Among the pastors I know in my Southern Baptist family, most all of them share a true sense of a divine invitation to ministry that led them to pursue pastoral ministry as a vocation. I can remember hearing my childhood pastors relate their stories of having felt or “heard” God speak to them in an unmistakable way that led them to believe He was calling them to serve Him in ministry. Some of those stories were dramatic, “Damascus Road-type” stories that included hardships due to the pastor’s failure to immediately surrender to God’s call. Other stories were more of a progressive obedience to
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