Am I Called?: The Summons To Pastoral Ministry

by Dave Harvey

When the Father sent the Spirit to open my eyes and ears to the beauty of Jesus, that curiosity was redeemed.

My opportunities culminated in what was our “youth-led service,” where I was asked by our pastor to preach the Sunday night service. I was simultaneously nervous and excited. I preached my guts out that night, and although in my opinion the sermon was poorly done and exegetically erroneous, the Spirit of God moved powerfully that night. The altars were filled with people repenting and surrendering their lives to Christ. After the service, several people came up and encouraged me by saying they thought I was “called” into ministry.

I believe in God’s providence in all things, including his timing, but I can’t help but believe that if Dave Harvey had written this book twenty years ago, his wisdom and knowledge of the Scriptures and pastoral experience could have saved me from a bunch of pain and loss.

A summons is a call away from one thing and into another.

But then I grew older and learned that a summons can be a good thing. Like when the coach grabs you by the jersey and shoves you into the game, saying, “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Any of you guys remember the selective service？ That’s what they call a military draft once it leaves the marketing department.

But hang on. Before going further, I need to be straight up about whom this book is written for. It’s written for men who may someday be pastors. You may be hungering to plant a church—this book is for you. Maybe you’re in Bible school or seminary right now—yep, it’s for you too. You might be in a good job but wondering if you’re called to preach and lead, or perhaps you’re in a job you hate, or you have no job at all. Pull up a chair; you’re in the right place. College student wrestling with a calling？Teenage boy trying to interpret some stirrings？Glad you’re here. You might be doing campus ministry, or missions, or some other vocational Christian work. You da man. You might even be a pastor wondering if you really should be doing what you’re doing. This book is also for you.

see, God isn’t haphazard in whom he calls or what he calls a man to do. He doesn’t appoint bureaucrats over his church; he appoints men—flesh-and-blood, boneheaded mistake factories like you and me. He takes an ordinary guy, carves out his character, grants some grace, trains him with trials, zaps him with zeal, and corners him in his circumstances.

In fact, my conversion story starts with a pretty unspectacular theme: I was having a great time living my life my way.

In 1979, I was converted. Don’t ask me when or where—I honestly don’t know. I’m sure those answers will be supplied shortly after I shed this mortal shell. For now, I’ve got the year right. I think. Maybe it’s more important to say I’ve sought to follow Christ faithfully for something like thirty-three years. Twenty-six of those years have been in full-time ministry. And that’s the story I really want to tell here.

In other words, I had issues. I was arrogant, self-indulgent, selfishly ambitious, impatient, and instinctively rebellious against authority—and again, this was post-conversion!

I was a project. But slowly I began to see I was God’s project.

And I began to serve in the church—doing little things, unnoticeable things, because that’s all they trusted me with. And I liked that too—which freaked me out. I started to realize that what I brought to the game didn’t really matter, but what we did together built things that last.

Now you may respond, “Every person who’s ever heard a decent sermon has asked that question.” But this was different. This wasn’t theoretical. It was personal. Watching men in ministry ably function in their gifts caused me to mentally project myself into their place.

And these experiences began to poke at a deeper question, a question of calling, a question that inched into my personal space: Am I called to do that？ Where’s a guy supposed to go with that？ I didn’t know where to start. Was the answer found in some knock-you-to-the-ground Damascus Road experience？

Charles Spurgeon thought so as well: “How may a young man know whether he’s called or not？ That’s a weighty enquiry, and I desire to treat it most solemnly. O for divine guidance in so doing!”

Another of my goals is to set the call to pastoral ministry in the context of a glorious vision for the church. The pastoral ministry, and therefore the pastoral call, doesn’t exist apart from its expression in a biblically defined local church. I’m glad God ruined me with a love for the church. I want to help you see that you need the church as much as the church needs you.

Seizing the opportunity of the dinner party encounter, Reverend Scott asked Newton if he could write him to seek advice on some weighty spiritual matters. Newton, ever looking to inspire younger men in gospel ministry, was happy to oblige. But this wasn’t a mentorship; Scott intended to trap Newton.

It was during his time at Lock Chapel that Newton sent a young, spiritually confused man to hear Scott. The man wasn’t unlike the young Thomas Scott—brilliant, ambitious, and spiritually confused. Newton was discipling him, but knew he needed to sit under the ministry of a truly gifted preacher. And it was under Scott’s weekly gospel preaching that young William Wilberforce would be established in the faith that eventually led him to take on the evil of slavery.

In any case, my kids detected something important: calls come from callers. A ringing phone is proof positive that someone from outside has turned his or her attention toward us. My wise and insightful children realized early on that they couldn’t conjure up a call. No amount of concentration or wishful thinking can induce a phone to ring. The caller’s initiative is everything.

Pastor and theologian Sinclair Ferguson has pointed out that “one of the New Testament’s most frequent one-word descriptions of the Christian is that he is ‘called.’”2 Which makes us wonder: What are we supposed to do with that？

We can imagine it makes much of us: God called me! Or we can see it as making much of God: God called me!

If we’re truly to understand the importance of calling in ministry, we need to grasp that the impetus for it originates with a wise, loving, and sovereign God.

As you can see, the calling spoken of here is not a summons to vocational ministry, but something much more profound and fundamental—what theologians refer to as the effective (or effectual)call.

This calling is from God (Eph. 1:3–6; 4:4–6) and calls us to God (Rom. 1:6–7). In other words, the call for our salvation precedes and grounds all other callings.

He was willing to be ridiculed because he knew that a man over God’s people who doesn’t know God is like the Titanic putting to sea—a tragedy in the making.

Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that he was the Author of my faith, and so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, “I ascribe my change wholly to God.”

Here’s the irony: those called to preach the gospel can be the most susceptible to drift from the gospel.

