So You Want to Be in “The Ministry”
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When I was in college, a lot of my friends were preparing to go into “The Ministry.” Some were full of holy zeal for mission work, some had plans for pastoral ministry, and some were simply caught up in the whirlwind of surrender. The “Preacher Boys” dated and married the girls called to be “Pastors’ Wives” and we all dreamed of future service.
Somehow when the dust had settled, I found myself married to one of those “Preacher Boys” despite no pressing need to be a “Pastor’s Wife” or to be in vocational ministry. Our first years together were spent finishing up school, going through the process of ordination, and eventually launching out into “The Ministry.” But nearly a decade and a half later, I’ve learned a few things. And most of them bear no resemblance to what I thought I knew.
I was reminded of this today when I read this piece from Jared Wilson about watching one of his parishioners waste away in hospice. Wilson is a popular blogger and author, but he spends most of his time in the trenches as a pastor, and this piece particularly captures the realities of ministry. The pain, the heartbreak, the inexplicable hope of the gospel. The joy of watching people triumph over death through the power of Christ.
We didn’t talk about these things in college.
So to those you who want to go into “The Ministry,” let me offer a few words of unsolicited advice: What you think is “The Ministry” probably isn’t.
- “The Ministry” is not carefully crafted schedules and specific days off. It means working holidays, late nights, and weekends.
- “The Ministry” doesn’t read the popular blogs, know the latest buzzwords, or buy the best-selling books. It doesn’t always understand things like “small groups” or “missional living” or all those marks that you plan to evaluate a church by.
- “The Ministry” does not consist of praying several hours every day, talking with other folks in “The Ministry,” or having your nose in one of the 1,542 books that flank your office walls. You’ll do those things, but in between the hospital visits and Wal-mart runs and counseling sessions.
- “The Ministry” is not a source of affirmation for your own insecurities.
- “The Ministry” doesn’t mean making a name for yourself, working the network, or using people as stepping stones. If you’re not content with obscurity, don’t go into “The Ministry.”
- “The Ministry” does not inoculate you from suffering and your own sin.
Today, my husband and I have a bit of unconventional advice for people weighing the call to ministry: Do anything else that you can do—try everything else—for heaven’s sake, please, please, make sure this is the only thing that you can do.
You see, none of us chooses to go into ministry. We are sent (Rom.10:15). Sometimes kicking and screaming. And eventually, surrendered and docile because we understand that there is no use resisting the King of the Universe. But when the King calls, you go.
You go because nothing else fits. You go because He has placed a love for His people and His word deep inside you and to resist it would be to resist your own self. You go because you know that despite the challenges, despite the struggles, you will be happy no where else.
And when you do, you realize that “The Ministry” is better than all your pre-conceived notions and pipe dreams. It is more layered, more challenging, more beautiful than anything you could have ever envisioned. It is morebecause He is more and the people being transformed to His likeness are more—more than objects, more than templates, and more than spreadsheets, charts, or trends.
So what is “The Ministry”?
- It means tie-dying t-shirts at VBS and occasionally dressing up like Elijah.
- It’s packing backpacks of food to send home with at-risk kids.
- It’s poring over the Scripture, crafting a sermon, and then teaching with the passion and care that only someone who has been changed by the Spirit can.
- It’s taking your life in your hands to ride the curves and twists of the mountains with an 88-year-old man who wants to take you to see a model steam engine.
- It’s rearranging your family’s schedule because you must preach a funeral.
- It’s having the courage and love to approach a member/friend about an area of sin.
- It’s being humble enough to confess your own short-comings and failures.
- It means sorting out the details of who misplaced the key to the janitor’s closet and grabbing a bucket when the roof leaks (again).
- It’s carrying the sadness of your congregation, sitting with them in the hospital or crying with them when a wife leaves. Just sitting and bearing. No Psalm 23, no platitudes, no answers.
- It’s rejoicing with the angels over each soul that comes in repentance, each new job, and each new life swaddled in Dreft-scented blankets.
Sorry folks. There are no pedestals. No boys’ clubs. No making a name for yourself. But there is a lot of giving and loving and serving. There is a lot of Jesus and very little of you. There is a lot of dying to yourself so that others might live. And this girl who never had any intentions of marrying a “Preacher Boy” wouldn’t trade it for the world.
handerson Bio
Hannah R. Anderson lives in Roanoke, VA where she spends her days mothering three small children, loving her husband, and scratching out odd moments to write. She blogs at Sometimes a Light and has recently published Made For More.
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When you strip away all the trendy stuff it comes down to the messy work of helping people.
I wouldn’t put it quite this way…
please, please, make sure this is the only thing that you can do.
