Ministry: Convenience, Conceit, or Calling?
What is compelling you to be a pastor or ministry leader? Are you leading just because you love to teach, preach, or lead worship; because it is a great way to supplement your income; because of the notoriety of being on the platform; because you have a theological degree; or because you don’t really know how to do anything else? If these are reasons why you are in ministry, then it’s possible your compulsion might be out of conceit or convenience instead of calling.
Edmund Clowney wrote, there is no call to the ministry that isn’t first a call to Christ. It is a call that both separates us from the world and also sends us to the world.[1] Our call to ministry is not so that our abilities might be elevated. Instead, our abilities are given to us so that Christ might be celebrated. “Since the Lord has become Servant of all, any special calling in his name must be a calling to humility, to service. The stairway to the ministry is not a grand staircase but a back stairwell that leads down to the servants’ quarters.”[2]
God’s call gives us a task that is more than a role. It involves our entire being, not just our abilities in service to the Lord. So, it is a call to being as well as doing.[3] None of us alone in our own talent can claim to possess such commitment to God and compassion for others; such knowledge of faith and the ability to impart it; and such maturity in godliness and wisdom in guiding others. Only Jesus Christ gives that Spirit in full measure to those he calls.[4]
Convenience may fit well with a person’s plans or abilities. It is comfortable and readily accessible. It is suitable and favorable to one’s own needs, so it is often accomplished without divine intervention. Convenience is a vocation or occupation in the meantime.
Conceit tempts us to exalt ourselves and glorify our own abilities and accomplishments. It is always a challenge to be both up-front and unassuming. Thomas Merton wrote, “When humility delivers a man from attachment to his own works and his own reputation, he discovers that perfect joy is possible only when we have completely forgotten ourselves. And it is only when we pay no more attention to our own deeds and our own reputation and our own excellence that we are at last completely free to serve God in perfection for His sake alone.”[5]
Calling, however, is a personal invitation from God to carry out a unique task or responsibility. It is a strong inner impulse prompted by a divine conviction that often requires sacrifice. Calling is a ministry or mission for a lifetime. Consequently, it must never be conceited and it’s not always convenient.
So again, what is compelling you to be a pastor or ministry leader? If you choose the ministry for professional dignity, easy income, personal prestige, or public praise, you have rejected the ministry of Christ.[6] Convenience responds with, “This is what I like to do or was trained to do.” Conceit responds with, “This is what I am known for and good at.” But calling responds with, “This is what I was created to do, and I can do no other.”
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14 CSB
[1] Edmund P. Clowney, Called to the Ministry (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1976), 5, 18.
[2] Ibid., 43.
[3] Ibid., 10.
[4] Ibid., 67.
[5] Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (New Haven: Abbey of Gethsemani, 1961), 58.
[6] Clowney, Called to the Ministry, 44.