There is no call to the ministry that is not first a call to Christ. You dare not lift your hands to place God’s name in blessing on his people until you have first clasped them in penitent petition for his saving grace. Until you have done that the issue you face is not really your call to the ministry. It is your call to Christ.

Considering a call to ministry can be like slashing through a jungle overgrown with questions—big, hairy questions like: Who am I？ What if I wash out as a pastor？ Do I have what it takes？ What should my priorities be？ The gospel cuts through the overgrowth and ensures we’re thinking about ourselves and our ministry rightly.

Being chosen for ministry is great. Being chosen for sonship is infinitely greater.

My union with him is the most important and meaningful thing about me. Keeping this as our source of identity is essential. Don’t believe me？ Just talk to a man who’s had to step out of ministry. Maybe a church can’t afford to keep him. Perhaps his health is an issue. Or maybe he’s under discipline. It doesn’t matter. A man finds out where he truly locates his identity when he can no longer do the ministry he felt called to do. As we used to say on our pastoral team, we live with our resignation letters on our desks.

Don’t treat your fears and weaknesses as if they’re some strange phenomenon previously unknown in the annals of Christian history. God arranges ministry so it flows from weakness. He appoints the least likely to have the greatest impact. Maybe your apprehension is just a sign that you’re getting the point.

As Os Guinness reminds us, “First and foremost we are called to Someone (God), not to something (such as motherhood, politics, or teaching) or to somewhere (such as the inner city or Outer Mongolia).”6

Somehow this insightful listener had come to discern something many believers never grasp: few things could summarize my relationship with God quicker than a brief rundown of my devotional life. And to this chap, my active, fervent relationship with God mattered.

There’s a reason why we build “consistent devotional life” into every pastor’s job description at our church, and follow up on it in our fellowship groups.

God raises up leaders to ensure the gospel is preached, applied, and valued in the daily life of the church. The purpose of ministry proceeds from and orbits around the prized evangelion, the gospel. Remove the gospel, and authentic biblical ministry disappears.

Truth is, gentlemen, if we don’t have a gospel, we don’t have a job—at least as God sees it (1 Cor. 2:2).

Brothers, if you love the idea of pastoral ministry because you think you’re qualified to help people with their problems, or because you can ponder theology, or because you like the idea of people coming every week to hear the latest thing you have to say, then serve the church by getting off the bus.

The wardens kept the pastor locked out of the building the rest of the week. So Simeon’s ministry consisted of preaching to as many people as could fit in the aisles of the church on Sunday mornings, and meeting with as many folks as he could fit in his tiny apartment during the week. This pretty much sums up the first ten years of Simeon’s pastorate at Holy Trinity.

Charles Simeon understood something too easily overlooked today: the Caller connects the call to the church. At first glance that might seem about as obvious as the “Danger: Steep Hill” signs at the Grand Canyon. But for many men, the call doesn’t quite make it to the church. They envision themselves preaching for the glory of God—you know, Bible open, arms outstretched, voice set on “spiritual” —and transforming people’s lives through wise teaching and counsel. But they don’t give much thought to where that’s supposed to happen. They feel called into this mysterious thing called “ministry,” but strangely, not called into the church.

This makes sense. But think about it for a second. You might be in a church right now but considering hitting the road to get training somewhere else—seminary, Bible college, parachurch ministry. Funny thing about us evangelicals: we take men who are in the church out of the church in order to send them back into the church to do ministry for the church. Is anybody else confused？

Here’s another limitation of seminary: if we’re not careful, we treat the ministry like a skill set that can be memorized, drilled, tested, and graded—all in isolation from the people we want to serve. Take medicine, for example. I’m glad my doctor went to med school. I’m glad that before he started working on live people he was cutting up dead ones. I’m really glad he’s been trained to know the difference between a benign and a malignant tumor, and that he can talk about things I could probably never understand. I’m really glad he didn’t just say one day, “I’m going to learn me some medicine,” then immediately start doing appendectomies on my friends.

Studies indicate that a pastor does not reach significant effectiveness until five to seven years into a pastorate. Some observers suggest ten years. When we consider that the average pastorate lasts from three to seven years we see that we have a problem. The question is; what is the problem？1 Guess what？ Yours truly has an opinion on that (one that’s shared by many, including a number of leaders at Bible schools and seminaries). I suggest the problem arises when a guy enters the ministry with no prior training in a local church. He’s got no experience in soul surgery.

When Paul wants to kick-start the conversation on how to identify a man called to eldership, the first evidence he offers is rooted in ambition: “If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task” (1 Tim. 3:1).

But if you’ve already vowed this is the last Dave Harvey book you’ll ever read, hear this: a man who’s ambitious for pastoral ministry either has been seriously dealt with by God, or is about to be seriously dealt with by God. If that’s you, get ready for some serious (and sometimes dangerous) grace.

But here’s what I’m saying. The church is not a career path. It’s a place you go to give your life away. God’s people can’t be mere stepping stones to larger opportunities. They’re a primary focal point for the entire enterprise of calling.

The gospel is not a message detached from a people; it creates a people. And when the local church occupies a prominent place in our hearts, we’ll be positioned to serve those people and not merely advance our own ambitions.

Let me talk again to pastors for a second. A lot of young, gifted men come to the sad conclusion there just isn’t any place for them in their churches to launch into their calls. Want to help with the youth？ Absolutely. Lead a small group？ Plenty of needs？ Jump in. Be a deacon or a missionary？ Sign on! But to be a church planter or pastor？ Sorry, buddy, all slots are filled, but there’s a good Bible school down the road.

It’s a nonnegotiable: churches need to train pastors as an investment into the future. Seminaries can supplement, but they never replace the local church. If we don’t identify and train called men, we’ll lose them.