How to prepare for congregational ministry
Sad but true that S. M. Hutchens is on to something with this one:
Update: John Schroeder shares his own insight here. This one in particular is incisive: "Vocational ministry appeals to the insecure soul."
If a young man were to ask me how he should prepare for pastoral ministry, close to the top of my list of advice would be, “Get and maintain--especially if you plan to marry and have children, and are not of independent means--a skill for which there is a ready market, for which you could leave the pastorate and quickly begin to support your family.” I am deadly serious about this.On the other hand, if you're really called into the ministry of the Word, if you've really got the fire in the bones, if it really is woe unto you if you don't preach the gospel, then God will take care of you. Not that you'll like it or have a comfortable time of it, mind you, but the Lord will take care of his own.
I say this because I am convinced that doing the right thing in a great many churches will place one in a struggle where one’s livelihood is in immediate jeopardy, and that the normal result of the confrontation is the pastor’s capitulation to some wickedness or foolishness to save his job and feed his family. The conscience is thereby defiled, and the compromised pastor
becomes a dressing for some ecclesial disease—clean white gauze on its outside, the inside absorbing the suppurations of a festering sore which will not heal because it refuses to receive the treatment it needs. Such dressings are frequently, of necessity, torn off and thrown away.
Update: John Schroeder shares his own insight here. This one in particular is incisive: "Vocational ministry appeals to the insecure soul."
posted by Milton Stanley at 8:24 AM
8 Comments:
Milton, I totally agree with you... psalm 23 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall lack nothing.
Be encouraged!
GBYAY
I just started an 'internship' in which I have been asked to do the job of a full-time education minister (the previous one left ministry interestingly enough), and am beginning to see exactly what this post points out.
As is common to ministry, I am beginning to see what goes on behind the scenes, and some things have come to my attention that led me to seek advice from my pastor about. He told me to be very careful in how I handle such situations, because (in his words) as someone on the ministry staff I have a bullseye on my back and there will be people just waiting for me to do something that gives them a shot at me.
Thanks for sharing this insight with someone who is trying to find his place of service to the Lord.
By the way, I posted a link to your site on my site.
I see in the quote a preparation to have the courage to have convictions. Being afraid of what will happen next comes too easily, in any phase of life. The question is are we ready to stand to our Gospel convictions regardless of the congregational response. The presentation must be appropriate, but the content must be true to God.
For me, God taking care of me meant I ended up going back to work and becoming a bi-vocational minister (which I've done for over ten years now). It was harder on my ego than anything. I no longer felt accepted among the "full-time" ministers (but that was mostly my perception-not theirs).
Managing work and ministry gradually changed my understanding of ministry. I always identified with the monastics who who lived cut-off in prayer and reflection. But instead of that sedate lifestyle, I found myself juggling time for study and prayer with the pressures of work with the responsiblities of marriage.
It hasn't always been easy, but in the midst, I've learned how to find that quite space in the Lord. And I understand the pressures of people in the workplace better than some of my friends who've never "lived there." Plus I've been graced to build relationships with Buddhists and other non-believers, and have had opportunities to minister to them.
No matter how God leads us, I am convinced His calling will work unrelentingly in us. As NT Wright suggests, in some ways our conversion and our calling are shpaed together. When God calls into the family, that call leads us to death and ulimately to His glory.
Thanks, John. Peace.
You got that right, Rick.
Amen, Doug.
Glad you found something helpful, James. And thanks for the link. I'll be adding yours to my blogroll today.
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