Listening to a daily bible-teaching program this week I heard the speaker quote this verse: “For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called” (I Corinthians 1:26 NKJV). Oh, how true is that! It is verses like this that caused the early American Pentecostals to be slow in developing institutions of learning. DMins and DDs were not sought after. If you could demonstrate a ministry with God’s obvious blessing upon you, then who needed classrooms? God is not interested in your ability but in your availability.
I can speak from experience on this matter. As a high school dropout, I later felt the call of God to the ministry and went to a night school Bible training college. After two years, I was top of the graduating class. Nine years later I was awarded a Doctor of Divinity degree, and have for 62 years ministered in Australia, USA, and England, and for over 25 years on the internet. My 2019 book Impact: Pentecost and the Early Church was doctoral material according to a professor at the largest Christian university in the USA. And all this from the writer whose last high school report card gave him 53 points out of a 100 for English. I’ve learnt by watching others struggle that if you are not called, don’t answer!
Of course, the best judges of ministers are their flock, hence this poem from a 1960s preacher’s magazine that my wife Vivien memorized:
When our pastor is new he’s the best that we’ve had,
But after a while he gets plumb bad.
His sermons get dry, and his pets he does choose,
The rest of us simmer and then blow a fuse!
We say he’s to blame when we look on the ballot and don’t see our name.
We don’t see how they’ll get along
Without us to help them in sermon or song.
We will store up our tithes and offerings great,
‘Twill go a long way towards new pastor bait!
A more wonderful thing science never could do,
Then to invent a pastor who’d always stay new!
I thought of this poem when I read this past week of a pastor who at the age of 87 agreed to become Pastor Emeritus after 50 years of continuous ministry in the same church! What was his secret? He did not preach “simple sermons for simple simons” but year in and year out he taught from the greatness of God’s Word and encouraged people to read their own Bible and believe what they read! Thank God for faithful pastors who are in tune with what their people need and remain shepherds and not dictators of God’s people.
Being a pastor is one of the most difficult professions on earth, so pray for and encourage the person God has placed in a position of leadership in your fellowship.
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