But I agree in spirit. I don’t think Hannah’s point is that you can’t also do other things, but that you are persuaded it is something you must do. But the sense of call can be overstated as well. 1 Tim. 3:1.
Certainly the office should be desired for the right reasons and without delusions. Some pastorates are more “glamorous” than others, but “the ministry” is never glamorous.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Good article.
It’s unfortunate that the call to vocational ministry in North America seems to be trending against all of the things she has listed as routine pastoral care.
Anecdotally there seems to be a gap between vocational minister types. There are those who think pastoral ministry is for the pastor. They are involved in what I call Church Industry. These are the guys in it for the accolades, and to run their little (or big) non-profit Jesus business. Then there are those who have amazing pastor servant hearts, but burn themselves to a nub because they have a difficult time equipping leaders and other members to do the messy work of discipling and counseling and admonishing other followers. Maybe I have too little experience with balanced pastors, but I’ve known a bunch, and this chasm seems to exist.
This is one of the best articles I’ve read on the realities of the road. So - if you are called of God, the information here will not scare you away - but it’s a fantastic eye-opening of what reality is “in ministry.”
Hannah - Excellent job! The last sentence in your article is priceless. I’m going to make a copy of that and quote you!
Straight Ahead!
jt
Dr. Joel Tetreau serves as Senior Pastor, Southeast Valley Bible Church (sevbc.org); Regional Coordinator for IBL West (iblministry.com), Board Member & friend for several different ministries;
Charles Spurgeon seems to concur with Hannah and Nathan’s unconventional advice about entering ministry:
“Do not enter the ministry if you can help it,” was the deeply sage advice of a divine to one who sought his judgment. If a student in this room could be content to be a newspaper editor, or a grocer, or a farmer, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or a senator, or a king, in the name of heaven and earth let him go his way; he is not the man in whom dwells the Spirit of God in its fullness, for a man so filled with God would be utterly weary of any pursuit but that for which his inmost soul pants… .
We must feel that woe is unto us if we preach not the gospel; the word of God must be unto us as fire in our bones, otherwise, if we undertake the ministry, we shall be unhappy in it, shall be unable to bear the self-denials incident to it, and shall be of little service to those among whom we minister.”
LECTURES TO MY STUDENTS, p. 26-27.
John K Hutcheson
Who needs incompetents in the ministry? If you can’t do anything else, how could you possibly be a successful minister?
It’s one of those lines that sounds spiritual, but is basically poppycock.
If there is a specific call, which I doubt, at least for everyone, the individual will be driven to pursue ministry activities even while doing other things. However, I don’t think the sense of an objective call or compulsion is necessary. You need to be as trained as you can be and as willing as you can be (while not disqualified) and the local church needs to recognize in you the qualities necessary, then get busy. Sometimes the local church is as small as two or three like-minded people.
I’ve worked many other jobs while also in the ministry, I liked them all, loved some of them, and if circumstances fell out that way I could happily go back to any of them. But to say that “if you can do anything else, don’t serve in the ministry” is just ridiculous. Most successful men in the ministry could do something else. That doesn’t mean they should do something else.
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
I sympathize with your remarks about the specific “call” and the ability to not do anything else. I was in the Military Police before I went to Seminary and into the ministry. I was good at it. I was very good at it.
- I re-wrote the technical articles in the rate training manual for evidence collection and crime scene processing for all Navy MP’s. I even got a worthless little award for it.
- I wrote a historical piece on the birth of modern anti-terrorism theory in the Joint Chiefs of Staff Anti-terrorism journal; I think I may be the only non-commissioned officer to ever publish with them.
- I got my BA in emergency & disaster management, which complemented my training in anti-terrorism planning
- I’d taken the E-7 test test as a pre-requisite for applying for the LDO (limited duty officer) program. I scored in the 98% percentile and didn’t even study for it.
- I was slated to take orders as the Criminal Investigator for the Security Force on-board the USS Abraham Lincoln.
I could have taken those orders. I would have continued to excel, and would probably be a lowly Ensign (O-1E) right now - making a great deal more money than I am now. I would be serving faithfully in a local church somewhere. I’d probably be teaching a Sunday School class, tithing happily and doing well, spiritually and materially. I chose to not do it. I felt my talents and abilities would be better served elsewhere.
I could have just soldiered on in the Navy, though, and been happy and successful doing it. Just not nearly as happy and fulfilled as I am now, serving our Lord with all my time and energy.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
I think I might quibble with a bit of your wording, but basically I am just objecting to the oft-repeated maxim, “if you can do anything else, don’t get into the ministry.” Crazy talk.
