Discerning The Call to Vocational Ministry
I’ve had the privilege of speaking with numerous young people and couples who are possibly experiencing a call to full-time, vocational missions and ministry. Talking with people at this stage of life is one of my favorite things to do. It fuels me in ministry to help others process their call. Having wrestled through these with two teenage sons experiencing what they believe is the “call” makes this something very personal to me. Obviously I have personal experience in this area of wrestling.
The counsel I gave my boys came to me rather suddenly one day. I’m not pretending it was inspired, but it certainly is a product of my experiences and time spent with God struggling through this issue for myself. I’ve used this teaching many times since then.
Basically I like to help people understand that the “call”, in my understanding, is not a call to a group of people or a geographic location as much as it is to a person; the person of Jesus Christ. That’s important, because a lot of times people begin to sense a calling after a mission trip to a certain area and feel as if that is the place they must go to serve God. That may be the place, but it could be that God just wants their availability and the place may be elsewhere. With that as a basis, it makes the decision of where to serve Him much easier to make. I’m not saying He doesn’t send people to specific places or groups of people, but I do believe He reserves the right to change that at any time, because ultimately a person is called into a relationship with God.
Then I share these principles, which help a person think through this calling. (Similar to my blog yesterday, these all begin with the same letter “I”.) The person who is sensing a call can usually immediately begin to discern that this IS the call based on the way they respond to these four words.
The call of God on a person’s life is:
Irresistible:
You can’t refuse this kind of call and still live at peace. Something will always eat at you until you surrender to this type of call.
Irreplaceable:
Nothing else will satisfy a person like this call, because it is God’s greatest desire for a person’s life on whom He places the “call”.
Irrevocable:
God doesn’t take this call away from a person once He has placed it on their life.
Immediate:
The call of God on a person’s life begins at the moment of the call. Often people want to get the right degree or start drawing a paycheck before they live out the call God has placed on their life. I don’t believe that’s the call. The call is to “Go” and the time is NOW. That doesn’t mean the person shouldn’t gain education, experience, or even a paycheck, but if a person has received a call from God on their life the time to get started doing something towards that call is now!
For a Biblical example of this, read Jonah’s story again.
Have you wrestled or are you wrestling through a vocational call to ministry?
What was your experience?
