer to that first year in ministry as my real training and education to be a minister.

Someone wrote that if you can be happy in any other job, take that job. The flip side to that statement is also true: if you can't be happy in any other job, stay in the ministry.

Saying that we are called by God however, is a tricky business. We know that God never changes. So how can this unchanging God call someone to be a minister and a few years later, after much financial and emotional investment, tell him to do something else? May I suggest that blaming God for our career choice is unfair and maybe even a little deceptive.

Claiming that God had called you to anything is subjective and limits all argument. How can anyone dare question the will of God? As pastors, we hear this kind of deluded, egotistical and selfish reasoning all the time, don't we? The man decides to leave his wife of twenty years for the younger woman because God wants him to be happy. It is God's will for me to be successful so I can glorify him, claims the business-person who engages in some illegal or questionable practices. We all can add more outrageous stories to this list.

The point is: what these people claim as God's will is nothing more than a defense for their avaricious deeds. What makes us think that we are so special God has selected us from everyone else to be his own special servant to the ignorant masses? We are as guilty as the hypocrites who demanded their titles and special seats and privileges. And by claiming God has called us to do this work, we are setting ourselves apart from everyone else and insisting on respect solely because we are paid by the church.

Now, don't get me wrong: Preaching is a noble profession. But so is teaching, bricklaying, homemaking, sales, and even politics when practiced by devoted Christian people. We need to be very careful in saying we are "called by God." Do we have a special pipeline? Do we hear a voice no one else hears? Does God really instruct me in what I should do so specifically? If he does, I have never heard him. If the call of God is an actual voice, maybe I had better change careers.

The call of God, obviously, is a lot more subtle than a booming voice from the sky. As Christians, we are all called to ministry. Some of us happen to work in the areas of ministry that the church has deemed worthy to pay people for. The key is to understand your area of giftedness and use your abilities in the context of the pastorate of the late twentieth century American church culture.

The good news is God is not bound by our pre-conceived ideas of what a minister is nor is he obligated to use clergy in the way we think we should function. Let's face it: our mixed up ideas of a pastor require someone with superhuman strength to do everything from preaching to counseling to administration to calling to shepherding to painting the junior classroom. Most of us, although we try to do it all, cannot possibly hope to do it all well.

Fred Smith wrote, "You can't find (a job) like the modern preacher (in the Bible) to save your life. We don't have a scriptural setup. We have one that's grown up out of tradition...It takes an absolute genius to adequately to do the pastor's job." (Leaders, Leadership Library, Vol. 12, Word Books, 1987, p. 66)

Our "call" can be realized when we stop pretending we have something the rest of the congregation doesn't have and start concentrating on what we can do. As preachers, we have freely chosen to take this job. Our responsibility is to develop our gifts to fulfill the mandate of this position and equip others to do the things we cannot.

What we can do, what our gifts are, is really our call. I know that God has not called me to be a counselor but he has called me to preach. I know that administration is easy for me but I have to work very hard at pastoring. Does that mean I am inadequate as a minister? No, it means that my ministry will be different than yours.

I said at the beginning I never heard God's call. That is not entirely true. As the song writer Will Thompson wrote, "Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling...calling O sinner, come home." I have been called to return to God. My response to that call has been to dedicate my life to him. I have been fortunate to receive a Bible college education and I have been blessed to chose a career in the ministry. My only call has been to obedience to him. My desire is to serve him in the formal, official, paid ministry. There is no call beyond that, is there?