God Calls Pastors

Sometime back, someone from my past told a relative of mine that they were shocked that I went into the ministry. This was supposed to be a slur on my character or a reflection of the kind of person I am. The problem with all of this is I did not go into the ministry; I was called, I was drafted, I was tapped on the shoulder and I followed the One who called me.

God calls all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds. After reading the life of Paul, does anyone think that he was this easy-going, smooth kind of guy? God calls men to meet his purpose.

The important thing to understand is that God himself calls men out of an ordinary life to be pastors. There is a trend today that says pastors are unnecessary or that we have to be tolerated but ignored, or there is no such thing as a calling. Those, who think like this, know more than God. It is God who established this calling and this office and it is the church’s job to follow the leadership that God gives them. The only reason to dismiss a man called of God is on biblical grounds, not for inefficiency or because he does not preach like the celebrity pastors on TV, or because he is not young or hip. The business model of church has killed the church. The pastor is not a dynamic CEO. Most churches have lost their way simply because they understand church as a business, not the Body of Christ. In fact, it is doubtful that these kinds of churches are really churches at all. They are societies.

For those, who can’t seem to understand the order that God gave the church, should read Scripture to find their model and defend it. However, they will not find what they are looking for. I remind you of what the Word says about pastors:

11 And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers,
12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;
13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.
14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;
15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ,
16 from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. (Eph. 4:11-16 NASB)

The pastor is a gift of God to the Church. He is not a necessary evil. His job is not to do the work of the church, but to equip the church so that it may carry out the work that God appointed for the church. The Pastor-Teacher is given so that the church may grow up and mature, so that the world will not tear down the church, and so that the church will not be deceived by the worldly ideas. I think the problem is that most church members want to be worldly as possible. In that sense, we are the same as 8th and 7th century B. C. Israel whom God destroyed for their unfaithfulness.

If the church, any church is in rebellion against God, the pastor will always be ineffective and the church will always be weak and ineffectual. May God open our eyes and cause us to follow his ways.