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
Insofar as very good men—including Spurgeon—can differ on this issue, I would caution one to be a tad bit more respectful by not calling this position “poppycock,” and “crazy talk.” One may have strong opinions with regard to someone else’s position, but one would expect a degree of charity in the discussion and disagreement.
John K Hutcheson
I stand by my words. Won’t be the first time Spurgeon was wrong. (Or me, on the other hand!)
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
Disrespect is disrespect.
Don and others,
My guess is Hannah did not mean to suggest that if you can do anything else other than ministry do it based on skills alone. My guess is Hannah is meaning to say - if your skills and conscience will allow you to do anything other than ministry do that. The implication is that even if you have skills to do something other than ministry - if your conscience (and skills) demands ministry - do ministry.
No she didn’t say that that directly but I think that was the intent.
For whatever that’s worth.
Straight Ahead!
jt
ps - I would guess that if my interpretation of Hannah is correct - a majority of ministry leadership would agree with that view based on the implications of 1 Timothy 3 - if a man desires the work of a bishop……etc…….
Dr. Joel Tetreau serves as Senior Pastor, Southeast Valley Bible Church (sevbc.org); Regional Coordinator for IBL West (iblministry.com), Board Member & friend for several different ministries;
I agree that Hannah wasn’t trying to say that. Good points. There are some folks who believe otherwise. I’m just not as settled on the issue of a “call” to ministry. Are men “called” or “raised up” to ministry like the OT prophets were? I don’t believe it is nearly so dramatic.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
Spurgeon is not talking about skills and capabilities to do something else, as I understand it. He speaks instead of contentment- could you be satisfied doing anything else? I think that’s an important point, because there are days when you serve in this role where part of you wants to do anything else but pastor. I think there is a sense where Spurgeon is talking about the commitment one must have to the task, when the money is tight, when the numbers are down, when people don’t follow Biblical counsel… and other things that would move the hireling to abandon the flock, if you will. Do you love the task God has led you to enough to work to support yourself and your family while doing it? That’s the kind of mindset I think he’s getting at.
Greg Linscott
Marshall, MN
While it is quite obvious that good men share disagreements on the matter of a “call” to ministry, the issue in this thread has been Hannah’s “unconventional advice” that men not go into the ministry if they would be content doing anything else. However, I don’t know that her advice is really “unconventional.” I have already cited Spurgeon’s advice (above) that if one can do anything else and be happy besides ministry, then do it. Spurgeon was not alone in this counsel, as the following quotes reveal.
John Newton, who preceded Spurgeon by almost 100 years wrote: “The man who is once moved by the Spirit of God to this work will prefer it to thousands of gold and silver; so that, though he is at times intimidated by a sense of its importance and difficulty, compared with his own great insufficiency (for it is to be so presumed a call of this sort, if indeed from God, will be accompanied with humility and self-abasement), yet he cannot give it up.”
Basil Manly Jr, Southern Baptist theologian and contemporary of Spurgeon, put it this way: “This steadfast and divinely implanted desire to labor for souls is substantially what is meant by the ‘internal call.’ In the man truly called, it grows, it increases. As he reflects on it, and prays about it, the great salvation becomes greater and nearer to him than when he first believed. The man is made to feel that for him all other avocations are trifling, and worldly employments unattractive.”
From present day authors, we find these comments:
MacArthur on I Timothy 3:1 comments regarding “aspires…desires” as follows: “The man truly called to the ministry is marked by both an inward consuming passion and a disciplined outward pursuit. For him the ministry is not the best option, it is the only option. There is nothing else he could do with his life that would fulfill him.”
And, from Derek Prime and Alistair Begg: “Advice frequently given is, “If you can avoid entering the ministry, do so! If you can do something else, do it!” This is sound counsel. If it is right for a man to give himself completely to the ministry of the Gospel, he will feel that it is the only thing he can do.”
So Hannah’s advice does not arise from some obscure or parochial view of consideration for following the call of Christ into the Gospel ministry—or for staying out of the ministry. She is simply—and necessarily—bringing to the forefront a view that seems to have been forgotten, and needs to be advocated more robustly.
John K Hutcheson
The saying is oft repeated and used as a maxim. I have heard it countless times. I just don’t buy it. I’m not in the ministry for contentment or happiness. I could be quite happy doing something else, possibly happier, if that were my goal.
I agree that what is needed is commitment, but I don’t agree with the statement as expressed. I think that it contributes to the notion that the ministry is somehow more difficult or more “approved” than other callings. It lends support to the notion that the pastor is a cut above the average bear (to mix metaphors). In addition, some otherwise gifted and fully qualified men excuse themselves from the ministry when they should be in it simply because they are happy/content doing something else.
The saying IS NOT the same as inspired Scripture and doesn’t deserve the vigorous defense you all are giving it.
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
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