Process of a Leader’s Calling: Calling, Lesson 5
Series: Calling
Author: Steve Childers
Title: Process of a Leader’s Calling
This lesson addresses some of the practical ways that a call to church leadership is normally confirmed. There's no secret formula that helps church leaders confirm God's calling. However, godly wisdom and ministry experience can help church leaders discover some very practical ways to help confirm their calling.
Prayer and Fasting
As an example, church leaders must not ignore the biblical teaching on the significance of prayer and fasting in helping them determine God’s will. In Luke 6, before Jesus chose his twelve disciples, we read that he first prayed for an entire night.
This reflects a larger emphasis in the Gospel of Luke, and its companion book of Acts, that demonstrates the centrality and the priority of prayer in the life and ministry of Jesus and the early church. At almost every significant ministry transition described in Luke and Acts, prayer is an essential component.
Prayer should be a similar priority in our life and ministry experiences, placing us in more intimate communication with God as we’re seeking to discern his calling for our lives and asking him for clear direction. Fasting should also be a priority. Fasting is the conscious effort to set aside the legitimate appetites of the body in order to focus more effectively on seeking God's direction and clarity for your calling.
So when seeking to confirm your call, always be sure to set aside regular, extended times for prayer and fasting.
Ministry Experience
Another important way to help confirm God’s calling to be a church leader is through ministry experience. Continued involvement in ministry is probably one of the most effective ways to confirm your call.
This is because using your gifts in ministry is the only way you can confirm whether or not you have the gifts that are necessary to fulfill the calling. Dr. Ed Clowney did us a great service by demystifying the process of being called to the ministry when he wrote, “The call of the Word of God to the gospel ministry comes to all those who have the gifts for such a ministry.”
So, the only way church leaders can know whether they’re called by God to be church leaders is whether they have the gifts, and the only way to know if they have the gifts is by exercising their gifts in ongoing, practical ministry.
Clowney’s statement reflects the same emphasis we see in Scripture. Paul writes to his son in the faith, Timothy, “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God.”
People often miss seeing this same concept in the connection between Romans 12:1-2 and Romans 12:3-8. In Romans 12:1-2 Paul makes his appeal “by the mercies of God” for his readers to “present their bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable, spiritual worship, do not be conformed to the world, be transformed by the renewing of your mind that they would test, and that they may discern, (here's the key concept) what is the will of God.”
So what is this good, acceptable, and perfect will of God? Paul answers this question in verses 3-8 where he writes about spiritual gifts. In verse 6 he writes, “Having gifts, then for according to the grace given to us, let us use them; if prophecy, in proportion to our faith, if service then are serving, the one who teaches, in his teaching, the one who exhorts, in his exhortation” etc.
Peter makes the same point in 1 Peter 4:10-12 when he writes, “Each one of you should use what ever gift he has received to serve others faithfully administering God's grace and all of its form.
The simple process of active, ongoing involvement in ministry is one of the most effective ways for leaders to confirm their calling. Clowney writes, “To learn how you may serve Christ tomorrow, you must serve him today. Stir up your gifts, and Christ's call will be made clear.”
Wise Counsel
A third way church leaders can help confirm their calling is through wise counsel. Proverbs 13:10 says, “Wisdom is found in those who take advice.” Those who know prospective leaders best are in a unique place to give them valuable feedback. So valuable feedback should be sought from family members, close friends, and work associates–especially those who are not threatened by the leader and feel the freedom free to speak boldly into the leader’s life and not just say what they think the leader wants to hear.
Church leaders need to understand that confirming their call is a life decision that involves their whole family and not just a vocational decision involving only them. Too often church leaders become worldly, not seriously considering the negative impact and timing of their move into vocational ministry on the health and well being of their marriage and children.
If a church leader’s vision and faith is big enough to lead a church, then it should also be big enough to see God work to change the heart and circumstances of their spouse and family so that a move into a new ministry role is done in the right time and in a way that honors God and is loving to the leader’s family.
God does not call leaders into church planting, pastoring, or being a missionary without also calling your spouses and families. The process of confirming a leaders call is not something done in private, but in community with others.
Spiritual Authority
A fourth way of confirming a church leader’s call to ministry is through the spiritual authority that is responsible for the oversight of the leader. This is one of the most important, and often most neglected, ways of confirming a leader’s calling. Church leaders who ignore this usually greatly regret it later.
In Hebrews 13:17 the Bible says, “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority.” The apostle Paul admonished Timothy, “Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands” (1 Tim. 5:17). The assessment and decision of church authorities should normally play a significant role in helping prospective leaders confirm their calling to full-time vocational ministry.
When the fire of personal and ministry trials hit church leaders hard, they will often wonder, “Am I really called to do this?” At those times, the church leader must not just fall back on a subjective, personal evaluation of their own ability, affinity, and opportunity. Instead, they need to fall back on something much more external than their own personal evaluations.
God's calling needs to be confirmed not only internally or subjectively, but also externally by others. And those others must not just be family members, friends, and colleagues, but also objective, wise church leaders who are in the role of spiritual authority.
Often Satan the accuser will communicate to a church leader in crisis the message, “You thought you were called to do this, that’s because you wanted it so badly. You are not gifted or called to the ministry. If you were, you would not be experiencing these trials.”
At such times the church leader must learn how to fall back on something much greater than their personal, subjective opinion. Instead. they need to fall back on the collective wisdom and authority of the body of Christ–God’s visible Church.
Church leaders need to be reminded that, after their God-ordained spiritual authority had carefully evaluated and assessed them, they made the objective decision to lay their hands on them and set them apart acknowledging the calling that God placed on their life to serve his Church.
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