called to the ministry?

This involves a burning desire in your heart to impact the lives of others. It is a giddy excitement that others may gawk at. (Have you seen this gawk?) It is the type of passion that causes you to lose all other options and directions due to a mind that wanders to the feet of the Lord. I loosely paraphrase Charles Spurgeon: “If there is anything else that you can do, anything, do it. But if ministry is the only option that will satisfy you then consider it. One of the things about being in ministry is that were something to happen, you are not normally qualified for anything else. I have often been brought to the place where I had to start considering other “career” moves and I get very depressed. Not only can I not find a passion for anything else, I am not qualified for anything else. I just don’t know what else I would or could do. I am committed to ministry. There is an internal compass that won’t point in any other direction.

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This has to do with financial doors and circumstances that make the path clearer. How are you going to pay? Where are you going to live? Do you know of a seminary that will take you? Have you got the right credentials? Also, I always encourage people to do it right if they are going to do it. Get trained. This means going to a good seminary that may cost more. This also involves being on campus full-time with virtual education being minimal to none. Don’t spread it out over ten years. Think of seminary like boot-camp. Its primary value is in the intensity and discipline that you put into your training. Therefore, it must be allowed to be intense. Just imagine if the Army spread out boot camp over a 6 year period where you just come in on weekends. That is not boot camp. What if they allowed for online boot camp? I would not feel safe in our country, would you? It’s the same thing with seminary. I have seen so many people take so long to get through seminary that the benefits were not really there in the end and, frankly, I believe they wasted a lot of time. Count the cost. Don’t get into this half-way. If half-way is your only option, I would say that you should consider that as a sign that it is not where God is leading you.

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